Michigan dental school fights $1.7 million verdict

Michigan dental school fights $1.7 million verdict

By DrBicuspid Staff

December 24, 2008 -- Four faculty members of the University of Michigan School of Dentistry are demanding a new trial in the case of a student who was awarded more than $1 million for unfair dismissal from the school, according to an Associated Press (AP) story.

As previously reported by DrBicuspid.com, Alissa Zwick was awarded $1.7 million this month after a federal jury decided that her due process rights were violated and she was unfairly dismissed from the school in 2005.

She was the victim of infighting between faculty members and the school's associate dean, Marilyn Lantz, D.M.D., Zwick's attorney Deborah Gordon told DrBicuspid.com at the time.

Now the faculty members are asking for a new trial or a reduction in the jury's award, plus $500,000 for emotional distress, the AP reported.

"Lawyers for Lantz and three other defendants -- Drs. Bill Piskorowski, Mark Snyder, and Fred Burgett -- said key rulings on evidence and jury instructions swayed jurors in Zwick's favor," the AP reported.

U.S. District Judge Marianne Battani will hear arguments on February 11.

Man arrested for doing dentistry in his kitchen

Man arrested for doing dentistry in his kitchen

By DrBicuspid Staff

December 24, 2008 -- A Peekskill, NY, man was arrested December 23 for practicing dentistry in his kitchen without a license, according to news reports.

Police said Carlos Flores, 68, a native of Ecuador, had a dentist chair, dental tools, and various medications in his home at the time of his arrest.

They learned of his unauthorized operation after a man who went to him with a toothache wound up in the emergency room of a local hospital, the Lower Hudson Journal News reported.

Flores, who police said claims to have been a licensed orthodontist in Ecuador, was charged with unauthorized practice of a profession and criminal possession of a controlled substance.

U Michigan gets birth defects grant

U Michigan gets birth defects grant

By DrBicuspid Staff

December 24, 2008 -- Dental school graduates can study cleft lips and palates and other craniofacial anomalies at the University of Michigan thanks to a new $750,000 fellowship, according to a report in the Ann Arbor News.

The money comes from the Coghlan Family Foundation, which donated $500,000, and the university itself, which added $250,000 to the fund through U-M President Mary Sue Coleman's Donor Challenge program, the newspaper reported.

"In the state of Michigan, we have about 3,000 children born with a craniofacial anomaly or birth defect," Katherine Kelly, D.D.S., M.S., an adjunct professor, told the newspaper. "We only have 300 orthodontists in the state, and a fair number of those are elderly and retiring and didn't receive this training."

Application submission opens next summer, and the one-year fellowship will be awarded to one dental school resident each year.