Over fifty years ago, Dr. Lindsey D. Pankey, Sr. had a national and international reputation in dentistry as a world-class restorative pioneer and educator. He was a passionate advocate of comprehensive, patient-centered dentistry and spent much of his life helping other dentists understand the happiness and fulfillment to be had in closer relationships with patients. Having accumulated nearly every award and honor that organized dentistry could bestow, several of Dr. Pankey’s colleagues sought to honor him in a unique way. They asked him to lend his name to an institute for advanced continuing dental education. He accepted, and fundraising began to form the nonprofit known as The Pankey Institute. The first courses of the Institute commenced in September of 1972 with the mission of “bridging the gap between what is known and what is practiced.” Since that time, a continuously enhanced curriculum and growing faculty have focused on that mission, and The Pankey Institute has been dentistry’s "one place" for postgraduate education.