Dr. Jack Beattie

A Lifelong Passion 

Excerpt fron New Dimensions Magazine

 

AAO retirees engage in a wide variety of unusual and unique hobbies and activities. For some, like Dr. Jack Beattie, a post-retirement hobby is the continuation of a lifelong passion. As a highly accomplished youth swimmer and All American, and later as a Masters swimmer, Dr. Beattie enjoyed competing with other swimmers and against his own personal records.

He was also a member of a relay team that swam the English Channel. Today, he shares his love of swimming on a personal and social level with many family members and friends. His family’s annual “Lake Swim” breakfast has been profiled in a segment airing on PBS.

 

After graduating from MSU, Dr. Beattie went on to dental school and orthodontic training at the University of Michigan and Case Western Reserve University, respectively. In 1964, he started his orthodontic practice in Orlando.

 

As a research fellow doing his orthodontic training, Dr. Beattie received second prize in the Milo Hellman Research Award competition. His son, Dr. John Beattie, received the award of special merit in the competition 25 years later as a resident at Saint Louis University. They are the only father and son to have received research awards in the history of the AAO. (The award program now includes the Hellman award, and the Sicher and Graber research awards.)

 

Dr. Beattie quickly became active in organized dentistry and orthodontics, serving 22 years as a Florida delegate to the American Dental Association and 27 years as a delegate from the Southern Association of Orthodontists to the AAO House of Delegates.

 

He also served two separate eight-year terms on the AAO Council on Governmental Affairs and was a member of the AAO Political Action Committee Board of Directors. Closer to home, he remains active in politics.

 

“I had a strong interest in politics going back to high school, where I was student council president and a lieutenant governor at Boys State,” says
Dr. Beattie. “After moving to Florida, I became active in politics and was elected chairman of the Orange County Republican Executive Committee. I was approached about running for Congress, but I enjoyed the practice of orthodontics so much that in the end, I couldn’t give it up.”

 

Dr. Beattie was twice a delegate from Florida to the Republican National Convention. As an AAO delegate, Dr. Beattie introduced the original resolution to change the name of the American Journal of Orthodontics to the American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics. The AJO-DO title became effective in July 1986.

 

“During my specialty training, I became very interested in facial growth and development as my area of research under Dr. B. Holly Broadbent,” says Dr. Beattie. “My thesis centered on a cephalometric longitudinal study of mandibular growth as related to height, weight and skeletal age (the Bolton Brush Growth Study). I was fascinated by how headgear and other orthopedic-type appliances can impact growth and development of the face and jaw, and as a practicing orthodontist, felt strongly that adding dentofacial orthopedics to the journal title would more accurately reflect what our specialty does.”

 

Among Dr. Beattie’s professional awards is the Oren Oliver Distinguished Service Award from the Southern Association of Orthodontists and the Florida Association of Orthodontists Distinguished Service Award.