ViewPoint Defining membership Where would we be without the tripartite

I was posed a question by a fellow colleague: “What does membership in organized dentistry mean?” There are a bunch of answers I could have chosen to spit out, but did not. I paused and eloquently diverted his attention to the perplexing status of the United States economy鈥攁s one could imagine, this conversation went on for a while.

The reason I did not answer my colleague was because I did not feel I had a good answer for him. I could have mentioned insurance benefits, programs, political advocacy, mentorship, etc., but those are what I call “cookie-cutter answers,” not deserving of a man of his intelligence鈥攐r so he says.

I looked in good old Webster’s Dictionary for two definitions. They read as follows:

mem-ber-ship n. 鈥?1. the state or status of being a member, 2. the body of members, 3. the relationship between an element of a set or class and the set or class.

Or-ga-nized adj. 鈥?1. having a formal organization to coordinate and carry out activities, 2. affiliated by membership in an organization.

I went ahead and formulated a question to myself for some deep and profound thinking (a.k.a., King Julian, “King of the Lemurs,” from the movie “Madagascar”). What does the relationship between “a class” and “the set of class in a formal organization that coordinates and carries out activities” in dentistry mean? The light bulb finally went off as I walked through the exhibit hall at the 2008 Florida National Dental Convention.

It was simple鈥擨 was surrounded by answers and there was no way I could ignore it. Membership in organized dentistry means the industry of dentistry and everything that makes it go. Without the tripartite membership, everything that goes into making the machine go would slow down, or worse, cease to exist.

This goes back to those cookie-cutter answers I hesitated to give out, but in hindsight, they do represent the little answers.

Without membership, there is no political advocacy, mentorship, insurance benefits and programs. Along with that would go everything any one of us would see at the Florida National Dental Convention and other association activities (i.e., the American Dental Association annual session or even a local study group), because truthfully, there would be no activity and, for that matter, the industry as a whole would dissolve. Long and short, our lives would change forever. We cannot allow this to happen. Membership in the tripartite is vital to ensure we have a strong backbone with strong teeth that will never allow our industry to go downhill.

I call to all members of organized dentistry to stay active and maintain your membership. In addition, I call out to all nonmembers鈥攜our future membership is vital to maintain your well-being as a dentist and your prosperity in the future.

By the way, my colleague soon became a member!

Dr. Bulnes is the chairperson of the Florida Dental Association’s Council on Membership and a general dentist in Tampa. His comments, reprinted here with permission, originally appeared in November 2008 issue of Today’s FDA.