If you, your staff and your patients were jumped by a street gang one night as you left the office, who would you want fighting on your side?

Would you prefer allies who are well versed in the Marquess of Queensberry boxing rules – i.e. “a man on one knee is considered down and if struck is entitled to the stakes” – or would you want to pair with the fire-breathing, acerbic rascals who kick your opponents in their privates and only then deign to discuss the rules of engagement?

The question is not merely rhetorical.

General dentists, particularly those who faithfully serve their fearful and anxious patients using oral conscious sedation, have been ambushed by a gang of bullies.  This particular gang may wear white overcoats and hang framed degrees on their walls, but nonetheless they are out to rob and rough up their victims as assuredly as any common hoodlums.

In this scenario, playing the role of the muggers are the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (AAOMS) and some well-placed members of the American Dental Association who seek to deprive dentists and their patients of the single safest, most effective, proven method of treating dental-phobics – oral conscious sedation (OCS).

Like real mobsters, these big shots want hard-working general dentists to pay “protection” money, ostensibly to ensure public safety.  But those of us who saw all three parts of The Godfather trilogy or watch The Sopranos know who are the real beneficiaries of such “protection.”

By “protecting” the public from the “dangers” of OCS with the superfluous, impractical and costly new proposed guidelines, what AAOMS and its friends at the ADA really crave is to protect their own influence and incomes from the growing popularity of OCS among general dentists and their patients. 

Have no illusions, the OCS battle is over turf, not safety.

Against this backdrop, it is worth examining the methods being used by organized dentistry to combat these very real professional thugs.

With few exceptions, the nobles of general dentistry are still rolling up their sleeves and reviewing their rulebooks months after the battle has been engaged.

And it’s not just the ADA that AAOMS and its pals are intimidating.  In various states around the country, oral surgeons are putting the squeeze on dental regulators to adopt the rigid new ADA proposals, even before those proposals have been approved by the full ADA House of Delegates.  General dentists in Maine, North Carolina, Massachusetts, California, Alabama and Minnesota already have had their rights to offer OCS severely challenged by oral surgeons in their states.

If there ever was a time for Town Hall socials, surveys, polite and collegial dialogue, it is long since past. 

National dental organizations that are supposed to be protecting their members’ rights and the public’s health by now should be throwing punches, kicking and yelling, much as is TEAM 1500.  From the very start, TEAM 1500 has been actively knocking heads in the scrum that is the struggle over the ADA’s proposed OCS guidelines.

To be honest, some dentists don’t like TEAM 1500’s style of self-defense.  TEAM 1500 is not being a “gentlemen” in the tactics it is using to respond to the nicely dressed and coiffed muggers, some critics have written.

Indeed, recently, a major national dental organization that purportedly represents the interests of general dentists went out of its way NOT to offer support to TEAM 1500, but to try and impugn TEAM 1500’s tactics.

Come on, folks!  Get real.

TEAM 1500 is not the villain in this play.

Quiet diplomacy has been tried time and again concerning OCS and other issues impacting general dentists with the same results.  The gentlemen boxers wind up knocked unconscious, bruised and robbed of their livelihoods.  And their patients suffer the consequences.

Combating the deeply entrenched powers of AAMOS and the ADA isn’t for wimps or dilettantes.  Battles get messy when the stakes are this important.

Sure, TEAM 1500 might overshoot sometimes in its zealousness to prevail on behalf of needy patients and dedicated dentists.  Get over it!

To our way of thinking, we’d rather land solid blows most of the time – missing occasionally – than sit on the sidelines commenting self-righteously on the skills and manners of the combatants.

There is a role for in dentistry for gentleman boxers.  But if they aren’t willing to engage an unscrupulous opponent, at the very least they should stay out of the way of those of us who will fight back when attacked.