Parallax View is an editorial series presented for educational and discussion purposes only.
The opinions expressed are those of the authors only, and by no means is any anti-trust action implied or to be inferred.
REMEMBER JACK
Organized Dentistry can’t remember Jack.
No, I don’t refer to the profane "Jack****". And I am not going the defamatory route of diagnosing "Organizational Alzheimer’s" in dentistry.
I simply mean my new friend in dentistry, Jack.
I first met Jack at a lecture I gave on the survival of fee-for-service dentistry, suggesting new tools and new processes for the continued progress of fee-for-service dentistry. I finished my talk with an appeal for like-minded people to contact me with the intention of continuing the discussion and perhaps taking it further. Jack called me the next morning and asked me to keep him on the list of interested folks.
As a consequence of this process of taking a scholarly, non-dental, non-biased, consumer- based look at Organized Dentistry, including national, state, and local organizations, as well as state boards of dentistry, an eclectic group of dentists has spawned a new, national dental organization.
Please meet and hopefully greet The American Independent Dentist’s Association. We are, quite literally, a nascent group. We have a self-appointed Chair and a non-elected Board of Directors. We are growing up together, organizationally. We don’t want to make the mistake of allowing our values to be subjugable by outside factors. We are progressing carefully, synergistically. We want to remember Jack, always. At every step.
The Mission of The American Independent Dentist’s Association (AIDA) is:
| To Close The Gap Between The Standard Of Care And Optimal Care in Dentistry. |
The Vision of The American Independent Dentist’s Association (AIDA) is:
| Dentistry Should Be a Learning Organization; Aligned With Its Consumers; Responsive and Responsible to Its Internal and External Marketplace, the Government, and Science. |
The Values we have identified are:
Freedom of Choice
The Board of Directors and Advisors of AIDA today consists of dental educators, a GPR director, a GPR accreditation site visitor, a leader in The American College of Dentists; several dedicated local and state dental association leaders; an ADA delegate; several past-presidents of specialty organizations; several directors and past-presidents of state Academies of Dental Practice Administration; prominent dentists in my community; a young dental couple with boundless energy and concern for indigent patients; a member of a state board of dentistry; a respected hygienist; an ethical attorney (really!, he specializes in social responsibility and business ethics); and Jack. I am not yet free to publish the names of the Directorship, as until we have achieved total confluence as to strategy, some may decide not to continue, and that’s OK. Jack is confluent, and he did give permission to use his name.
I guess it’s time to better introduce Jack. You see, for most readers, Jack is you. Jack is definitely me, only a generation away in age. Jack is an archetype. Jack is a dentist of excellence who has been a trusting consumer of Organized Dentistry. He felt that, through his dues, he was paying for representation of his needs and attitudes. When Jack hung his shingle, the above list of values was the norm, and paradigms different from that list were either unheard of or unvoiced (more likely).
Jack now practices in a metropolitan community which is being infiltrated with managed care. He has had many patients leave, and he has had few come back. His relationships with his patients have been indelibly changed. Jack wants to retire in about five years, and would like those five years to be Good Ones. Not necessarily heydays, just Good Ones.
Jack, like many of you, can’t do it all himself. He has mastered only three of the four Foundations of Excellence in Dentistry:
Self Actualization- as derived from spiritual and balance models, church, self improvement methodology such as the writings of Steven Covey, and as promoted by the Pankey Institute;
Jack’s deficit, as well as mine, and most likely yours, is that he has not achieved, nor had achieved for him:
Now, for you Organized Dentistry types who have started their harumph, go back and read the above paragraph ten times before you harumph again. And then consider how AIDA got to the point of admitting to itself this deficit.
You see, there was a significant chance that AIDA would not exist at all. Our Board, at several steps along our journey, could have resolved that, "we feel that these energies would better be directly invested into the already existing channels in Organized Dentistry". Believe me, the concept still comes up at every Board meeting. However, while developing our Strategic Plan for AIDA, every time a Director pointed out that a similar pathway or strategy had already been tried or instituted by an organization in dentistry, after evaluation the consensus was that each of these projects had failed for one or both of two reasons: Lack of money or lack of commitment. So the conclusion must be, and AIDA feels this most sincerely, that excellent people have been working extremely hard on thoughtful and meaningful projects, but that effective results have been elusive. Allow me to quote to you from a letter I wrote to AIDA's Board in response to this realization:
"…the disenfranchised but inspirable dentist is one half of the raison d’ etre of AIDA. The confused but educable patient is the other half.
What I hear is that you personally and organizationally can do, but you can’t influence. You haven’t created passion in your memberships, although you have it yourselves. Therein lies the source of your organizational ineffectiveness. Money is not nor will it ever be an issue if there is commitment.
That passion won’t [spontaneously] come from within your individual members….. What we must do instead of wishing for commitment, is ORGANIZATIONAL IMMOLATION. By this I refer to Jim Savage’s …. addage, "If you set yourself on fire, others will gather to watch you burn."
I want to present to you The Continuum of Commitment, and then challenge you to examine and confirm your own (commitment). Then, and only then will we accept each other, strike the match, and become the Beacon ourselves.
Commitment Continuum
Involvement
What I ask of you is to show your courage. I have heard lots of "yes, but…".
Show me courage.
If you can, after considering these words, step forward and say, "Yes, we have worked hard but have not been effective. We have thought the correct thoughts but we have not achieved the achievable, let alone the unachievable. We have applied reason to issues that were inconsistent with our version of reason. We agree that we need NEW TOOLS with which to lead dentistry". Then you have the courage to make positive change in dentistry and the world. Then you have the courage and vision to lead AIDA.
If you cannot do so, then I challenge you to uphold AIDA’s mission in whatever ways that you can. It is a good mission…. Dentistry needs good people doing effective work effectively."
In other words, remember Jack. Remember the patients who can no longer find excellence in dentistry in even a hit or miss fashion. Remember the dentists who can’t be found by patients of excellence. We live in confusing times. AIDA intends to be the Beacon alluded to in the above quote, the arm of organized dentistry that effectively represents the optimal care/free choice/fee-for-service dental community. It intends to do so by injecting energy, newly committed people, and new organizational tools, skills, and ideas into organized dentistry. It will not supplant or compete with organized dentistry. It shouldn’t. It won’t. We are talking full partnership.
AIDA will look in many directions to fuel its fire. AIDA will look for membership. AIDA will look for sponsorship. AIDA will look to the 25% of dentists, including many young dentists, who have completely written-off organized dentistry. AIDA will look to the thousands of dentists who truly want to provide optimal care but don’t know how to change their practice situations in order to do so. AIDA will look to everyone involved in every aspect of optimal dentistry, for vision, for strategy, and for commitment. AIDA will look to and for dental leaders. AIDA will look to the Jack’s of dentistry. AIDA will look to you.
Let’s talk.
K. Randall Groh, DDS
Acting Chair
The American Independent Dentist’s Association
336 Alhambra Circle
Coral Gables, FL 33134
E-Mail feeforserv@aol.com
April 20, 1997© K. Randall Groh, 1997
Please use the
"BACK" button on your browser, or select 
to return to the Navigation Page.