Shirley Gutkowski, RDH, BSDH is a dental hygienist who practiced full time general dental hygiene in Madison, WI from 1986 to 2003. She received her RDH from Madison Area Technical College and earned her Baccalaureate
Degree in Dental Hygiene from Marquette University in 1999.
Gutkowski, president of the Wisconsin Dental Hygienists' Association year 2006 - 07, continues to stretch her own boundaries.
In 2003 Shirley gave up her clinical career to focus on her company Cross Link Presentations, consulting, writing and speaking. Her passion in educating dentistry and medicine in the links between the health of the oral cavity with the rest of the body drove this decision. She believes in Integrating Oral Health with Systemic Health.
July 2004 debuts her column "Connectivity" in peer reviewed Contemporary Oral Hygiene. Gutkowski became nationally known in the dental community through her monthly column "Thinking Sharply", in the most widely read dental hygiene magazine, RDH from September 2001 to June 2004.