I know you make a mean dinner reservation from our meeting in New Orleans.

I will take you up on it once I figure out when I get in and when I leave.

Gotta run……..take care

Glenn

Don,

I am better than you described me.  

Nothing I said was untrue, said out of “disregard” for the facts, “distorted” or said out of anger.  

Del and I and MDT/IALD experienced the issues I raised 1st hand, so nothing was exaggerated or false.

These are matters we dealt with at ALD with arbitrary application of Provider course standards.  Maybe you need to learn the specifics before you accuse me of making “outrageous” statements.  But you in particular never bothered to inquire why I resigned from the ALD Board, or why Del and I resigned our individual and MDT its corporate membership.  So how would you know?

The truth hurts and it often offends and if the ALD believes I have defamed them then they can come here and defend themselves.  I understand that they lurk here on a regular basis but never post.  Are YOU their unofficial spokesperson?  I’ll be happy to spar with you…….in pubic, where you can’t easily dismiss the content.

Like many bureaucracies and organizations, the ALD doesn’t like their unfair and arbitrary applications exposed to the light of day.  Well, I’m not afraid to say what no one else is willing to say–sort of why I piss people and organizations off who don’t like hearing what everyone else is thinking, or worse, experiencing.

You say it’s not about the money with ALD.  You either don’t know what you are talking about are the one not being honest.

In advance of Laser Hands-On Lecture at the AGD meeting, my staff at MDT was told by ALD staff that we were not invited to the workshop–and could not attend.  (I can easily share the email exchanges here if you’d like).  

I personally called the AGD and was told that it was an ALD sponsored meeting and the sponsor could exclude anyone they wanted and we were being excluded.  When we were discussing with ALD, we were told that if we bought an ALD Corporate Membership for &#365,000, then we would be allowed to attend the ALD sponsored AGD Workshop.  This from an academy with a supposed interest in representing all things lasers to the entire dental profession?!

So, my friend, don’t you dare tell me or the rest of the audience that it’s not about the money with ALD.  Don’t tell me and everyone else that I am reporting “vicious”, “false”, “rumor” or “innuendo”, when I know the facts first hand–and you have yet to discover them.  It puts your integrity into question.

And MDT is not the only company that was forced to pay “conditional” (extortion?) money–not sponsorship money to support the workshop or AGD–but ALD payola.  Other companies were required to pay MUCH more than &#365,000.  One company executive told me they were required to pay &#3620,000 in order to participate.

The CDA Workshop issue was handled by Del so I don’t have the specifics.  (Integrity in reporting and representation?) But Del told me several times that he made contact with the meeting/workshop organizers and was told MDT was excluded.  (Heresay until Del posts and confirms.)

When you came to shake my hand at the door during  the start of the CDA Laser Workshop, I guess it didn’t occur to you to ask why we weren’t participating?  But you didn’t stand still long enough to inquire before returning to your seat.  Since neither I nor MDT was invited, I left.  And curiosity never called on you to find out more during the entire time MDT had a booth that entire weekend.  Del and I found that interesting, but not surprising.  Kinda like after my ALD Board resignation.

Call me a disgruntled Founder of the ALD, but don’t describe me as angry–or a “Charter Member” (because that was retroactively revoked by the ALD Board :confused:  ).

Care to describe my characterizations about the revoking of my Charter Membership status being a vicious, false, disappointing, untrue statement?  I’m still waiting for the ALD Police to show up at my office and take back my plaque that says “Charter Member”. 😉  Good luck.

Don, do you really think, and want to honestly represent to all who read here that I’m the only past ALD “contributor” to feel as I do?  Hardly.  Where are all the old ALD Presidents at the annual meetings?  Pick, Rosenberg, Kutsch, Passes, to name a few?  Why don’t they come to the annual meetings anymore?

Do you want me to continue to outline the curious and arbitrary activities of the ALD on this forum?

Why has attendance at ALD annual meeting been stagnant for the past 5 years?

How on earth did John Featherstone receive the TH Maiman for research award when he wasn’t even an ALD member? That was not policy as I remember from the ALD By-Laws.

How on earth was John Featherstone granted an honorary membership in ALD when he was mostly critical of ALD and otherwise the boss of Joel White at UCSF?

You all in the ALD need to do some serious soul-searching as you have lost your collective way and the mission and goals for ALD that people like me and Del, and many others who were among the original Founders/Charter members before you and the new group changed the direction of ALD.

Okay Don Coluzzi, here’s one you didn’t like:

Once again, I’m really disappointed in (I still think of him as a friend) Bob Gregg’s proclaiming another untruth about “….ALD’s retroactively inactivating past participant’s course recognition.”  Bob, please, this sort of thing can form a terrible, viscious, and false rumor–don’t say things like that.

Fact:  ALD doesn’t recognize the Standard Proficiency of any dentist who took a course from a once recognized ALD Course Provider, if the provider no longer is recognized for not paying their membership dues.  This is retroactive back to when a dentist took a SP course when the Provider was recognized.

If it isn’t ALD “official” policy, then someone needs to tell ALD staff, since MDT customers who took SP when we were (conditionally) recognized SP providers were told later that ALD didn’t recognize their MDT/IALD certification.

So, Don Coluzzi, please don’t act shocked, “disappointed” or outraged.  We could settle the issue with a post of the written and established policy on this website and proove me all WRONG!  Why doesn’t the ALD staff do it since they lurk and could make the post themselves?

But then, the policy would be disclosed and have to be followed and applied evenly and not arbitrarily.  Darn!

I fully expect for ALD to continue to marginalize me, Del, MDT, Laser ANAP, the variable pulsed PerioLase MVP-7, Professor Ray Yukna and his 3rd largest human histology in the perio literature (not a “small” study as represented by you and others) whether we are corporate members or not.

In marginalizing us, ALD marginalizes itself.

Keep smiling! 😉

Bob

Hello Bob: Now I’m more confused than before. My intention in my previous post was to clarify things for Drs Al and Chris and to also defend and explain what I called (among other things) your inaccurate statements, which, although you disagree are still inaccurate.
I do appreciate your comments about the AGD meeting, which as I said I knew nothing about. If, in fact ALD paid to have that even, I guess the ALD can invite whomever it wishes. However, it’s even more mysterious to me what could have happened behind the scenes at the CDA. I did shake your hand, and then I had to get to work–you’re right, I wasn’t paying attention to you participating or not, because I thought CDA set up everything. I hope to learn more from CDA next week about that.
Bob, I still hold my position about what you’ve said.
There are no arbitrary or mysterious things about becoming a Course Provider. You said you were provisionally recognized, so you know know that. There always has been a rigorous protocol for submission and review of the materials to the ALD, and, except for a fee of &#36250., it’s not about money. When you say things like arbitrary and it’s only about money, you’re wrong.
Corporate sponsorship is a different thing, and yes it costs money, as does all advertising, product promotion, and exhbiting. This has nothing to do with a Standard Course. Your comments about payola and extortion are disgusting, and whatever company official told you about paying &#3620000 probably was including all of the advertising costs and fees that the company spent with ALD for the year. I do know that the 2005 Corporate Membership dues are &#36795.
Just for the record, I am speaking as a member of the ALD, and as a member of the Certification Committee, that oversees things like Standard and Advanced Proficiency. You state that “
Fact: ALD doesn’t recognize the Standard Proficiency of any dentist who took a course from a once recognized ALD Course Provider, if the provider no longer is recognized for not paying their membership dues. This is retroactive back to when a dentist took a SP course when the Provider was recognized.”
That “fact” is entirely false. An ALD recognized Standard Proficiency certificate is valid forever (whatever time frame that is.) It requires no dues payment, does not expire, needs no renewal. If the Standard Course provider no longer is recognized (like you) that doesn’t change the certificates you gave out when you were recognized, even provisionally. However, using Dr. Davis’ post about Opus as an example, if there’s not an ALD recognized Course Provider there, the certificate is not ALD recognized. It’s as simple as that. The course content and teaching are not any less of a good thing, it’s just that the course isn’t recognized. I can’t believe that any ALD staff (all three of them!) ever said that your ALD recognized courses and the certificates produced were now invalid. My fact above is the truth, and that’s the policy.
I hope this clarifies the Standard Course and certificate discussion–that’s the policy, and I thought you knew it–we don’t have to disclose anything, and the light of day doesn’t bring anything different to the words.
To pick a couple of nits: I don’t know what your deal is on “lurking,” I’m not speaking for anyone other than myself and my ALD membership understanding, and your opinion of ALD loosing its collective way is only one view. ALD has tremendous support and is a viable organization. The marginalization you mention is something that I personally don’t want, but you need to revisit your facts, as you’ve stated them–you accuse me of not knowing what I’m talking about, and I will say the same for you.
We’ll “talk” again…………DON

OK Don, let’s “talk”,

You have made a representation about ALD “policy”.  That doesn’t change history.
The history is that our customers who went through Standard Proficiency when MDT/IALD had provisional acceptance were told by ALD staff that their SP from us was not recognized.  That is a FACT.  Your truth is somehow different.

You can describe events and history described to you as “disgusting” and point and wag your finger, but that doesn’t change history.

Loudly delcaring your “truth” vs my “facts” doesn’t make you right or righteous.  

It’s good to have transparency and disclosure from the ALD folks–good on you all.  That’s what we all want from you.

Care to address my Charter Membership matter now?  Is that also one of the “disgusting” allegations that I made?

The opinion of ALD that I shared is not an opinion of one.  Just someone who has the gall to say it publically.

Cheers,

Bob

Don–

I am not wrong about the truth or the facts that MDT customers were told.

I know what our customers were told and I intervened and discussed with Gail, Janet Rice and Steven Parker at the time.

The denial of our SP recognition to our customers trying to qualify for AP was a true and factual event.

My Charter Membership status?  Why am I, “hanging on to that” you ask?  I am answering your challenges about arbitrary behavior.

It’s an example of arbitrary behavior in an organization–whether codified in the written policies or not–is beside the point.  Declaring a Charter Member a “Member” on one’s name tag at annual meetings is wrong to such a member.  And I am far from the only one.  

I did not write the things I wrote in these posts regarding the ALD to be an exhaustive disclosure of all things disappointing about ALD.  I mention only those things that were and have been done to our company, our customers and to me and Del personally that were arbitrary and unfair–and within the context of others who have had relevant and comparable issues to deal with.

That fact that you as a Board member of the ALD find those truths of accurate history unpalatable and distasteful is part of the problem.  

These matters were NEVER adequately addressed at the time, they are among the reasons we resigned, and your discomfort with them isn’t going to change the fact they should have and still ought to be acknowledged or addressed.

That’s not anger you are reading–it’s a protest for accountability.

As far as AGD goes–I know what happened in that instance.  I’m not “wrong” about that matter either.

Don, it’s way too convenient to dismiss the disappointed, the disenfranchised and the “non-members” and delcare that, “it’s time to move on” when wrongs have been committed and people have been hurt.  There comes a time when self-examination, an airing of grievances, and corrective actions is a good thing for people and organizations.  

If you are going to look into the CDA affair, then I suggest you don’t stop there.

I look forward to your report.

Take care,

Bob

Good Morning Don,

You say we aren’t “communicating” because I’m not saying what you want to hear.

You have been arguing about general policies in the abstract.

MDT has a paper trail  and we can produce names, dates, receipts, SP certificates, receipts and records of duplicate SP from ALD.

You have consistently challenged my facts and historical representation and saying they are not true–and w/o evidence to support your position.  I have evidence to back up my statements.  What do you have outside the abstract application of policies that you assert is how those polices are actually applied?

Sorry, Don, I’m not gonna let you get away with misrepresenting the evidence, and if I have to scan documents and upload and post them on this forum I will.

Your “intangible” vs my “tangible”.   Your assertion vs my evidence.

I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you respect evidence over anecdote……..right Don?

You want to refocus the conversation back to Dr. Chris Davis’s incident?  Great!  That’s another example of confusion, distortion, misapplication or arbitrary (you can chose whatever word you dislike the least) application of ALD policy.  And Dr. Davis’s matter is no more in the abstract that MDT’s customers of the past that you loudly decry as “false”.

The issue is now that there is a public discussion about Dr. Davis’s problem, it has been acknowledged here by you–a representative of the ALD Board– in this Forum.  This “official” acknowledgement, however belated, is something that he apparently was not able to achieve through normal ALD channels.:(

That’s the issue.  Marginalizing the membership which results in duplication of costs to members who took courses in good faith only to be later denied by misapplication of ALD policy.  This duplication of cost means more money to ALD in the form of certification fees……..There’s the money aspect.

But when I report our example of customers similarly disenfranchised in years gone by (before there was a public forum) you want to dismiss me and our complaint as old history.  Worse, you impune my integrity by saying that the events didn’t happen and are “false”.  That’s not nice when there’s nothing but the abstract of “policy” to back up your accusation.

That’s the sort of dismissive attitude that led Del, me and MDT to resign from ALD.  And I am glad it is all on display here for all to see.

It would be nice if you took the same interest in past disenfranchisement’s of our customers and ALD members (at the time) as you have stated interest in MDT disenfranchisement from AGD and the CDA Laser Workshops hosted or sponsored by ALD or others closely associated with ALD–you, Joel and Peter.

Don’t get angry with the messenger, deal with the message.  And don’t blame the “victim” and accuse them of false reporting–it results in double victimization.  It is not becoming of an organization’s leadership.

I see that Dr. Steven Parker, current President of ALD has logged in today.  Welcome Steve.  I’m interested in what Steve would have to say–usually more eloquently that I can.  

As ALD President, Steven has the power of the ALD Constitution and By-Laws to led, influence and direct the Board and the staff to see that policies are in fact followed, and that people and groups aren’t disenfranchised.  

And if I have done nothing more in my original and subsequent posts than to help a laser dentist like Dr. Davis and his problems with ALD (and laser dentistry in general), then my comments that have inflamed you so have had the desired result.

I unfortunately know dozens of laser dentists in my 15 plus years of laser dentistry who have quit the practice of laser dentistry altogether and gone on to other things like denture clinics and implants–numerous names I could mention and you might know.  Laser dentistry doesn’t need an organization with policy applications that frustrate its membership or non-member laser clinicians.  

How else can the ALD expect to grow if its shortcomings are not addressed?

This has been a good point-counterpoint for outsiders to see some of the issues that cause frustration.  Sorry, Don, you now feel it’s time to dismiss yourself from it.

Yours in the best interest of laser dentistry,

Bob

(Edited by Robert Gregg DDS at 2:16 pm on Oct. 8, 2005)

Dear Bob,
Like a trout to a fly, you knew that the mention of my name would get me to write!
I enjoy a distinct privilege, being locked away in the laser wilderness that is the UK, yet I care deeply for the perceived attempts at self-destruction that I witness of the US laser market.
My perspective of historical events is clear (to me at least). The Academy has, historically, been held to ransome by some who have sought to see it as some kind of “gravy train”. Through the many allegations of “old boy-ism”, with which I readily associate, the Academy has sought to define a line of objectiveness and transparency. To date, I fear, we may have failed to convince many and my reading of the postings causes me concern, Bob, in that you are very angry and upset.
My greater concern is that, whatever the quarrel, whatever the cause, the major victim is the honest, innovative dentist who is only trying to expand his or her practice into laser dentistry. Their shock, when they realise that they are “duped” by the “big business” that our small world has been consumed by, is a sad statement of affairs.
Much of what has been said, has been said in truth – you, Don, Mike have all stated facts that have a basis in truth. What is sad, is that truth is the weapon of the believer and, yet, who is to believe?
My present position, held with great honour and a desire for collectivity, gives me a perview of what a shambles we all have made of our responsibility to our fellow pofessionals. “Big brother” is looming, to curtail our expansive ambitions, through regulation, outwardly to protect, but inevitably to stifle and suppress. Were I to take my multiple wavelength Advanced Proficiencies, gained through the Academy, to the WCLI and seek reciprocity, I would be laughed at. What is so different, if the converse should occur? And what should that honest innovative dentist make of this situation?
My greatest fear is that, through all this anger, the wider circle of respected laser dentist pioneers, such as and including you and Del, suffers the defragmentation that all this bitterness will surely cause. Surely, at this time of looming regulation in the use of lasers, we should seek to work together to provide a strong, decisive and uniform message to every dental professional who cares to join our throng.
You, Del and your respected company is welcome within Academy circles whilst I’m President. This is not a snub to my close friend Don, because I would hope that you would show me the professional respect that I extend to you in making such a statement, by hoping and striving for a more balanced and honorable representation of lasers to our uninformed colleagues.
As President of the Academy, I could say “go stuff yourself” and repeat that to every company or individual that has sought to question the Academy and it’s high moral values. Except that, the Academy deserves no moral high-ground, nor should we all forget our privilege in representing a wonderful branch of dentistry to our wider profession. My only assertion on behalf of the Academy, is that, despite all the allegations, the criticisms and bad feeling, during my “watch”, I will do my best to try and bring everyone towards a better level of understanding. That way, our honest innovative dentist can feel confident that he is amongst fellow professionals and each and every patient receives safe, responsible and caring laser dentistry.
We Brits are very good at the soft-talking “s**t”. I doubt if I have answered barely a single allegation or question. What I can offer is to take up any concern that you may have and seek to view it objectively. The Academy is a wonderful organisation – why the Hell would this stupid Brit have spent 13 years travelling 3-4 times a year to the US? The Academy could and should be better with people like you on the inside and you should endeavour to work with us. Otherwise the saying “keep your friends close – and your enemies even closer!” might apply!.
I thought all the “pioneers” got shot by the Indians – let’s not get to the point where we shoot each other! Kind regards, Steven

Dear Bob,
Thank you for your response and your kind words. I am happy to pursue this discussion in open forum, mainly because it is to the new, “innocent” laser dentist that any hope of consensus must be directed. That aside, I am travelling to Chicago this week-end for an ALD Board meeting and I would really like to address much of your frustrations as part of a “healing” period.
Please feel free to call me at +44-1423-874064, between 5.00 and 6.00pm GMT, should you wish to speak about the problems before I leave on Friday. Alternatively, I’ll keep in touch with the forum, if you would prefer to list the problems in bullet form.
Central to any progress in these matters is for everyone involved to step back to the days when we were all “freshmen” in the world of laser dentistry. We were all fair-game for the smooth-talking salesperson, or, moreso the high-ranking presenter. What is pertinent to the current fiasco, is that there is no commonality in the levels of certification being offered by individual organisations / manufacturers and, as yet, no reciprocity. I would be misled if I didn’t think that there are those reading this correspondence who didn’t come from one of the many “certifying” bodies that bedecks the laser market; consequently, I would urge us all to seek some recourse whereby the unsuspecting newcomer can feel confident that their hard-earned qualification is meaningful across the board.
Bob, I judge that your “marginalisation” from the Academy is within redeemable limits. I hope that there is some way in which the huge, if at present diverse, body of opinion within laser dentistry, can be utilised positively to the benefit of us all. Kind regards, Steven