05/09/2008

By JOHN HANNA  / Associated Press

A state regulatory board repealed a rule Friday that threatened to deny licenses to most of the prospective Kansas dentists in this year's graduating class at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

The Kansas Dental Board's plan to reconsider a policy it imposed only six months ago touched off a debate over whether repealing the rule would endanger public health. The policy dealt with the scores a prospective dentist must receive on one of two professional exams.

University faculty and students appealed to the board after 19 of the 32 graduating students who had hoped to obtain a Kansas license failed to meet the new standard. They urged the board to return to its previous standards, saying it already was strong enough.

UMKC is an important source of prospective dentists for Kansas because the state doesn't operate its own dental school.

The board's decision was unanimous. Members said they had not fully understood the differences between the two exams when they established the new policy in November.

"It's pretty clear that we made a mistake," said board President Richard Darnall, a Topeka oral surgeon.

On the board's decision to repeal the rule, he added: "It isn't going to have an effect on the quality of dentists licensed here."

Some of the students attended the board's meeting and were pleased that it cleared the way for them to be licensed. Steven Vodonicke plans to practice in Shawnee.

"I feel I'm a very competent dentist," he said.

But before the board's vote, the Central Regional Dental Testing Service suggested that repealing the rule could create "immeasurable pain" for patients.

Central Regional is a Topeka-based nonprofit group that administers an exam for prospective dentists, who must score 75 on each section to pass.

Kansas also had licensed dentists who had passed an exam administered by the Western Regional Examining Board, based in Phoenix, in which a passing score is 55 on each section.

More than 30 states accept results from multiple tests, though some apply restrictions if a prospective dentist has taken the Western Regional exam.

And in November, the Kansas board said students taking the Western Regional exam also had to score a 75 on each section.

George Kinney, a past president of Central Regional, said it has a longer history of testing a prospective dentist's skills at diagnosing a patient's potential problem.

"It's of little import if we've done the wrong procedure on a patient if we've done it well," he said.

But critics of the new rule said the two tests are different, meaning a 75 score on one isn't the equivalent of a 75 score on the other.

"In the meantime, you're screwing over, to use a phrase, people who don't deserve it," said Michael Reed, the dean of UMKC's School of Dentistry. He called any suggestion that his university was putting Kansas patients at risk "nonsense" and "political buffoonery."

And Dan Minnis, a Pittsburg dentist who teaches at UMKC, blamed Central Regional for using "scare tactics" to defend the November policy.

"They want to be the monopoly in testing for our students across the country," Minnis said.

Kinney acknowledged that a statement issued by Central Regional before the board's vote may have "embellished a little bit" on the potential dangers of reversing the rule, and he said UMKC is providing a fine education.

But he said the higher standard would do more to make sure that new dentists are proficient in their skills.

___

On the Net:

Kansas Dental Board: http://www.kansas.gov/kdb/

UMKC dental school: http://dentistry.umkc.edu/

Central Regional Dental Testing Service: https://www.crdts.org/

Western Regional Examining Board: http://www.wreb.org/