WHAT IS FORCE?

FORCE is a not for profit 501c3 corporation that was developed by Dr. Laurance Jerrold. 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.

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HOW DOES FORCE WORK?

Many resident research projects are survey based. Surveys or questionnaires are mailed out randomly, and traditionally the response rate is quite terrible. FORCE is a practice based research network of a few hundred doctors, our Research Fellows. All Fellows have agreed to respond to 3-5 surveys per year from orthodontic residents. By doing this, it is expected that the resident will be virtually assured of having a response rate of at least 80-90% which is essentially unheard of as far as surveys go. This becomes a huge benefit for the resident who needs to have valid survey results in order to complete the research component of his/her training.

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WHO ARE FORCE’S FELLOWS?

The orthodontists who comprise the research network of FORCE are a nationwide mix of practitioners who desire to support orthodontic education. As all of our Fellows practice in different parts of the country; use different philosophical approaches to diagnostics, as well as treatment mechanics; while some 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.

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WHY WOULD SOMEONE WANT TO BECOM E A FELLOW?

The quid pro quo for a Fellow’s participation is that he/she receives a beautiful plaque for their office indicating their status as a Research Fellow in FORCE’s clinical practice based network. In addition, they receive a press release for publication and marketing purposes indicating their being selected from among thousands of orthodontic offices that their practice was chosen to participate in FORCE’s practice based research network; and, that they have been accorded Fellowship in the Foundation. Hey, who doesn’t want the publicity? Finally, at year’s end, the Fellow receives an electronic copy of all research completed and sponsored by FORCE. We are trying to partner with a registered CERP provider in order to eventually grant CE credit associated with the research projects but the nuts and bolts for this has not been worked out yet.

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ASIDE FROM PROVIDING SURVEY RESPONDENTS, WHAT ELSE DOES FORCE DO?

FORCE also offers financial research support to the 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 include incubator rental, culturing costs, techs to read the slides, bench testing rental time, survey costs, statistician fees, etc. The debt load that residents graduate with today is enormous and financial support from FORCE is one way that we can limit, albeit in a small way, any resident from having to incur more educational debt.

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HOW DOES ONE BECOME A FELLOW?

The Application for Fellowship can be obtained on FORCE’s website, www.forceresearchnetwork.org. The Fellow also needs to complete a short Demographic Questionnaire. The only other requirement is the Fellow’s commitment to participate in a few surveys during the course of a year.

 

IS THERE A COST TO BECOME A FELLOW?

Yes, but it is minimal. The first year’s contribution is $165 to help offset the cost of the plaque and after that it is just $85 per year which will provide funding for the research efforts as noted above. This yearly contribution is less than the cost of dinner for two, but in the aggregate, if 200-300 practitioners agree to participate, it will eventually 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 member. The donation for that is a one time only contribution of $2,500 with no annual fee thereafter. This will go a long way toward developing a healthy corpus. The goal is to use the interest income generated from contributions to support the financial requests FORCE receives from the resident 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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ARE THERE OTHER BENEFITS TO PARTICIPATING IN FORCE?

Dr. Jerrold believes that this is a good thing for orthodontics and hopes that you do too. FORCE can be an example to the rest of dentistry in terms of how a well-designed practice based research network can work particularly in terms of providing a myriad of data relating to any number of issues, concerns or questions regarding various aspects of contemporary orthodontic practice. If you have any questions regarding FORCE or just wish to contact Dr. Jerrold, feel free to do so by emailing him at drlarryjerrold@gmail.com, or by calling him on his cell at (904) 710-5125.