Visions and viewpoints: promises and reality

The immediate past chair of the ADA Council on Ethics, Bylaws and Judicial Affairs, who is also an attorney, explains why, after a thirty-year absence, he went back to treating Medicaid patients. It is easy to identify the social, political, bureaucratic, and financial shortcomings of our imperfect system. But how else, besides participating, can one educate patients so the dentist and the patient can both accept responsibility? How else can the profession make a difference except one patient at a time?