I had a contentious phone conversation this week with a member of the American Dental Association’s Council on Dental Education and Licensure, also known as CDEL.

It is CDEL that is recommending a major overhaul of the ADA’s existing guidelines pertaining to the practice of oral conscious sedations (OCS) – changes that we at TEAM 1500 believe are wholly unnecessary and designed primarily to protect the financial turf of oral surgeons, dental anesthesiologists and other specialists.

This CDEL member made it clear from the start that he doesn’t respect me or TEAM 1500.  His contention was that we are working outside the established systems and are using questionable methods to promote our cause.

Our nearly 20-minute phone conversation followed CDEL’s meeting in Chicago late last month to consider the newly proposed guidelines that were submitted to CDEL by its Committee on Anesthesiology, also known as Committee H.

I had already discovered from another CDEL member that CDEL mostly – if not entirely – endorsed the recommendations that Committee H presented to CDEL’s 16 members.  I wanted to confirm my facts and try to understand what rationale CDEL was using for proposing radical changes to the very same guidelines that the ADA’s own House of Delegates had praised in the fall of 2005 for their “remarkable safety record.”

There was more heat than light generated during our conversation. 

The CDEL dentist, in particular, presented me with this false syllogism:  Since most of TEAM 1500’s many donors and thousands of supporters also are members of the independent Dental Organization for Conscious Sedation (DOCS), then really it is DOCS who has been harassing CDEL, the ADA and others who are promulgating the new regulations.

What a non sequitur!

As I pointed out, those who are most opposed to the ADA’s proposed overhaul of the OCS guidelines are ALSO members of the ADA and Academy of General Dentistry (AGD).  So in fact, if the CDEL member’s logic were correct, it is the ADA and AGD – not DOCS – that are actually pulling the strings of TEAM 1500.

Trying to trivialize the thousand-plus dentists who at TEAM 1500’s suggestion wrote the ADA to protest CDEL’s proposals by suggesting they are a small group of self-interested dentists is the pot calling the kettle black.

The truth is really quite simple.  Those thousands of dentists who practice oral sedation dentistry, and hence are familiar with its long and admirable record of safety and efficacy – in vast numbers oppose the ADA’s new guidelines.

Those dentists who dominate both CDEL and Committee H, who can be counted in the dozens – not thousands --  do not practice OCS, have little or no personal experience with the protocols, and have rejected all overtures to attend an OCS course.  These “pots” want to put a stop to the many “kettles” because they fear OCS infringes on their sacred economic turf.

During my conversation with the CDEL member only I raised – time and time again – what is in the best interest of patients.  He used the opportunity only to cast accusations about me, TEAM 1500, DOCS and any other scapegoat he could conger.

For the record, TEAM 1500 is not a puppet of DOCS, the ADA, the AGD or any other organization. 

We are a grassroots group of dedicated and concerned dentists and other healthcare professionals who believe that what’s in the interest of patients is of paramount importance.

The CDEL member I was speaking to didn’t buy any of my explanations.  It seems that he and his fellow committee members simply don’t want to let the truth get in the way of their comfortable dismissal of all we do – and why.