By Sheldon Spackman

Red Deer dentist may take dispute with dental authority to Supreme Court

Sep 26, 2018 | 3:16 PM

A local dentist accused of unprofessional conduct through his advertising practices is hoping to defend himself to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Dr. Michael Zuk of Bower Dental Centre in Red Deer says his dispute with the Alberta Dental Association and College (ADA&C) may result in that step if no alternative dispute resolution can be reached informally outside of court.

“We’ve got dentists taking these courses that are sponsored by dental labs that make money by selling more crowns and veneers. So if you take a course and it teaches you to sell a mouthful of unnecessary treatment, as a patient, I would think it would be a concern,” he explained about his dispute.

“The dental authority has been allowing this to go on for over 20 years. It’s been advertising these courses, it’s been approving the courses for continuing education credit, it’s been giving the owner of the dental lab that’s promoted these courses a ‘Friend of Dentistry’ award but the program itself has probably caused more harm and malpractice than any other course in North America.”

After speaking out through written, online and interview publications – including a book about the practice, Zuk says its resulted in a roughly 10-year dispute with ADA&C which recently saw the Court of Appeal of Alberta uphold the dental authority’s allegations against him.

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However, he adds the Court of Appeal has quashed the dental authority’s verdict and its sanctions against him and has advised Zuk to try and work out his differences with ADA&C.

“That’s kind of the plan right now but I’ve just told my lawyer I would like to appeal the case to the Supreme Court because it does involve a sanction of a book, which is basically an infringement upon my freedom of speech” he explains. “That basically takes it to a higher court where instead of looking at little rules that are made up by a dental authority for advertising which change every year, we look at freedom of speech where if I’m actually speaking about something that’s actually a concern, that the public has a right to know about, that is a different level of consideration.”

Zuk feels it’s a direction he needs to take at this time.

“The way the dental authority works is they pick the jury, they make the rules and they can beat you up, even though members of the jury are actually violating the same rules,” he exclaims. “It can be quite humiliating to sit there and be judged by people who are actually at that exact moment violating advertising rules they’re making a big stink over.”

Although he feels the ADA&C’s stance on advertising, something Zuk has been criticized for, may be softening up somewhat in recent years, he feels there’s only a small chance their dispute can be resolved outside of court.

“I think at some point, they’re going to realize that this sideline on advertising was just a big joke,” exclaims Zuk. “It’s a long journey but if it’s taken 10 years so far, I would expect probably another three or four years before this thing gets settled. I would like the dental authority to admit that they should have banned the continuing education program under the banner Las Vegas Institute or LVI and suspended the credits for this program. If they could admit that they made some mistakes, it would make a nice and tidy end to this mess.”

Zuk encourages anyone with a full mouth of crowns installed or has been treated by a dentist claiming to be an LVI expert, to contact him for a discussion.

The Alberta Dental Association and College offered a brief statement regarding their dispute with Dr. Zuk.

“We are pleased with the decision of the Court of Appeal,” says Dr. Randall Croutze, Chief Executive Officer, ADA&C.