Abstract

Seok-tae Ham was the first Korean professional dentist. He qualified during the Japanese colonial period and was a key founding father of dentistry in Korea. The current status of dentists in Korea can only be considered with recognition of the ceaseless efforts of such Korean dentists during the Japanese colonial period. I trust that we, too, are dentists who serve the country and use our knowledge to treat our patients with the same consideration and honor shown by pioneers like Seok-tae Ham. For his immense contributions to dentistry in Korea, he should thus be researched, his merits recorded, and he, as a highly influential Korean dentist, commemorated. (J Korean Dent Assoc 2025; 63(8): 257-265)