Ethical obliqations and the dental office team.

A hypothetical case of alleged sexual misconduct in a practice with high employee turnover and stress is analyzed by three experts. This case commentary examines the ethical role expectations of an office manager who is not directly involved but becomes aware of the activities. The commentators bring the perspectives of a dental hygienist, academic administrator, and attorney; a teacher of behavioral sciences in a dental school; and a general dentist with many years of practice experience.

Writing off the copayment.

Three dentists who have been involved in teaching ethics comment on a case where an associate discovers that the 40% of collections she was expecting as compensation is being reduced because of the practice in the office of routinely writing off patient copays. The commentators note legal requirements and professional codes, but generally seek alternatives that do not require that patients pay the amount agreed by insurance contracts.

The future of dental ethics: promises needed.

The future development of professional dental ethics requires a core group of dentists well-trained in ethics: teachers, scholars, and researchers who are also firmly grounded in the clinical aspects of the profession.This will require a significant increase in the number of individuals who can work with a range of moral views, ethical communities, and religious traditions. Proposals for addressing this situation include: the creation of a dental ethics institute, the funding of an endowed dental ethics chair, a one-year professional dental ethics fellowship program, the development of a program of ethics certification, and the initiation of a "positive ethics" self-assessment program designed specifically for dental practices and organizations.

The need for dental ethicists and the promise of universal patient acceptance: response to Richard Masella's "Renewing professionalism in dental education".

Richard Masella's "Renewing Professionalism in Dental Education: Overcoming the Market Environment" reveals why professionalism is nearly dead in America; it also shows the good of commerce and the excesses of commercialism in the market. More importantly, it collects and summarizes most of the relevant forms of education currently available to teach professionalism and professional ethics in dentistry; it then briefly examines whether those forms of education are used and if they are effective. Masella also asks some key challenging questions.

The ethical and practical aspects of acceptance and universal patient acceptance.

"Acceptance" is an often presupposed, hidden core value and ethic focused on how dental and other health practitioners first accept people as possible patients. The three basic styles of patient acceptance are random, selective, and universal. Reduced public access to care results from the practice of random and selective acceptance.

How did we get here? Where are we going? Hopes and gaps in access to oral health care.

This article reviews the history and future good of acceptance ethics and helps frame the publication of papers presented at the workshop on Professional Promises: Hopes and Gaps in Access to Oral Health Care. Discovery and development of Universal Patient Acceptance (UPA), a practical application of acceptance ethics, is key to systematizing access to oral health; UPA expands partnerships among professional volunteerism, culture, and economic structures. A Veterans' Administration health services preventive dentistry research project and a West Virginia school children's preventive dental program raised awareness of acceptance.