Prosthodontist Steven Spitz originally wanted to be a veterinarian. Decades later, he’s the person you call when a monkey cracks a tooth
On a cold February morning under a blue sky and bright sunshine, Steven Spitz stands just inside the entrance to Stone Zoo in Stoneham, Massachusetts. He’s wearing sunglasses and holds a cup of coffee, chatting easily with a security guard. Spitz seems to be at home, but he doesn’t work at the zoo; he’s a prosthodontist with his own practice—one for humans.
But when a monkey cracks a tooth, a bear gets gum disease, or an animal’s behavior inexplicably changes, Zoo New England staff call Spitz. A few years ago, when a tiger suddenly became agitated, “it turned out he had a toothache,” Spitz says. “Once we did the root canal and took care of the tooth, that behavior stopped. So that’s very rewarding, right?”
Spitz, D94, has been the consulting dentist for Zoo New England since 2014. When he embarked on his dental career in the late 1990s, he didn’t set a goal of working with animals, but the idea was in the back of his mind. Some 30 years later, animal dentistry is so much a part of his life that a container of veterinary dental tools sits in his office, awaiting the calls that help define a life lived with a core value: doing right for others.
An Early Love of Animals
Growing up, Spitz dreamed of a career caring for animals and that was his intention when he arrived at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Spitz majored in animal science, and planned to apply to veterinary school. But he soon questioned that path.
The summer before his senior year at UMass, Spitz worked at his uncle’s dental practice. There, “I felt very comfortable and very happy,” he says. Patients pulled Spitz aside and told him that his uncle had changed their lives. “That felt important to me,” he says. Plus, working with patients who could provide direct feedback—in a way that animals can’t—was gratifying to Spitz, who describes himself as outgoing and people oriented.
Spitz graduated from Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, then trained with the Veterans Administration while earning his prosthodontics certification from Harvard School of Dental Medicine. Prosthodontists are dental specialists skilled in restorations, sometimes called the “architects of rebuilding the teeth.” In 1997 he opened his own practice, Smileboston Cosmetic & Implant Dentistry, now located in Brookline. By then, he had married his wife, Laurie, who works as the practices’ vice president of operations and marketing.
Despite his pivot to dentistry, Spitz’s wish to work with animals lingered, in a “someday” kind of way. In 2013, a patient told him about the Peter Emily International Dental Veterinary Foundation, a nonprofit that sends veterinarians and dentists to underfunded zoos and animal sanctuaries around the world. Its founder, Peter Emily, was a dentist with a love for animal dentistry and became an ambassador for veterinary dentistry, a field that emerged in the 1980s, Spitz says. Today, there are 273 board-certified veterinary dentists worldwide, almost all of them in the United States and Canada. “So there’s not a lot,” Spitz says, explaining the need for dentists to step in.
Because animals cared for by humans live twice as long as those in the wild, Spitz says, it’s crucial to keep their teeth in good shape.
Spitz first traveled with the foundation in 2013. Alongside a veterinarian who managed the animals’ anesthesia and overall health, Spitz has treated “a spider monkey, then an otter, and then a kinkajou, and a tiger,” he says. He did root canals and treated gums, and taught cutting-edge techniques; the veterinarians learned dental skills from him, and he learned about animals from them.
He went on 20 more trips and kept a photo album from his adventures in the Smileboston reception area. When a neighbor of Zoo New England’s then-president, John Linehan, saw the album in 2014, he asked if Spitz had ever considered helping them out.
“I said, ‘I would love to. I just never knew who to reach out to,’ ” he recounts. That same day, Linehan called Spitz saying a potto, a small African primate, had a possible dental issue. Spitz went, along with a dental assistant and his wife, who typed notes and took pictures of procedures to share with zoo staff. Spitz treated the potto with a root canal, and Linehan asked him to serve as Zoo New England’s consulting dentist, providing insight and doing dental procedures on the animals at Stone Zoo and Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo.
To Fix a Bird’s Bite
Some 12 years later, Spitz still is on Zoo New England’s advisory board. He still serves in that original volunteer role, fielding calls and doing procedures several times a year. As on his first day, he works with a dental assistant and his wife. The couple have three grown children, and their youngest, a veterinary student at Colorado State University, has assisted for many years. Their oldest, who has a drone/videography business, has helped document procedures.
Working with Spitz and his crew feels “like a family affair,” says Abby Needleman, V18, an associate veterinarian at Zoo New England, who met Spitz in 2022. That family feeling reflects how dentistry has shaped the Spitzes’ life together. Dentistry has beckoned in unexpected ways, guiding their time, as Spitz has said yes to everything from spending days off caring for zoo animals, to being president of the Massachusetts Dental Society, and serving as unofficial Boston Red Sox dentist for a decade.
“The Spitzes are helpful, but also extremely respectful,” Needleman says. “They know when to step in and do their part. During that first procedure, we had a collaborative conversation; we were reviewing X-rays together, and I was able to provide a regional anesthesia.”
Spitz’s second opinion is valuable because of his dental, rather than veterinary, background. That complementary perspective holds true among several Zoo New England medical consultants from places such as Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “With Dr. Spitz, the major difference is that he actually performs medical care on the animal,” Needleman says. “That’s less common, but he has made that special niche for himself.”
Usually, Zoo New England calls Spitz about severely worn or broken teeth. Gum issues arise. Most often, Spitz does a root canal or tooth extraction. Because animals cared for by humans live twice as long as those in the wild, Spitz says, it’s crucial to keep their teeth in good shape.
He’s even treated animals with beaks, rather than teeth. Once, he built up part of a bird’s misaligned beak with a ramp, using prosthodontic skills and materials—in this case, acrylic. When the bird bit down on its ramped beak, the beak slid over to the proper position. “It was kind of like doing orthodontics, where we use braces to move teeth,” Spitz says.
The creativity inherent to prosthodontics comes in handy at the zoo, where thinking on one’s feet is of the essence, because “when we are working with animals, we have one shot, because we have to use anesthesia, and we need a team to treat the animal,” he explains.
Lions and Tigers and Bears
Spitz particularly likes the big cats. “When I started working with the lions and tigers, I was amazed to learn that they have the same diseases and conditions that our house cats get. Certain cancers, and internal absorption of the tooth. That was the biggest ‘aha!’ moment.”
He’s also treated black bears, lynx, hyenas, and bush dogs, among others. He’s cared for Little Joe, Franklin Park’s famous gorilla. One time, a kiwi bird developed a growth on its beak. Kiwi birds, considered the national symbol of New Zealand, are unique, with nostrils and a special sensing mechanism in their beaks, vital sensory features. Spitz X-rayed the bird’s beak and called experts in New Zealand. When the kiwi received antibiotics, the growth went away without additional treatment. “If we didn’t call in experts to try to figure it out, we wouldn’t know,” he says.
To further tailor his work, Spitz has amassed a growing array of dental tools, including different-sized files for doing root canals. “I keep it all at the office in Brookline, and I’ve got a big crate that is filled with them,” he says with a smile, adding that he keeps it as organized as possible.
Beyond the crate, the Spitzes created Zoo New England’s Oral Health Care Among Species Program in 2022 to help purchase a CT scanner for animal dental care. The program has already funded the purchase of an electric tool for trimming horse teeth, Needleman says.
It’s yet another way for the Spitzes to lean into what they’re passionate about (Spitz’s wife, Laurie, also started on the pre-veterinary track), with a sense of fun. “We live by our core values,” said Laurie Spitz, referencing a Jewish concept. “Tikkun Olam, to do what you can to heal the world.” It’s an ethos that has led to a big, wild life.
