Coming Full Circle: Profile of Dr. Michael Haddow
Dr. Haddow works on a patient in Beirut.
By Sarah Kittle
From a little boy attending a Jesuit school in Iraq to a tenured professor teaching at a Jesuit college in Michigan, Dr. Michael (Munther) Haddow has come full circle.
A full-time faculty member at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Dentistry, on staff at St. Joseph Mercy Oakland and Ascension St. John Hospitals, and with one day a week devoted to private practice, Dr. Haddow still makes time to engage in mission trips. He loves to help patients from underserved countries regain their smiles.
As author of numerous publications and a lecturer on the national and international circuit, Dr. Haddow gets around. But one of his favorite places to go is Vietnam. “It is a beautiful country, but what strikes me most about Vietnam is the people,” says Haddow during a phone interview. “People respect Americans there, too, which helps.”
At 72, Haddow resists the pull of ‘old age,’ playing tennis every Sunday he’s able. He has a busy schedule for the rest of 2022, however: Brazil in August with students from the Alpha Omega Fraternity; 11 days in Kenya, South Africa in September with Missions of Hope International; and Belize in November with Belize Mission Project. It will be the 21st time for Haddow in Belize with this group.
“I knew from high school that I would be in the medical field,” says Haddow. Dentistry offered all the opportunities to affect people’s lives in a positive way that medicine does, but “no late-night emergencies,” the doctor says with a laugh.
And he loves teaching, relishes showing students new surgical techniques, and even enjoys the lecture hall. “It’s a good feeling, passing your knowledge on to the next generation,” he says with conviction. Surgery is his favorite subject to teach. “It’s still a challenge,” Haddow says. “Every surgery is different.”
Technological advances in the field of dentistry keep Dr. Haddow on his toes. Laser surgery, new techniques for bone grafting, and adding plasma to bone are all realities in today’s world of dentistry. Microsurgery is going to be the new frontier.
Asked about some of his most memorable mission trips, Haddow recalls a man who had 14 teeth pulled over the course of a couple days. Although the man had no money, he was so grateful to Dr. Haddow that he presented the humble dentist with a fruit basket grown from his own garden.
A periodontist by specialty, Dr. Haddow has been serving on mission trips for over 30 years. “It’s part of my Christian faith,” he explains. He has been on over 44 local and international mission trips - to Beirut, Lebanon (where he was able to treat Chaldean refugees), to Honduras and Vietnam, but not yet to Iraq. That’s in the future.
Haddow has 5 sisters and 2 brothers. One brother is a dentist and the other, an engineer. “I’m grateful to my parents for supporting us all,” he says.
Mission trip to Belize in 2011.
Training and Recognition
• DDS from University of Southern California School of Dentistry
• MS in Periodontics from Case Western University
• Certified in Moderate Sedation from Miami Valley Hospital
• Diplomate of the American Board of Periodontology
• Faculty of the Year 2018-2019 Ascension St. John Hospital
• H. Dalton Conner Humanitarian Award