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no faculty to supervise dental students. everyone here is interested in making money............
Anyone heard from Colorado?
- Thread starter Atticus
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I must say this has been an extremely useful thread to read. For YEARS UCD has been my #1 because I am a CO native fiercely in love with this state but I am a little worried about the negative side I have seen about UCD. Where are some other schools (for those of you that are current dental students at Denver) that you were accepted to but declined to go to UCD. Which schools would you have rather gone to?
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Thanks for the fast reply. If predents is any indicator, their January meeting will be this week, since it was last year. Hopefully very soon....
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Would you mind elaborating?
OMG someone said turn around and run?? Sounds like they were joking. Maybe they have a friend that they want to get in and they are just playing around.
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Got into Indiana (home state), Penn, Maryland, and CU; those were the only schools I applied to. I liked all of the other schools (though walking down all those stairs during a firedrill at Maryland was no fun, haha), but CU is still at the top of my list.
Colorado should definitely still be at the top of your list; that NATIVE sticker on your Subaru doesn't mean anything to people in other states
. Despite some people's complaints, and I complain sometimes as well, let me offer you some positive things.1. Great faculty, both full-time and volunteering part-time dentists from the community, that genuinely want to see you succeed and do everything they can to help you out. My crown-and-bridge courses for example, despite being difficult, honestly make me excited about doing dentistry. There are so many faculty, not just my advisor, who I feel like I can go to anytime and talk about grades, classes, or just life. Of course, if I really need to let off some stress I just head up to the mountains for a day. . .
2. Boards after your 1st year is sweet, and there are plenty of people in our class who earned specialty-worthy scores.
3. There are no pointless class; all the classes that don't seem to be related to dentistry are there to prepare you for the Boards, either Part I or Part II. And then, the professors of classes that represent only a small amount of material on the Boards seem to make their classes as little of a "burden" on your time outside of class as possible. The class might seem pointless, but I just want to thank those profs for not making them as hard as they could be!
4. The school is constantly trying to improve despite whatever challenges it might be facing. Administration and faculty take student reviews seriously and make changes to tests and even faculty oversite of courses if complaints seem to have merit. There was even talk last year of cutting our vacation time to keep us in the clinic more. Of course, everyone complained about that, haha, and guess what? It didn't happen (yet, at least)!
5. No cut-throat competition, no "clicks" or anything like that. I don't know what anywhere else is like, but with a relatively small class size everyone seems to help everyone else out as much as they can. It's a very cool vibe and I look forward to working in the same area with these same people when I graduate.
6. Location. That was enough to get me here; everything else about the school is a bonus. Anything less is no worse than had I stayed in Indiana (no hard feelings, fellow Hoosiers, but I just had to leave).
7. If none of the above statements speak to you, then take the advice of so many SDNers and practicing dentists before us: go to the cheapest school you can get into. I obviously didn't take that advice, but oh well.
Apply to Colorado, get accepted, and then PM me if you need any more info.
Good luck!
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Got into Indiana (home state), Penn, Maryland, and CU; those were the only schools I applied to. I liked all of the other schools (though walking down all those stairs during a firedrill at Maryland was no fun, haha), but CU is still at the top of my list.
Colorado should definitely still be at the top of your list; that NATIVE sticker on your Subaru doesn't mean anything to people in other states
1. Great faculty, both full-time and volunteering part-time dentists from the community, that genuinely want to see you succeed and do everything they can to help you out. My crown-and-bridge courses for example, despite being difficult, honestly make me excited about doing dentistry. There are so many faculty, not just my advisor, who I feel like I can go to anytime and talk about grades, classes, or just life. Of course, if I really need to let off some stress I just head up to the mountains for a day. . .
2. Boards after your 1st year is sweet, and there are plenty of people in our class who earned specialty-worthy scores.
3. There are no pointless class; all the classes that don't seem to be related to dentistry are there to prepare you for the Boards, either Part I or Part II. And then, the professors of classes that represent only a small amount of material on the Boards seem to make their classes as little of a "burden" on your time outside of class as possible. The class might seem pointless, but I just want to thank those profs for not making them as hard as they could be!
4. The school is constantly trying to improve despite whatever challenges it might be facing. Administration and faculty take student reviews seriously and make changes to tests and even faculty oversite of courses if complaints seem to have merit. There was even talk last year of cutting our vacation time to keep us in the clinic more. Of course, everyone complained about that, haha, and guess what? It didn't happen (yet, at least)!
5. No cut-throat competition, no "clicks" or anything like that. I don't know what anywhere else is like, but with a relatively small class size everyone seems to help everyone else out as much as they can. It's a very cool vibe and I look forward to working in the same area with these same people when I graduate.
6. Location. That was enough to get me here; everything else about the school is a bonus. Anything less is no worse than had I stayed in Indiana (no hard feelings, fellow Hoosiers, but I just had to leave).
7. If none of the above statements speak to you, then take the advice of so many SDNers and practicing dentists before us: go to the cheapest school you can get into. I obviously didn't take that advice, but oh well.
Apply to Colorado, get accepted, and then PM me if you need any more info.
Good luck!
After reading this, I really hope to get an interview. By any chance do you know when the admissions committee meets up this month? It doesn't look like there has been any movement.
Edit: After looking at your predents page, I saw that you got interviewed pretty late in the cycle and you had no problem. Makes me much more hopeful.
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Got into Indiana (home state), Penn, Maryland, and CU; those were the only schools I applied to. I liked all of the other schools (though walking down all those stairs during a firedrill at Maryland was no fun, haha), but CU is still at the top of my list.
Colorado should definitely still be at the top of your list; that NATIVE sticker on your Subaru doesn't mean anything to people in other states
1. Great faculty, both full-time and volunteering part-time dentists from the community, that genuinely want to see you succeed and do everything they can to help you out. My crown-and-bridge courses for example, despite being difficult, honestly make me excited about doing dentistry. There are so many faculty, not just my advisor, who I feel like I can go to anytime and talk about grades, classes, or just life. Of course, if I really need to let off some stress I just head up to the mountains for a day. . .
2. Boards after your 1st year is sweet, and there are plenty of people in our class who earned specialty-worthy scores.
3. There are no pointless class; all the classes that don't seem to be related to dentistry are there to prepare you for the Boards, either Part I or Part II. And then, the professors of classes that represent only a small amount of material on the Boards seem to make their classes as little of a "burden" on your time outside of class as possible. The class might seem pointless, but I just want to thank those profs for not making them as hard as they could be!
4. The school is constantly trying to improve despite whatever challenges it might be facing. Administration and faculty take student reviews seriously and make changes to tests and even faculty oversite of courses if complaints seem to have merit. There was even talk last year of cutting our vacation time to keep us in the clinic more. Of course, everyone complained about that, haha, and guess what? It didn't happen (yet, at least)!
5. No cut-throat competition, no "clicks" or anything like that. I don't know what anywhere else is like, but with a relatively small class size everyone seems to help everyone else out as much as they can. It's a very cool vibe and I look forward to working in the same area with these same people when I graduate.
6. Location. That was enough to get me here; everything else about the school is a bonus. Anything less is no worse than had I stayed in Indiana (no hard feelings, fellow Hoosiers, but I just had to leave).
7. If none of the above statements speak to you, then take the advice of so many SDNers and practicing dentists before us: go to the cheapest school you can get into. I obviously didn't take that advice, but oh well.
Apply to Colorado, get accepted, and then PM me if you need any more info.
Good luck!
Thank you for this! 👍 Like I've said before, I LOVED the school when I interviewed there, and couldn't imagine it being the absolute horror story that a lot of people make it out to be.
That being said, would you by any chance have any idea as to when the admissions committee will be meeting again? Being an out-of-stater, I'm getting rather nervous that I haven't heard anything!
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1. 9 credit Anatomy class with multiple teachers. Anatomy is difficult to begin with, but a teacher that teaches just the kidney, and another that teaches about the gut, and another that teaches about the liver, and another that teaches the pancreas, etc. Every exam in the class is like a new 1st exam for the class because you have no idea how the teacher will test compared to the previous. You want to know why it is 9 credits of Anatomy? Because it is basically histology, dental anatomy, head and neck anatomy, organ systems, cell biology, all into one class due to "budget cuts" as the course director puts it. Apparently it is cheaper to have one course director and multiple instructors teach different areas than to have legit separate classes. Our class know our teachers by the topic they teach because there are so many teachers that just come and go. Example: the "kidney guy", "stomach lady", "Liver guy"
And just when you thought that this nightmare will be over with Anatomy, Physiology has the same format. Classmate's reaction: "here we go again"
2. No cliques? Our class has many. Some don't talk to foreigners!
3. Biased grading? Of course there is. At first I thought that it was just a rumor. "Dr. such and such only gives A's if you are blonde female." That is the prevailing rumor you will here from upper classmen. And after a full semester, I realized the reality of biased grading. Some people did worse then me and got better grades, some did better than me but got worse grades. I guess I should have worn a blonde wig to class.
Despite the negatives, Colorado gets the job done for me. School is cheap (relatively) and I get my DDS in four years. But if you are OOS, there are plenty of other schools to consider. They really stick it to you in terms of tuition if you are OOS, non-WICHE. I feel sorry for some of my classmates that are paying double and have to hear about all these "budget cuts".
These are just my opinions. But they are real at Colorado. But I am sure that every school has its problems. Hope this helps!
And just when you thought that this nightmare will be over with Anatomy, Physiology has the same format. Classmate's reaction: "here we go again"
2. No cliques? Our class has many. Some don't talk to foreigners!
3. Biased grading? Of course there is. At first I thought that it was just a rumor. "Dr. such and such only gives A's if you are blonde female." That is the prevailing rumor you will here from upper classmen. And after a full semester, I realized the reality of biased grading. Some people did worse then me and got better grades, some did better than me but got worse grades. I guess I should have worn a blonde wig to class.
Despite the negatives, Colorado gets the job done for me. School is cheap (relatively) and I get my DDS in four years. But if you are OOS, there are plenty of other schools to consider. They really stick it to you in terms of tuition if you are OOS, non-WICHE. I feel sorry for some of my classmates that are paying double and have to hear about all these "budget cuts".
These are just my opinions. But they are real at Colorado. But I am sure that every school has its problems. Hope this helps!
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I think the admissions committee only meets once a month; Colorado is pretty slow-moving on the admissions process. And once you are accept you'll wait forever before you start getting stuff about matriculation.
License2kill, too bad about the clicks; maybe that will change as everyone starts spending more time in the lab/clinic together. Initially, dental school "bonding" tends to happen over drinks. So, if you have a family or don't go out Friday nights you might feel left out of the loop. I'm sure this was the case with our class, too.
Of course, some people might not be interesting in putting in the extra effort to bridge a perceived cultural gap, but this happens everywhere and from people of every culture. This happened to me living in Japan, for sure. I found that it wasn't that people disliked me, but rather that because I was white they thought I didn't know anything about Japanese culture and they lacked the confidence to approach me or include me in stuff. I found that if I didn't initiate conversations a lot of people would just ignore me even if they knew I could speak Japanese.
Good luck with school, license2kill. If you ever have any questions about what's coming up for you, PM me or find me on facebook.
License2kill, too bad about the clicks; maybe that will change as everyone starts spending more time in the lab/clinic together. Initially, dental school "bonding" tends to happen over drinks. So, if you have a family or don't go out Friday nights you might feel left out of the loop. I'm sure this was the case with our class, too.
Of course, some people might not be interesting in putting in the extra effort to bridge a perceived cultural gap, but this happens everywhere and from people of every culture. This happened to me living in Japan, for sure. I found that it wasn't that people disliked me, but rather that because I was white they thought I didn't know anything about Japanese culture and they lacked the confidence to approach me or include me in stuff. I found that if I didn't initiate conversations a lot of people would just ignore me even if they knew I could speak Japanese.
Good luck with school, license2kill. If you ever have any questions about what's coming up for you, PM me or find me on facebook.
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Accepted as of yesterday at around 5 pm (Eastern time)! Out-of-state, non-WICHE. So there is hope!
Congratulations! FYI, there will be positive changes at CU for the class of 2014. The anatomy class will be split into two classes (one for anatomy and another for histology or something of that sort) now instead of lumping many different classes into one. Thanks to all the complaining by the DS1 class.
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Accepted as of yesterday at around 5 pm (Eastern time)! Out-of-state, non-WICHE. So there is hope!
Congrats on the acceptance! Good thing for me that it's a OOS spot
. I'm disappointed that I didn't hear anything from them. Alas there is still time. Did anyone else hear anything, good or bad?
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Denver Post Sunday Jan 31, 2010:
Prescription misuse found at CU dental school
The University of Colorado's dental school has for years allowed a dentist without an active state license to treat patients alongside students a situation that may have led to violations of federal law governing sedation drugs and prescriptions for narcotics, a Denver Post investigation found.
An exception to state law permitted dentists without an active Colorado license to practice at the University of Colorado Denver until August. After being confronted by The Post, the university ordered five dentists whose licensure status was in question to stop seeing patients.
In the wake of The Post's findings, the university also stopped a practice that allowed dentists in training to procure sedation drugs and write prescriptions using the federal credentials of faculty members who were not present. The practice is a potential violation of federal drug law, which strictly dictates the circumstances under which health care practitioners can obtain, use and prescribe narcotics and other controlled substances. Under federal law, a doctor must have a relationship with the patient for whom the prescription is written, said Jeff Sweetin, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Denver office.
"Whoever has the registration needs to have the doctor-patient relationship," Sweetin said.
Earlier in January, dental school officials changed their drug policies after learning of The Post's findings.
But prior to the newspaper's inquiries, DEA registration numbers for at least three faculty members were used to obtain sedation drugs and write prescriptions even in instances when those dentists were not at the school, three professors and the school's dean acknowledged.
It is not clear how far back the practice goes at the university's School of Dental Medicine in Aurora.
"That's inappropriate," Dr. Denise Kassebaum, the dental school's dean, said of the way drugs and prescriptions were being dispensed, "and that's why we have changed the policy."
Questions raised by The Post also led Kassebaum this month to take five dentists "off the floor" meaning they no longer see patients but are continuing to perform other duties as faculty members while questions are resolved about the status of their licenses and a new state law.
At the center of the licensing and prescription issues is Dr. Randal James, a longtime Colorado dentist and a CU faculty member for more than 30 years.
James, who left private practice in 2003 after an acrimonious split with his longtime partners, has not had an active Colorado dental license since March 1, 2004. When James filed paperwork to make his license inactive, he was required to surrender his DEA registration number.
James said it was a "personal decision" to take his license inactive and that it had nothing to do with any complaints against him.
Health care providers must have a DEA number to prescribe controlled substances including highly addictive narcotics such as Vicodin and sedation drugs such as fentanyl, which are used in dental procedures. The DEA number appears on prescription pads.
But questions about prescriptions are not the only ones facing school officials.
In recent years, Colorado law prohibited dentists with an inactive license from practicing in Colorado, with one exception: faculty members at CU, who were allowed to treat patients in the clinics operated by the state's only dental school. That exception was eliminated Aug. 5, when legislation created the new class of "academic" dental license.
Kassebaum said she concluded, in the wake of questions from The Post, that everyone working at the school must have either an active dental license or an academic dental license. As a result, she ordered that James and four others two foreign-trained dentists who have yet to obtain Colorado licenses and two others who were on "retired" status stop seeing patients until they obtain either active or academic dental licenses.
All five are working to obtain the necessary licenses from the Colorado Board of Dental Examiners, Kassebaum said.
Administrators in the university's dental school said they were not aware until questions were raised by The Post that after last Aug. 5 it was illegal for a dentist to practice at CU with an "inactive" license like the one currently held by James.
"Was it illegal?" asked Wayne Henderson, associate dean for finance, budget and strategic planning at the school. "Well, it was not illegal from our perspective because nobody had told us that."
However, Maulid Miskell, program director for the Board of Dental Examiners, said the law was clear.
"He should not be practicing, period, in the state of Colorado," Miskell said.
James, an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, works in the Sands House Clinic, located inside the dental school on the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora. Until recently, he supervised nine advanced students in the school's General Practice Residency who work in the clinic.
Anyone can get treatment at the clinic. However, Kassebaum said, a large number of patients are indigent or don't have insurance.
Although some of the residents have obtained state dental licenses, only one has a DEA number, according to federal records.
Highly competitive
The university operates one of 58 dental schools in the United States. CU consistently ranks in the top tier of U.S. dental schools on all standardized exams, the dean said, and in the top third of research dental schools.
Getting into it is competitive: Last year, 1,536 prospective students applied for 52 spots. 👍
Kassebaum said the dental school has treated more than 300,000 patients the past five years and only "two or three" were dissatisfied, according to the university's risk management office.
James told The Post he did not treat patients in the clinic.
"These are the residents' patients," he said.
However, The Post has confirmed that James performed surgery Aug. 26 on 17-year-old Anise Fletcher, a former leukemia patient.
The teenager's medical records show James and an unlicensed resident removed her wisdom teeth at the Sands Clinic. James, according to the university records released to The Post by the girl's family, completed the operation "in entirety."
That surgery was performed three weeks after the law took effect barring a dentist with an inactive license from practicing at the CU dental school.
"Get out of here!" gasped Fletcher's mother, Kim Johnson, after she was told by a Post reporter that James did not have an active dental license.
The girl had to have three follow-up surgeries with another dentist and continues to suffer pain five months after the surgery, Johnson said.
James said he was barred from discussing Fletcher's treatment by patient privacy laws.
However, he acknowledged after The Post told him about the records that he does, at times, treat patients.
"If the resident is having some trouble, I can step in and instruct the resident," James said. "For the patient's well-being, once in a blue moon, I have stepped in and done the procedure, for the benefit of the patient.
"That does not happen on a regular occurrence."
Oral and maxillofacial surgeons perform a wide range of operations, including the removal of severely impacted wisdom teeth, the repair of the joints of the jaw and the reconstruction of the lower face after trauma, such as a car crash.
The day of her surgery, Fletcher left the office with prescriptions for Vicodin and Dilaudid, both controlled substances and painkillers. Neither the resident who doesn't yet have a dental license nor James was authorized to sign prescriptions.
Copies of the prescriptions provided to The Post show they were written by the resident using the federal DEA number of Dr. Paul Bottone, a CU faculty member who was not working in the clinic that day.
The teenager's mother said she has never met Bottone.
Bottone, who is semiretired and works Fridays in the CU clinic, said he sometimes is "not on the premises" when residents use his DEA number.
"This is the way it's done," said Bottone, who has worked at CU since 1975 and retired from private practice a few years ago after 33 years.
"It's probably good you are bringing this up," he said. "Maybe the DEA will come up with something. In the past, you talk to three people, you get three opinions."
Bottone said residents do not call him to consult when they use his DEA number but rather log the prescriptions in a book in the clinic. If a pharmacist asks Bottone to verify the prescription which he said rarely happens he checks with the clinic to find out what's written in the log, then returns the call to the pharmacy.
"There are checks and balances, you know," he said.
Dr. Terry Batliner, who announced last week that he would soon be leaving his position as the school's associate dean for clinical operations and patient services, said his DEA number was used repeatedly in 2008 by residents without consulting him, something he said was done against his directives.
"I specifically directed that they didn't do that, and they specifically continued to do that," he said.
Objections at pharmacy
In 2007, Kassebaum said, DEA agents suggested that unlicensed residents use a registration number assigned to the university. However, pharmacists discovered more than one person was using that number and refused to fill prescriptions, she said.
James, Kassebaum and Batliner said the problematic protocol for issuing prescriptions was established by the former head of the General Practice Residency, Dr. Kishore Shetty, after he took over the program in early 2008. Kassebaum said she made a change in the leadership of the program in October, but Shetty remains a professor at the school.
Reached Saturday, Shetty said the General Practice Residency went through accreditation from the American Dental Association in 2008 and the group made no recommendations. Shetty termed the accreditation "very successful."
Further, Shetty said, all of the program's policies and procedures were approved by Kassebaum.
Asked if that meant the drug practices were approved by Kassebaum, he declined to comment until after he returns from a conference Feb. 7 and has a chance to meet with the dean.
None of the school officials could explain how prescriptions were written in cases involving James between 2004, when he gave up his DEA number, and 2008. Even though state law did not prevent James from practicing at the school during that period, without a DEA number he has not been able to help an unlicensed resident write a prescription since March 1, 2004.
James said he did not recall how prescriptions were handled in that time period.
"I couldn't answer that question," James said.
Residents working with supervising dentists other than James do not use Bottone's DEA number because those supervising dentists have full licenses and authority to write prescriptions.
At the same time, Kassebaum acknowledged problems in the way drugs are obtained from the in-house dispensary to sedate patients. The drugs are kept in a locked dispensary and must be signed out, with a DEA number, before they are taken to a treatment room and used.
James said the DEA number of Dr. Michael Savage, another faculty member, has been used to sign out the drugs. And he said Savage did "not always" have contact with the patients who were administered the drugs.
Kassebaum acknowledged the practice but said it, too, was changed when the newly issued policy was enacted this month.
Savage could not be reached at either his home or his university office. Jacque Montgomery, a university spokeswoman, reached Savage on vacation and said he acknowledged the use of his DEA number to procure sedation drugs, but he declined to comment further.
Co-writing prescriptions
In a school setting, a student could co-write a prescription with an "overseeing doctor" as long as that supervising physician was licensed, had a DEA number and was consulted on the patient's care said Sweetin, the head of the federal drug agency's Denver office. In a group practice, one doctor should not write prescriptions for another doctor's patients without seeing them, he said.
The DEA did not comment specifically on the dental school clinic. Sweetin said DEA agents do "periodic audits" of pharmacies but don't routinely show up at a doctor's office or hospital unless they receive a tip alleging illegal activity.
At CU's School of Medicine, unlicensed residents are not allowed to write prescriptions unless they are in consultation with an attending physician who has that authority, said Dan Meyers, the school's spokesman.
Kassebaum, the dental school dean, said the new policy requires that no one write a prescription without consulting an on-site licensed dentist with a valid DEA number.
"It is a concern," Kassebaum said. "We have taken steps to change that. I think the directions those residents were given by the previous program director told them what to do and they did it."
James, an associate clinical professor who works two days a week at the dental school, was a partner for more than two decades in a thriving Cherry Creek practice.
In 2003, however, James was forced from the practice by his partners, Dr. Michael Cosby and Dr. Kevin Patterson.
James ultimately filed two lawsuits one against Cosby and Patterson, and one against an attorney who had drawn up corporate papers. The lawsuit against his former partners was settled in mediation and James was paid in excess of $300,000, according to court documents. The lawsuit against the attorney was settled, but the terms were not disclosed.
Cosby declined to discuss his work with James or the end of their partnership. Patterson did not return a message left at his office.
And Irnie Johnson, an attorney who has represented James in the past, said he could not talk about the details because all three dentists signed a non-disparagement agreement.
"It was a tumultuous, unpleasant, difficult process that they finally worked their way through, and it got done," said Johnson, who said he was speaking as James' friend, not his attorney.
James, who said he has been practicing dentistry for 41 years, has been disciplined once in Colorado by the state Board of Dental Examiners.
Although the dental board initially alleged eight violations of state law, ultimately it sustained only one a finding that he was inattentive while an acrylic splint cured in the mouth of a patient.
According to testimony, James discussed his personal life with an assistant during the procedure and the splint stuck to the patient's teeth. When James used a drill to remove the splint, he chipped the enamel on one of the woman's teeth.
"So in 41 years, I've had one," James said.
James said he did not know until December that the law changed Aug. 5. He said he learned about the change in a casual conversation with another dentist.
Asked if things wouldn't have been easier had he maintained an active license, James replied, "In hindsight, probably."
He filed paperwork Jan. 4 to convert his license back to active status. That has to be approved by a panel of the dental board, which meets next on Feb. 17.
In the meantime, James defended his work at the university.
"In 31 years at the university, I've never had a complaint from a patient, from a student, from a resident, from a secretary, from an assistant there is none," he said.
Documented complications
Anise Fletcher, the teenage leukemia survivor, ended up in the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio this winter to manage the pain she said she endured after James removed her wisdom teeth in August.
The girl had follow-up surgeries performed by Dr. Greg Ingalls, himself a part-time CU faculty member. Ingalls, who declined to comment for this story, removed several bone fragments from Fletcher's gums, diagnosed pain "consistent with a dry socket" and saw an exposed nerve where one of her wisdom teeth had been, according to medical records released to the newspaper by the girl's mother.
The girl is still in pain five months after surgery, according to medical records. James said he could not discuss Fletcher's case without permission from her mother. However, he said in general terms that patients experience symptoms such as a dry socket or bone chips in somewhere between 5 percent and 15 percent of wisdom-tooth extractions.
"That's not malpractice," James said. "That's a complication that's documented well in the literature." The pain in Fletcher's mouth might have agitated other pain points in her body, including ones in her knees and back, that she had not felt since she finished chemotherapy about three years ago, according to her mother and medical records.
Two months after her surgery at the dental school, Fletcher was admitted to Children's Hospital with intense pain, according to her medical records. At that point, she still had to keep medicated gauze packed in one side of her mouth.
In October, she rated the pain in her jaw at 8.5 on a scale of one to 10. And that same month, Fletcher ended up in an emergency room because of numbness in her lips and a drooping right eye, records show.
This month, Ingalls wrote in Fletcher's medical records that after she returned from treatment at the pain clinic, he discovered a "small piece of bone" in her jaw that "appears to be working itself out." Ingalls removed the bone spur during a Jan. 6 surgery.
Fletcher missed a big chunk of her senior year of high school to enter the three-week pain management program in Cleveland.
"She is likely to have a lifetime of pain," her mother said. "I think Dr. James and the University of Colorado should be held accountable for this outcome.
Prescription misuse found at CU dental school
The University of Colorado's dental school has for years allowed a dentist without an active state license to treat patients alongside students a situation that may have led to violations of federal law governing sedation drugs and prescriptions for narcotics, a Denver Post investigation found.
An exception to state law permitted dentists without an active Colorado license to practice at the University of Colorado Denver until August. After being confronted by The Post, the university ordered five dentists whose licensure status was in question to stop seeing patients.
In the wake of The Post's findings, the university also stopped a practice that allowed dentists in training to procure sedation drugs and write prescriptions using the federal credentials of faculty members who were not present. The practice is a potential violation of federal drug law, which strictly dictates the circumstances under which health care practitioners can obtain, use and prescribe narcotics and other controlled substances. Under federal law, a doctor must have a relationship with the patient for whom the prescription is written, said Jeff Sweetin, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Denver office.
"Whoever has the registration needs to have the doctor-patient relationship," Sweetin said.
Earlier in January, dental school officials changed their drug policies after learning of The Post's findings.
But prior to the newspaper's inquiries, DEA registration numbers for at least three faculty members were used to obtain sedation drugs and write prescriptions even in instances when those dentists were not at the school, three professors and the school's dean acknowledged.
It is not clear how far back the practice goes at the university's School of Dental Medicine in Aurora.
"That's inappropriate," Dr. Denise Kassebaum, the dental school's dean, said of the way drugs and prescriptions were being dispensed, "and that's why we have changed the policy."
Questions raised by The Post also led Kassebaum this month to take five dentists "off the floor" meaning they no longer see patients but are continuing to perform other duties as faculty members while questions are resolved about the status of their licenses and a new state law.
At the center of the licensing and prescription issues is Dr. Randal James, a longtime Colorado dentist and a CU faculty member for more than 30 years.
James, who left private practice in 2003 after an acrimonious split with his longtime partners, has not had an active Colorado dental license since March 1, 2004. When James filed paperwork to make his license inactive, he was required to surrender his DEA registration number.
James said it was a "personal decision" to take his license inactive and that it had nothing to do with any complaints against him.
Health care providers must have a DEA number to prescribe controlled substances including highly addictive narcotics such as Vicodin and sedation drugs such as fentanyl, which are used in dental procedures. The DEA number appears on prescription pads.
But questions about prescriptions are not the only ones facing school officials.
In recent years, Colorado law prohibited dentists with an inactive license from practicing in Colorado, with one exception: faculty members at CU, who were allowed to treat patients in the clinics operated by the state's only dental school. That exception was eliminated Aug. 5, when legislation created the new class of "academic" dental license.
Kassebaum said she concluded, in the wake of questions from The Post, that everyone working at the school must have either an active dental license or an academic dental license. As a result, she ordered that James and four others two foreign-trained dentists who have yet to obtain Colorado licenses and two others who were on "retired" status stop seeing patients until they obtain either active or academic dental licenses.
All five are working to obtain the necessary licenses from the Colorado Board of Dental Examiners, Kassebaum said.
Administrators in the university's dental school said they were not aware until questions were raised by The Post that after last Aug. 5 it was illegal for a dentist to practice at CU with an "inactive" license like the one currently held by James.
"Was it illegal?" asked Wayne Henderson, associate dean for finance, budget and strategic planning at the school. "Well, it was not illegal from our perspective because nobody had told us that."
However, Maulid Miskell, program director for the Board of Dental Examiners, said the law was clear.
"He should not be practicing, period, in the state of Colorado," Miskell said.
James, an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, works in the Sands House Clinic, located inside the dental school on the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora. Until recently, he supervised nine advanced students in the school's General Practice Residency who work in the clinic.
Anyone can get treatment at the clinic. However, Kassebaum said, a large number of patients are indigent or don't have insurance.
Although some of the residents have obtained state dental licenses, only one has a DEA number, according to federal records.
Highly competitive
The university operates one of 58 dental schools in the United States. CU consistently ranks in the top tier of U.S. dental schools on all standardized exams, the dean said, and in the top third of research dental schools.
Getting into it is competitive: Last year, 1,536 prospective students applied for 52 spots. 👍
Kassebaum said the dental school has treated more than 300,000 patients the past five years and only "two or three" were dissatisfied, according to the university's risk management office.
James told The Post he did not treat patients in the clinic.
"These are the residents' patients," he said.
However, The Post has confirmed that James performed surgery Aug. 26 on 17-year-old Anise Fletcher, a former leukemia patient.
The teenager's medical records show James and an unlicensed resident removed her wisdom teeth at the Sands Clinic. James, according to the university records released to The Post by the girl's family, completed the operation "in entirety."
That surgery was performed three weeks after the law took effect barring a dentist with an inactive license from practicing at the CU dental school.
"Get out of here!" gasped Fletcher's mother, Kim Johnson, after she was told by a Post reporter that James did not have an active dental license.
The girl had to have three follow-up surgeries with another dentist and continues to suffer pain five months after the surgery, Johnson said.
James said he was barred from discussing Fletcher's treatment by patient privacy laws.
However, he acknowledged after The Post told him about the records that he does, at times, treat patients.
"If the resident is having some trouble, I can step in and instruct the resident," James said. "For the patient's well-being, once in a blue moon, I have stepped in and done the procedure, for the benefit of the patient.
"That does not happen on a regular occurrence."
Oral and maxillofacial surgeons perform a wide range of operations, including the removal of severely impacted wisdom teeth, the repair of the joints of the jaw and the reconstruction of the lower face after trauma, such as a car crash.
The day of her surgery, Fletcher left the office with prescriptions for Vicodin and Dilaudid, both controlled substances and painkillers. Neither the resident who doesn't yet have a dental license nor James was authorized to sign prescriptions.
Copies of the prescriptions provided to The Post show they were written by the resident using the federal DEA number of Dr. Paul Bottone, a CU faculty member who was not working in the clinic that day.
The teenager's mother said she has never met Bottone.
Bottone, who is semiretired and works Fridays in the CU clinic, said he sometimes is "not on the premises" when residents use his DEA number.
"This is the way it's done," said Bottone, who has worked at CU since 1975 and retired from private practice a few years ago after 33 years.
"It's probably good you are bringing this up," he said. "Maybe the DEA will come up with something. In the past, you talk to three people, you get three opinions."
Bottone said residents do not call him to consult when they use his DEA number but rather log the prescriptions in a book in the clinic. If a pharmacist asks Bottone to verify the prescription which he said rarely happens he checks with the clinic to find out what's written in the log, then returns the call to the pharmacy.
"There are checks and balances, you know," he said.
Dr. Terry Batliner, who announced last week that he would soon be leaving his position as the school's associate dean for clinical operations and patient services, said his DEA number was used repeatedly in 2008 by residents without consulting him, something he said was done against his directives.
"I specifically directed that they didn't do that, and they specifically continued to do that," he said.
Objections at pharmacy
In 2007, Kassebaum said, DEA agents suggested that unlicensed residents use a registration number assigned to the university. However, pharmacists discovered more than one person was using that number and refused to fill prescriptions, she said.
James, Kassebaum and Batliner said the problematic protocol for issuing prescriptions was established by the former head of the General Practice Residency, Dr. Kishore Shetty, after he took over the program in early 2008. Kassebaum said she made a change in the leadership of the program in October, but Shetty remains a professor at the school.
Reached Saturday, Shetty said the General Practice Residency went through accreditation from the American Dental Association in 2008 and the group made no recommendations. Shetty termed the accreditation "very successful."
Further, Shetty said, all of the program's policies and procedures were approved by Kassebaum.
Asked if that meant the drug practices were approved by Kassebaum, he declined to comment until after he returns from a conference Feb. 7 and has a chance to meet with the dean.
None of the school officials could explain how prescriptions were written in cases involving James between 2004, when he gave up his DEA number, and 2008. Even though state law did not prevent James from practicing at the school during that period, without a DEA number he has not been able to help an unlicensed resident write a prescription since March 1, 2004.
James said he did not recall how prescriptions were handled in that time period.
"I couldn't answer that question," James said.
Residents working with supervising dentists other than James do not use Bottone's DEA number because those supervising dentists have full licenses and authority to write prescriptions.
At the same time, Kassebaum acknowledged problems in the way drugs are obtained from the in-house dispensary to sedate patients. The drugs are kept in a locked dispensary and must be signed out, with a DEA number, before they are taken to a treatment room and used.
James said the DEA number of Dr. Michael Savage, another faculty member, has been used to sign out the drugs. And he said Savage did "not always" have contact with the patients who were administered the drugs.
Kassebaum acknowledged the practice but said it, too, was changed when the newly issued policy was enacted this month.
Savage could not be reached at either his home or his university office. Jacque Montgomery, a university spokeswoman, reached Savage on vacation and said he acknowledged the use of his DEA number to procure sedation drugs, but he declined to comment further.
Co-writing prescriptions
In a school setting, a student could co-write a prescription with an "overseeing doctor" as long as that supervising physician was licensed, had a DEA number and was consulted on the patient's care said Sweetin, the head of the federal drug agency's Denver office. In a group practice, one doctor should not write prescriptions for another doctor's patients without seeing them, he said.
The DEA did not comment specifically on the dental school clinic. Sweetin said DEA agents do "periodic audits" of pharmacies but don't routinely show up at a doctor's office or hospital unless they receive a tip alleging illegal activity.
At CU's School of Medicine, unlicensed residents are not allowed to write prescriptions unless they are in consultation with an attending physician who has that authority, said Dan Meyers, the school's spokesman.
Kassebaum, the dental school dean, said the new policy requires that no one write a prescription without consulting an on-site licensed dentist with a valid DEA number.
"It is a concern," Kassebaum said. "We have taken steps to change that. I think the directions those residents were given by the previous program director told them what to do and they did it."
James, an associate clinical professor who works two days a week at the dental school, was a partner for more than two decades in a thriving Cherry Creek practice.
In 2003, however, James was forced from the practice by his partners, Dr. Michael Cosby and Dr. Kevin Patterson.
James ultimately filed two lawsuits one against Cosby and Patterson, and one against an attorney who had drawn up corporate papers. The lawsuit against his former partners was settled in mediation and James was paid in excess of $300,000, according to court documents. The lawsuit against the attorney was settled, but the terms were not disclosed.
Cosby declined to discuss his work with James or the end of their partnership. Patterson did not return a message left at his office.
And Irnie Johnson, an attorney who has represented James in the past, said he could not talk about the details because all three dentists signed a non-disparagement agreement.
"It was a tumultuous, unpleasant, difficult process that they finally worked their way through, and it got done," said Johnson, who said he was speaking as James' friend, not his attorney.
James, who said he has been practicing dentistry for 41 years, has been disciplined once in Colorado by the state Board of Dental Examiners.
Although the dental board initially alleged eight violations of state law, ultimately it sustained only one a finding that he was inattentive while an acrylic splint cured in the mouth of a patient.
According to testimony, James discussed his personal life with an assistant during the procedure and the splint stuck to the patient's teeth. When James used a drill to remove the splint, he chipped the enamel on one of the woman's teeth.
"So in 41 years, I've had one," James said.
James said he did not know until December that the law changed Aug. 5. He said he learned about the change in a casual conversation with another dentist.
Asked if things wouldn't have been easier had he maintained an active license, James replied, "In hindsight, probably."
He filed paperwork Jan. 4 to convert his license back to active status. That has to be approved by a panel of the dental board, which meets next on Feb. 17.
In the meantime, James defended his work at the university.
"In 31 years at the university, I've never had a complaint from a patient, from a student, from a resident, from a secretary, from an assistant there is none," he said.
Documented complications
Anise Fletcher, the teenage leukemia survivor, ended up in the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio this winter to manage the pain she said she endured after James removed her wisdom teeth in August.
The girl had follow-up surgeries performed by Dr. Greg Ingalls, himself a part-time CU faculty member. Ingalls, who declined to comment for this story, removed several bone fragments from Fletcher's gums, diagnosed pain "consistent with a dry socket" and saw an exposed nerve where one of her wisdom teeth had been, according to medical records released to the newspaper by the girl's mother.
The girl is still in pain five months after surgery, according to medical records. James said he could not discuss Fletcher's case without permission from her mother. However, he said in general terms that patients experience symptoms such as a dry socket or bone chips in somewhere between 5 percent and 15 percent of wisdom-tooth extractions.
"That's not malpractice," James said. "That's a complication that's documented well in the literature." The pain in Fletcher's mouth might have agitated other pain points in her body, including ones in her knees and back, that she had not felt since she finished chemotherapy about three years ago, according to her mother and medical records.
Two months after her surgery at the dental school, Fletcher was admitted to Children's Hospital with intense pain, according to her medical records. At that point, she still had to keep medicated gauze packed in one side of her mouth.
In October, she rated the pain in her jaw at 8.5 on a scale of one to 10. And that same month, Fletcher ended up in an emergency room because of numbness in her lips and a drooping right eye, records show.
This month, Ingalls wrote in Fletcher's medical records that after she returned from treatment at the pain clinic, he discovered a "small piece of bone" in her jaw that "appears to be working itself out." Ingalls removed the bone spur during a Jan. 6 surgery.
Fletcher missed a big chunk of her senior year of high school to enter the three-week pain management program in Cleveland.
"She is likely to have a lifetime of pain," her mother said. "I think Dr. James and the University of Colorado should be held accountable for this outcome.
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Today I got a call from Barbara's office, but I wasn't near my phone so I called back and left a message. I haven't been interviewed yet. Does anyone know why I got a call? From my understanding, email is used for interview invites, and a phone call for acceptances. It's killing me to know.
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I'm not sure, but as far as I know, you are correct in thinking that email is for interviews and phone calls are for acceptances.
Maybe since it is getting later in the cycle, they wanted to get in contact with you quickly regarding an interview, hence the phone call? Sheer speculation, but you never know. Good luck and let us know what it was all about!
Maybe since it is getting later in the cycle, they wanted to get in contact with you quickly regarding an interview, hence the phone call? Sheer speculation, but you never know. Good luck and let us know what it was all about!
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Too pushy? No way! Barbara is not a voting member for admissions. If CU is your top choice, bug the hell out of them. As you wait, others might be taking your interview spot, forcing you to take a later date. So, bug the sh_t out of them if you want in. IMHO
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I want to so much, but I already left a message. I would think that it would be enough for them to call me back. If the call really was for an interview, that probably means I'm going to get one eventually. I remember reading on a different thread that they still have spots open even in March and so I don't feel like a slightly later date would hinder my chances by much, if at all. Still, I am very very curious to know why I got a call. I don't know why I feel like I have to be patient.
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Congrats, Ninja9, that's is awesome! See you this summer!
Ramo88, I'm pretty sure they don't call to reject you. Try shooting her an email -- Barbara is the nicest lady and won't mind receiving an email even if you already called. They give her A LOT of work, so she's probably pretty busy!
Ramo88, I'm pretty sure they don't call to reject you. Try shooting her an email -- Barbara is the nicest lady and won't mind receiving an email even if you already called. They give her A LOT of work, so she's probably pretty busy!
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I don't think think they would call to reject me either. At least I hope not.
I ended up sending her an email late this evening. Hopefully I'll know tomorrow morning.
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congratulations ramo88!
Yeah thanks to our feedback this is going to change. CU will change stuff they just need to hear it from the students and not complaining on SDN
Oh and way to go RAMO!
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CONGRATS! See, you had nothing to worry about. 😀
Good luck on the interview!
Thanks everyone!
Just wondering, how many applicants are usually interviewed per interview date? Did you guys/gals see a lot of people during your interviews?
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If I remember correctly, at my interview there were 10 people interviewing, including myself.
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Thank you.
Last cycle, their monthly round of acceptances was February 27th. I'm guessing it is around that time. Just curious, when did you have your interview and are you in or out of state?
I interviewed back in the middle of Nov. I was also out of state. I am starting to give up hope for Colorado.
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I got some useful numbers from this thread: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=700459
For in state last year, 160 applied and 106 got an interview. There were 31 seats given to in state students last year.
For out of state, 1375 applied and 107 got an interview. There were 21 seats given to out of state students last year.
For in state last year, 160 applied and 106 got an interview. There were 31 seats given to in state students last year.
For out of state, 1375 applied and 107 got an interview. There were 21 seats given to out of state students last year.
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Do the out-of-state seats include WICHE individuals?
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I don't have a source to confirm, but I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that it does. 21 seats for OOS non-WICHE would be a lot.
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the isp students will be filling a class action law suit against the school for racial discrimination. the aclu is on board as well. one isp student was assaulted last week. two professors were having sexual relationships with maried isp students. one got pregnant. THIS NEEDS TO STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
