CLINICIANspotlight
Genesis by Tom Colquitt, DDS
T
he Pulmo-venture started as a joke. Perhaps a rant of sorts, but certainly a joke-song. The joke highlighting the ever confusing if not crushing world for our patients and the predicament we found ourselves in as their dental providers. Our patients with breathing disordered sleep and an AHI of less than 5 received no allowable treatment from the medical/health insurance providers, and these people were sick. Very sick. Snorin’ heartburn pissin’ sweatin’ on my face Couldn’t get to sleep last night. Woke up feelin’ ‘zactly like I ran a race Nothin’ seems is goin’ right. I’m Back in The UARS, boy! You know my life is a mess, boy!
Patients with Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome (UARS)
Knowing our limitations in a medically based system, we dentists knew these people needed much more than a pat on the head and a tear sheet recommending melatonin and bedtime rules. We needed to address gaps in the dental- medical health system, educate others on what could be done, and get treatment options that could potentially save lives. Back then, being blessed/cursed with a longstanding practice of ranting about things that troubled me, I wrote the song sharing the peril of a human being suffering from UARS in a medical system actively trying to erase that term. It captured the existential plight for our patients and the dance we “Airway Centered
12 DSP | Fall 2024
Dentists” were stepping to, on a floor that was as uneven as it was slippery, given the scrutiny from our medical colleagues. Set to the tune of the Beatles’ “Back in the USSR,” the song became an anthem of sorts. A public health crisis/acknowledgement of the gaps and breaks that left our patients in the dust. Went to see my doc, said “What you gotta do… Need to go and take this test Sleep Doc he says “Fella, I cannot help you.” It is not OSA, it’s UARS. I’m back in the UARS, my health insurance’s a mess, boy! The song was also a bridge. A bridge to needed collaborators, both clinical and musical. Like any anthem, the song needed a band to promulgate the message. Much later, a murder of musical crows would fulfill that hope. In the past 25 years I’ve learned more and have met more wonderful new people than in the first 30 years of my restorative practice. Keith Thornton, Mark Cruz, Barry Raphael, Bill Hang, Kevin Boyd, Scott Neish, Roger Price, Ted Belfor, Darin Ward, and so many other thought leaders. Colleagues. Mentors. Friends. Turns out some of them are also rather good closet musicians. Barry’s a bassist. Scott’s a guitarist. Darin sings and plays a mean blues harp. Between our dental airway machinations to change the world, we found ourselves conspiring to get together in Shreveport so we could record “UARS” in my music room. Six years pass. There are lots of conferences, lots of talk, and the needle begins to move. But there is no music in Shreveport.