Local dentist Mark S. Pechersky is changing the life of injured birds— one beak at a time. Pechersky, 70, lives in Monroeville with his wife, Debbie, and they have three children— Brett, Liz and David— and six grandchildren.
Pechersky grew up in Squirrel Hill and attended Taylor Allderdice High School. He went on to receive a Bachelor of Arts in 1968 from the University of Pittsburgh, majoring in anthropology. He received his Doctorate of Dental Medicine from Pitt Dental School in 1972 and completed his residency in pediatric dentistry at Allegheny General Hospital in 1974.
Pechersky has practiced pediatric dentistry for 43 years.“ I was drawn to the profession by its nature of being a true art and science and chose dental school over Air Force flight school,” he says.“ Pitt had just opened a new clinic with a very modern curriculum and upon being interviewed and accepted, made my choice. I decided to pursue a pediatric residency after treating and interacting with my young patients in the clinic and at a time when dental materials, equipment, and technology were making quantum leaps forward.”
Dr. Pechersky chose to open his practice in Monroeville because it was a rapidly growing community in need of a
Dr. Pechersky prepared a red-tailed hawk beak to test his materials. pediatric dentist, was close to his family and had a great school system.
While attending an adult education course at the National Aviary on the North Side, given by Dr. Pilar Fish, Director of Veterinary Medicine, Pechersky had the opportunity to visit behind the scenes and tour the medical facility used in the treatment of all species of birds. During the tour, Dr. Fish explained the techniques used for repairing beak fractures and defects.“ It was obvious to me that the materials she was taught to use were similar in nature to some dental materials, except in dentistry the materials had advanced at least seven generations chemically, with much better bio-compatibility, durability, ease of use and speed of cure and color— to name a few,” he explains.“ I asked her if she would let me experiment with some beak material and see if the materials that I used daily on children might work better.”
Dr. Fish gave Dr. Pechersky the skull of a red-tailed hawk, which he took back to his office to work on.“ I began testing my various materials on the beak,” he says.“ With my dental instruments, I created fractures and defects and found that some of the modern dental bonding materials in combination repaired the defects beautifully.”
During the Aviary’ s adult education course, Dr. Fish explained that birds often fracture their beaks in collisions with buildings and other traumas. Without a functioning beak, the bird cannot eat, defend itself, preen itself or spread oil from
Dr. Mark Pechersky
special glands to stay waterproof. Most often a damaged beak will lead to the bird’ s demise.
“ The old technique that she described took long periods to dry the materials, and the fumes produced by those materials were very toxic to the bird,” explains Pechersky.“ Because of the time needed for those materials to dry( cure), the birds most often needed general anesthesia to be manageable.”
With Pechersky’ s new technique, the repairs can often be made in seconds or minutes— just being held by assistants— without any anesthesia, which is a major risk by itself in birds. The new materials can also be clear in color, which is a great advantage in birds with multi-colored beaks, where color matching can be a time consuming and sometimes unsolvable problem. The durability of Pechersky’ s dental bonding materials has proven to be much greater.
Techniques prior to Pechersky’ s needed frequent replacements.“ So far, our first and second live bird procedures are approaching a year, and the birds are functioning normally,” says the dentist.“ Dr. Fish and I worked together on a fractured toucan’ s beak and Dr. Fish recently repaired the beak of a bald eagle— the worst fracture she had ever seen. Using the technique, the eagle named“ Indy”( for Independence) is doing just fine.”
Pechersky’ s story has reached many and was recently picked up by the Associated Press. As a result, Dr. Fish receives calls at the National Aviary from aviaries and clinics all over the country, inquiring about Pechersky’ s technique.
“ I have donated instruments and materials to the National Aviary and I have no interest in pursuing a patent for the procedure,” says Pechersky.“ I truly believe that just being in a position to help some of God’ s most beautiful, diverse and majestic creations is payment enough.”
The procedure being tested and proven at the National Aviary is already bringing it the attention it deserves.“ Our National Aviary is a gem that everyone should visit,” adds Pechersky.
The dentist’ s future plans in retirement include more adult education, gardening, working out, racquetball and lots of babysitting.“ My grandchildren love our National Aviary!” he says.
For more information, contact Dr. Mark Pechersky at 412.856.9685. n
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