Waldemar Wilhelm: father of oral and maxillofacial surgery in Colombia

Waldemar Wilhelm (1913-1994) was honored by the Asociación Colombiana de Cirugía Oral y Maxilofacial (Colombian Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery) as the Father of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in Colombia. Born in Karlsruhe, Germany, Wilhelm graduated as a dentist from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in 1936. He emigrated shortly thereafter to Colombia, receiving his dental license there in 1943. He completed his oral and maxillofacial surgery training at Nordwestdeutsche Kieferklinic, under the tutelage of Prof. Dr. Dr. Karl Schuchardt in Hamburg. In 1950, he settled in Bogotá, where he joined the Universidad Nacional School of Dentistry, opened Colombia's first oral and maxillofacial surgery department at Hospital San José, and trained the first maxillofacial surgeons in Colombia in 1958.