OSSO Board Meeting – February 22, 2017
Attendees: Tracy Herion, Dharmini Pathmanathan, Marie Lathrop, Howard Freedman
Treasurer Report: RBC Wealth Management account balance ~$61,000 (exact amount not immediately available)
With the New Year we have transitioned officers and are in need of a Secretary-Treasurer. Several members were discussed to possibly fill that role. Howard will follow up with recruiting emails. Also discussed OSSO needs moving forward including updating the web site with new officer positions and meeting minutes (Dharmini and Howard will access Squarespace site with help from Tracy as needed). The board is also considering adding a Facebook page to potentially increase member access to OSSO information. Marie mentioned PCSO is considering broadening the scope of its web site by including more state organization content. PCSO has administrative support that could potentially reduce or eliminate the demands of maintaining our website. Meeting registration is an important part of our web site that we do not want to lose, so keeping a separate OSSO web site may still be necessary. More to follow on this as PCSO makes its decision on how it will proceed.
The board discussed a desire to increase our connection with members, especially new members and those new to the state. The state breakfasts at PCSO attempt this but are generally not well attended and are available only to members attending the PCSO meeting. We will plan a more social event to welcome new members potentially the evening before the December meeting so members coming from out of the area could attend.
The OSSO annual meeting is tentatively scheduled for December 1st (with the social November 30th). We will again plan to have an infection control presentation (as we did in 2015) to address that CE requirement as well as OHSU resident research presentations. The plan is to keep the same format as used last year, with lectures and the business meeting before lunch. Marie will set up the MAC reservation again. We discussed including a lunch RSVP to reduce food waste from members leaving before lunch.
An inquiry was received from the OHSU residents for financial support for the AAO meeting in San Diego this April. The OSSO has given money to the residents for the PCSO in the past in part to encourage participation at the component level, and will continue to support that (with a stipend for 2nd and 3rd year residents) rather than the AAO. The residents’ attendance/participation at the last PCSO meeting was less than expected. Dr. Covell had mentioned possibly having the residents present information after future meetings to increase accountability.
A letter was sent to the Dental Board and OSSA by a member Curtis Bedont expressing concern that he and other members are having trouble finding EFODA certified assistants in part because the Pathway 3 EFODA clinical requirements are outdated and not appropriate to current practice modalities (e.g. several headgear fittings and band recementations are required though many practitioners do not use enough headgears or bands to allow assistants to get the needed experience). He requested OSSA support in recommending new/updated requirements for EFODA certification. Before approaching the Dental Board with potential changes to the Dental Practice Act, we thought it best to survey membership on the relevance of the current requirements and suggestions for potential changes (e.g. emphasis on bonding procedures). Dharmini and Howard will create a Survey Monkey survey after updating our access to that site and report results when available.
The Smile Direct Club matter was revisited. Tracy attended the December Board meeting expecting to hear discussion about how the Board intended to respond to OSSO member Gray Grieve’s letter expressing concern about Smile Direct Club. Instead, the Board thought Tracy was there to address a letter received from the AAO legal council on the topic that was buried deep in the pre-meeting public documents. Tracy had reviewed the documents but did not see that letter and expressed frustration that the AAO had not contacted OSSO leadership about it, as that would have allowed her to be more prepared to advocate on behalf of OSSO. The Board’s attorney felt the AAO was seeking legal advice from the Board, which it is not in position to give and the matter was dropped. We feel further discussion on the topic is warranted and will continue to pursue it through the AAO, PCSO and Oregon Dental Board as needed. Our primary concern remains the potential risk of unsupervised orthodontic treatment for citizens of our state.