Dr. Robert Nara: Freedom from Dental Disease

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Even more ludicrous... I don't need a single additional [college] credit to train young people to become dentists. .. and yet my profession attacked me for teaching dental assistants to polish teeth!

NARA: In 1972 they had tried to "get" me in the civil courts and had let those charges drop for fear of bad publicity. In this instance, however, they decided to handle the matter themselves and stay out of the courts. So I was charged, before the Michigan State Board of Dentistry, with letting an unlicensed assistant polish teeth and with '' advertising an unrecognized specialty". The latter accusation refers to an ad that I had placed in the local yellow pages. The advertisement read: "Specializing in Oramedics . . . for people with teeth who want to keep them." You should know, too, that it is not illegal for a dentist to advertise in Michigan. For instance, dentists have run ads saying that they specialized in dentures, or root canals, or something like that, and they have had no problems. Oramedics, however, is not a term that the American Dental Association or the Michigan State Dental Association recognizes. And, on the basis of those two charges, they were ultimately able to suspend my license for 15 months.

PLOWBOY: When did this suspension take effect?

NARA: On February 15, 1978.

PLOWBOY: Did you then make any effort to appeal the Board's action?

NARA: Yes, I did. As a first step, I filed an appeal, based on what I felt was the unconstitutionality of Michigan's dental codes . . . and charging, also, that the board was guilty of misconduct because of the manner in which the proceedings were held and the findings reached.

You see, the Board had, as usual, hired a hearing examiner—in this instance he was an administrative judge named Wayne Lusk—to rule on the case. But Lusk found me innocent: He said that the Oramedics-related charges "failed to establish a violation"! The Board, however, threw Lusk's report out, upheld the charges against me, and then also voted never to use Mr. Lusk—who had 35 years' experience as a hearing examiner—again!

At any rate, I filed an appeal—based upon the discrepancies in the dental codes and on this "irregularity"—with the state appeals court.

PLOWBOY: And did the appeals court give you any help?

NARA: No, the court was also presented with a "counterstatement of facts" from the State Board of Dentistry, and it denied my appeal for "lack of merit and grounds presented".

PLOWBOY: Have you taken any further steps to clear yourself?

NARA: I've appealed to the Michigan State Supreme Court. They've had my appeal for some 10 months now and have yet to decide if they'll even hear the case! This delay is curious, as I was assured—by Mr. Bruce Lindstrom, who was then the aide in charge of Upper Peninsula affairs for Governor Milliken—that my appeal would be handled quickly and that a stay of my license suspension would be granted, automatically, while the appeal was in progress. Lindstrom told me this when the appeal was first filed. He has since resigned, and I've still gotten no word from the Supreme Court.

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