Gary M. Dewood BS, DDS, MS, PhD

Dr. DeWood is the Executive Vice President of Spear Practice Solutions, the coaching and consulting arm of Spear Education. As one of the founding members of Spear, he previously served as Executive Vice President of Curriculum and Clinical Education for nearly a decade. He continues teaching as a member of the resident faculty in the Facially Generated Treatment Planning and Occlusion workshops on the Spear campus, maintains a limited private practice in the Spear Faculty Practice, and lectures nationally and internationally on the topics of practice management, treatment planning, case management and acceptance, TMD diagnosis, appliance therapy, occlusion, and esthetics. Prior to his contributions at Spear, Dr. DeWood maintained a private restorative general practice with his wife, Dr. Cheryl DeWood, in Pemberville, Ohio before dedicating his time to teaching full time. With more than 30 years in general practice, he provides a unique perspective to the application of the dental principles taught at Spear in real-office settings. He has spent many years focused on diagnosing and treating functional occlusal problems and TMD, and as part of that focus completed the craniofacial pain mini-residency at the University of Florida College of Dentistry in the 1990s.
Dr. DeWood holds or has held appointments as clinical director at The Pankey Institute, associate professor at the University of Tennessee College of Dentistry, and assistant professor at the University of Toledo College of Medicine. Dr. DeWood earned his D.D.S. from Case Western Reserve University in 1980 and an M.S. degree in biomedical sciences at the University of Toledo College of Medicine in 2004.