June 1, 2022

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To all of my former residents, colleagues, and friends:

 

     Lately I have noticed a small light at the end of the tunnel. It’s still pretty far off but it is visible. And so, as my career winds down I have started to look back on it and reflect. Orthodontics has been pretty good to me. I have been fortunate enough to have gone through a number of life changing occurrences that have led me to experience the venues of multi office private practice; holding leadership positions and administrative roles in organized dentistry; and, the most professionally and personally fulfilling, has been my involvement with academia.

 

     At this point I would like to start giving back to orthodontics differently than I have in the past. There are many things I can’t change, but there are a few things I can; and toward that end I have started FORCE, a not for profit 501c3 corporation. FORCE stands for Foundation for Orthodontic Research and Continuing Education. Its main purpose is to help orthodontic residents fulfill the research component of their programmatic requirements. Here’s how it is designed to work.

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     As you may know, many resident research projects are survey based. Surveys or questionnaires are mailed out randomly, and traditionally the response rate is quite terrible. What I want to do is establish a practice based research network of a few hundred doctors – you guys. Once you agree to participate you will become a “Research Fellow” in our practice based network of offices. Your only responsibility would be to agree to answer no more than 3-5 surveys per year. Usually a survey takes no more than 10-15 minutes to complete. If you do this, the resident would be virtually assured of having a response rate of at least 80-90% which is essentially unheard of as far as surveys go. Since all of you practice in different parts of the country and use different philosophical approaches to diagnostics as well as treatment mechanics; not to mention that some of you have been in practice for over 30 years and some for 5 years; the data collected becomes a very meaningful cross sectional depiction of clinical orthodontics. The quid pro quo for your participation is that you will receive a beautiful plaque for your office indicating your status as a Research Fellow in FORCE’s clinical practice based network. In addition, we will be sending each of you a press release for publication and marketing purposes indicating your selection from among thousands of orthodontists that your practice was chosen to participate in a practice based research network; and, that you have been accorded Fellowship in the Foundation. Hey, who doesn’t want the publicity? This becomes a real WIN-WIN; not only for you, but it’s a huge benefit for the resident who needs to have valid survey results in order to complete the research component of his training. Finally, at year’s end, you will receive an electronic copy of all research completed and sponsored by FORCE.

 

     FORCE will also be offering financial research support to all residents of CODA accredited orthodontic programs. Often residents need financial support to cover research associated expenses of one type or another. Examples from prior projects I and others have mentored include incubator rental, culturing costs, techs to read the slides, bench testing rental time, and other incidental research related purchases. My goal is to use the interest income generated to support the financial requests we receive from the residents and leave the corpus intact. To protect the integrity of the program and to minimize any favoritism regarding disbursements, the amount of funding available per resident is directly proportional to the total contributions obtained from the Fellows that graduated from that resident’s institution.

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     Finally, FORCE supports specific continuing education endeavors for residents.  As of the date of this letter, FORCE has sponsored a research symposium for the last 6 years where residents from half a dozen New York City CODA accredited programs have gathered to present their research to each other in a formal symposium setting and many of these resident required research projects have gone on to be published, thus helping to contribute to our compilation of evidence based data.     

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     There’s just one other thing... money. The survey tools cost money, the survey validation people cost money, the statistician to analyze the data costs money, the plaques cost money, the CE support costs money, research testing equipment costs - well you get it.

 

     Here’s what I’m asking you to do. Please donate a tax deductible contribution of $165 in the first year to help cover the cost of the plaque and contribute to the research corpus. After that the annual renewal fee is just $85 per year to use for the purposes noted above. This yearly contribution is less than the cost of dinner for two, but in the aggregate, if 200-300 of you agree to participate, it will be enough to generate a few thousand dollars in interest to support the expected 15-20 or so projects seeking support each year. If you are feeling really generous, consider becoming a Founding Lifetime Fellow. The donation for that is only $2,500. It really would be great to find a few of you willing to do this.

 

     Finally, I want to thank all of you for a few things. First, and I really mean this, is that many of you, each in your own way, significantly contributed toward making the second half of my career (academics) extremely satisfying. Second, I want to thank all of you for considering this proposal. Hopefully, enough of you will see the benefit that FORCE can provide to future residents and to orthodontics from the research results that they obtain. Third, for those of you who do participate, thanks in advance and I can’t wait to send out a bunch of certificates knowing that your contribution will help drive the development of a unique practice based research network. Lastly, thank you for partnering with me. I believe this is a good thing for orthodontics and I hope that you do too. We can be an example to the rest of dentistry in terms of how a well-designed practice based research network can work. If you have any questions regarding this solicitation or just wish to contact me, feel free to do so by emailing me at drlarryjerrold@gmail.com, or by calling me on my cell at (904) 710-5125.

All my best.

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