Respected Panel to Discuss Controversial ADA Resolution Tonight During Special National Dental Town Hall

NEW BERN, N.C., Oct. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- During a live National Dental Town Hall tonight, four respected dental researchers and academics will discuss a controversial proposal now up for consideration by the American Dental Association.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161010/426768
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All dentists and their team members are invited to participate in the 45-minute teleconference, which begins at 8 pm Eastern / 5 pm Pacific. Registration is free at http://tinyurl.com/DentalTownHall. (Those who register, but can't join the call live, will receive a link to the audio replay.)

The sole topic of the Town Hall will be ADA Resolution 37, which if approved, will significantly revise the ADA guidelines that govern the use of sedation and anesthesia, as well as related training requirements. In many states, the ADA guidelines are part of the regulatory language, so they automatically become governing law.

"It is vital to your practice and your patients that you be well-informed about Resolution 37," says Dr. Raymond A. Dionne, a leading pain scientist and dental educator, who is organizing the teleconference.

Dr. Dionne's has published more than 100 scientific manuscripts related to his work on pain and pain control. His career includes more than 20 years of private practice experience and more than 30 years of clinical research. He was an investigator in the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research for 25 years, where he also served as Chief of the Pain and Neurosensory Mechanisms Branch and Clinical Director.

Joining Dr. Dionne in providing an informed review and discussion of the scientific literature and available incident reports that pertain to sedation dentistry will be:

• Michael Edwards, DMD, PC – past chairman of the American Dental Association anesthesia committee and former president of the Alabama Dental Association. Dr. Edwards lectures nationally on the subject of sedation and anxiety reduction in dentistry. He has been an adjunct clinical professor at the University of Alabama School of Dentistry since 1995.
  
  
• Sharon M. Gordon, DDS, MPH, PhD – a professor of dentistry, associate dean, and intramural scientist. For more than two decades – working first at the National Institutes of Health and then at the University of Maryland – Dr. Gordon has focused on workforce development with special emphasis on research training for clinicians. Her research interest is injury and interaction of the inflammatory response and nervous system in pain and wound healing.
  
  
• Robert M. Peskin, DDS – a clinical associate professor at the School of Dental Medicine in Stony Brook and program director of the dental anesthesiology residency at Wycoff Heights Medical Center. Dr. Peskin is a Diplomate of the National Dental Board of Anesthesiology, with more than three decades' experience as a general dentist and dentist anesthesiologist. Dr. Peskin, the author of many original manuscripts and book chapters in the scientific literature, helped write the current ADA guidelines that govern the use of sedation and anesthesia.  

"Before making up their mind on Resolution 37, ADA delegates and general members need to be well-informed about the extent to which the proposed guidelines conform – or fail to conform – with evidence-based dentistry norms," says Dr. Dionne.

Questions surrounding the route used by dentists to sedate fearful and anxious patients – oral v. intravenous – are among the key issues surrounding controversial ADA Resolution 37. The final vote on ADA Resolution 37, which will take place later this month at the ADA's annual meeting in Denver, could impact the treatment of tens of millions of current and future dental patients, as well as the practices of tens of thousands of dentists.

Registration for tonight's National Dental Town Hall teleconference, scheduled to last 45 minutes, is free at http://tinyurl.com/DentalTownHall.  

Media contact:
Raymond Dionne
Email 
202-288-9707

SOURCE Raymond A. Dionne, DDS, MS, PhD