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Resolution 65 Passes at House of Delegates at the ADA Annual Meeting ADA Resolution 65 submitted by “The Council on Ethics, Bylaws and Judicial Affairs (the Council)” on August, 2016 Resolution 65 is likely to change the landscape of specialty recognition in the United States. This resolution, which passed at the 2016 ADA annual meeting in Denver, Colorado, impacts the ADA Principles of Ethics and Code of Professional Conduct regarding the announcement of specialization and limitation of practice. The resolution that passed states, “A dentist may ethically announce as a specialist to the public in any of the dental specialties recognized by the American Dental Association including dental public health, endodontics, oral and maxillofacial pathology, oral and maxillofacial radiology, oral and maxillofacial surgery, orthodontics and dentofacial orthopedics, pediatric dentistry, periodontics, and prosthodontics, and in any other areas of dentistry for which specialty recognition has been granted under the standards required or recognized in the practitioner’s jurisdiction, provided the dentist meets the educational requirements required for recognition as a specialist adopted by the American Dental Association or accepted in the jurisdiction in which they practice.* Dentists who choose to announce specialization should use “specialist in” and shall devote a sufficient portion of their practice to the announced specialty or specialties to maintain expertise in that specialty or those specialties. Dentists whose practice is devoted exclusively to an announced specialty or specialties may announce that their practice “is limited to” that specialty or those specialties. Dentists who use their eligibility to announce as specialists to make the public believe that specialty services rendered in the dental office are being rendered by qualified specialists when such is not the case are engaged in unethical conduct. The burden of responsibility is on specialists to avoid any inference that general practitioners who are associated with specialists are qualified to announce themselves as specialists.” This revision to the ADA Principles of Ethics and Code of Professional Conduct opens the door for specialties recognized by the American Board of Dental Specialties (i.e., Oral Medicine) to advertise. Congratulations Diplomates, we have made it! Dr. Craig Miller |