WSDA News Issue 1 October 2012 (rev)

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newsWSDAThe voice of the Washington State Dental Association

Issue 1 october 2012

DR. PETER LUBISICH IVWSDAs 2012 Citizen of the Year

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WSDA ENDORSED

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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 -statedental@gmail.com.

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: info@wsda.org/www.wsda.org

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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

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A difficult journey

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dr

. m

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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:mjenningsdds@gmail.com.

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.

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Editors note: We asked Dr. Sherwin Shinn, a former WSDA Citizen of the Year, to write about giving back to the community, and what it has meant to him. Congratulations Dr. Lubisich IV! Your commitment to excellence and community out-reach is definitely praiseworthy, and you are an outstanding representative for all the many unsung heroes in our profession who have found a way to give back something extra to society. Its important to celebrate and recognize what you do, because each of us has an inborn, in