the wsda news issue 1, october 2012 www.wsda.org 3
4 editorial
5 guest editorial
6-11 cover story
12-16 membership news hod
17 membership news mentor
18-19 piskorska in jamaica
21 wohf news
22 dad save-the-date
23 the source
24-25 endorsed companies
WSDA News EditorDr. Mary Jennings
Editorial Advisory BoardDr. Victor BarryDr. Richard Mielke Dr. Jeffrey Parrish Dr. Rhonda Savage Dr. Robert ShawDr. Mary Krempasky Smith Dr. Timothy Wandell
Washington State Dental AssociationDr. Danny G. Warner, PresidentDr. David M. Minahan, President-electDr. Gregory Y. Ogata, Vice PresidentDr. Bryan C. Edgar, Secretary-TreasurerDr. Rodney B. Wentworth, Immediate Past President
Board of Directors Dr. Theodore M. BaerDr. Dennis L. Bradshaw Dr. D. Michael BuehlerDr. Ronald D. DahlDr. Christopher DeleckiDr. Christopher W. Herzog
Dr. Gary E. HeyamotoDr. Mary S. JenningsDr. Bernard J. LarsonDr. Christopher PickelDr. Lorin D. PetersonDr. Laura Williams
WSDA Staff: Executive Director Stephen Hardymon
Assistant Executive DirectorAmanda Tran
Director of FinancePeter Aaron
General CounselAlan Wicks
Director of OperationsBrenda Berlin
Director of Membership and ComunicationsKainoa Trot ter
In the event of a natural disaster that takes down the WSDA web site and emai l account s, t he WSDA has established a separate email addre s s . Shou ld an emergency occur, members can contact wash [email protected]
The WSDA News is published 8 times yearly by the Washington State Dental Association. Copyright 2012 by the Washington State Dental Association, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission of the editor. Statements of fact or opinion are the responsibility of the authors alone and do not express the opinions of the WSDA, unless the Association has adopted such statements or opinions. Subscription price is $65 plus sales tax per year for 8 issues of the News. Foreign rate is $97.92 per year. Advertising is published as a service to readers; the editor reserves the right to accept, reject, discontinue or edit any advertising offered for publication. Publication of advertising materials is not an endorsement, qualifi-cation, approval or guarantee of either the advertiser or product. Communications intended for publication, business matters and advertising should be sent to the WSDA Office, 126 NW Canal Street, Seattle, Wash. 98107. ISSN 1064-0835
Member Publication American Association of Dental Editors. Winner: 2008: Best Newslet ter, Division 1, 2007 Platinum Pen Award, 2006 Honor-able Mention, 2005 Platinum Pencil Award, 2005 Publication Award; International College of Dentists
WSDA news
table of contents issue 1
, october 20
12
Director of Government AffairsBracken Killpack
Art Director/Managing EditorRober t Bahnsen
Manager of Continuing Education and Speaker ServicesCraig Mathews
Government Affairs CoordinatorMichael Walsh
Membership Services CoordinatorLaura Rohlman
BookkeeperJoline Har tman
Office CoordinatorLeon Sandall
Association Office: (206) 448-1914Fax: (206) 443-9266 Toll Free Number: (800) 448-3368E-mail: [email protected]/www.wsda.org
the wsda news issue 1, october 2012 www.wsda.org 3
issue 1 october 2012 26 membership news cruise
29 wdia news
31 regulatory news
33 letters to the editor
35 membership leadership institute
37 in memoriam
37 cde
41, 43 classifieds
45 clinical corner
46 parrish or perish
Cover story by Rob Bahnsen
TOC photo by Rob Bahnsen
Dr. Chris Herzog, Bracken Killpaclk and Dr. Mary Jennings address the House of Delegates
WSDA ENDORSED
a day in the life
4 the wsda news issue 1, october 2012 www.wsda.org
A difficult journey
edito
rial
dr
. m
ary
jenn
ings
On September 15, 2012 our WSDA House of Delegates voted 58-20-1 to approve HD13-2012, our proposal to further expand a supervised dental auxiliary. The provider will be called an Advanced Function Dental Auxiliary (AFDA) I can tell you that no dental soul in the building took this task lightly. Hackles were raised and fur flew. Coming to resolution was a difficult journey. Over the past 20+ years, hundreds of us have spent thousands of hours trying to negotiate all kinds of proposals to expand or cre-ate a midlevel provider. We have exhausted all reasonable options, and fought very unrea-sonable options proposed by others. The legislators have spoken, and said it is time to cut bait and produce a provider that will help solve the access to care problem. So here we are. I think this puts us in a very good position. We have respectfully come to the table with a reasonable solution per the legislators request. We have insured that our core values are maintained. We have retained supervision and diagnosis. The AFDA will be governed by DQAC. They will be restricted to Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). A dentist will directly supervise him or her, and each dentist can only supervise two. My favorite word in the whole resolution is the word can. I work in FQHCs. The word can means that each clinic can decide if an AFDA will be of value to their practice. Each dentist can look at a patients needs and determine what, if anything, an extender could do to expedite care. We know every providers skill set is different. I can, and will, decide who gets to do what to my comfort level. I suspect that in real practice, the bulk of any AFDAs time will be used doing less controversial procedures than the ones we fretted over at our HOD. I love it when someone anesthetizes my patient. That saves me signifi-cant time. With children, it makes me not be the bad guy. Bet you didnt expect that perk! When I worked in Indian Health in the early 90s, dental assistants were trained by our area periodontist and our hygienists to do supra and sub gingival scaling. Many of our patients had bridging calculus. The assistants would debride the bulk of it with an ultrasonic scaler then send them to the hygienist for root planning. Everyone preached prevention. Many of the children I see have light calculus that is easy to pop off. My assistants loved including this with the prophy. Our IHS perio program worked well for the whole team and our patients. I was quite shocked when I moved here and there was such anxious de-bate over who gets to scale in a state where minimally-trained people pierce and tattoo all kinds of things with apparent abandon. One of the things many FQHCs excel in is training staff. Many centers have contracts with local dental assisting and hygiene programs to help train their students. A.T. Still College of Dentistry, The University of Washington RIDE Program, The Northwest Den-tal Residency Program, and Lutheran Medical Dental Residency Program all train their doctoral and post docs in many Washington State community health clinics. Training and developing AFDAs in these clinics is a natural fit. So what happens if we propose this to the legislature and they start changing things? The short answer is that we pull the bill. The WSDA Board of Directors works at the will of the WSDA House of Delegates. None of us have ever taken that responsibility lightly. We have discussed at length at the HOD Meeting what can happen, and what we will do. As the proposers of the bill, we control it through our sponsors. Our lobbyists have been tasked with telling the legislators that this is as far as we will go. Killing the bill does not help them solve the access to care problem, and sends the resolution back to the drawing board. We believe we can negotiate these waters, and are resolute in pulling if needed. As a community health dentist, my worst nightmare is that I might have to sit idly by, while some unsupervised person does a procedure that I am not comfortable with. Bail-ing them out of trouble, and trying to insure that it does not happen again, would not be pretty. I am proud of WSDAs Board of Directors, our House of Delegates and our WSDA staff for pouring their hearts and souls into resolving this problem. I hope and pray that what comes out of this difficult journey maintains the dignity of our profession, the safety of our patients and actually helps us expand care to further help the poor.
Dr. Mary Jennings, WSDA News edi-tor, welcomes comments and letters from readers. Contact her at her email address:[email protected]
Dr. Mary JenningsEditor, WSDA News
The WSDA Board of Directors works at the will of the WSDA House of Delegates. None of us have ever taken that responsibility lightly. We have discussed at length at the HOD Meeting what can happen, and what we will do. As the proposers of the bill, we control it through our sponsors.
