Dr. Robert Nara: Freedom from Dental Disease

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Anyway, I went to work, through the appropriate political channels, and helped to get rid of some of these people who were—I thought—standing in the way of necessary change. And, in the process of fighting the entrenched hierarchy, I did make some enemies . . . enemies who are still "haunting" me today.

The first real sign of the troubles to come, however, showed up in April of 1968. I was called, at that time, before the State Board of Dentistry and told—by one of the Board's members— that I'd lose my license if I continued to rock the boat. I replied that I believed myself to be in the right, that I was acting in the public interest, and that I would continue to do so regardless of whatever he was tempted to do in retaliation. The board member responded by saying, "We'll get you." And it took him 10 years, 10 long years of battles in the professional organizations and in the courts, to finally take my license away from me.

The State Board chose to attack me on the ground that I was training my assistants to perform the routine tasks I described above. They tried to force me to stop doing this, and I, of course, refused. Then, in 1972, one of my assistants—while following my instructions—placed a medicated piece of cotton in a patient's cavity . . . and the man returned the next day with warrants for my assistant's and my arrest. He was actually the attorney who served as chief investigator for the Dental Board's Department of Licensing and Regulations'

PLOWBOY: And what was the outcome of that 1972 arrest?

NARA: Well, it eventually led to an arraignment. And, at the hearing, the judge explained to me that—if I were found guilty as charged—I could spend a year in jail and be fined up to $500.
He then asked me how I intended to plead, and I told him "guilty".

The judge was upset by this. "You're putting me in a rough spot here, Doctor," he said. I asked him what he meant, and he explained that—if I didn't plead "not guilty"—he'd have to sentence me. I replied that I was at fault, that I had allowed my assistants to polish teeth and so forth. So, the judge turned off his tape recorder, leaned over the bench, and advised me to get myself a lawyer and to give the matter some serious thought before I came to trial. Well, I didn't hire an attorney. I didn't want one, because my attitude was that the lows themselves were wrong . . . and I figured that I might just as well be the person who challenged them.

At any rate, it took another six months for the case to actually come to trial, and the State Dental Board must have gotten a bit worried by that time. It looked pretty certain that the judge was going to have to throw me in the slammer for a year, and the Board must have decided that they'd get a lot of bad press if they sent a dentist to jail for letting his assistants perform routine tasks, so they dropped the charges.

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