To the editor:

UNLV and the School of Dental Medicine must assume a "no tolerance" posture in handling the situation involving the 10 members of the first graduating class who engaged in profoundly unethical conduct both as academics and as health-care practitioners.

The students allegedly misused a faculty member's password to falsify their academic records indicating that they performed approved treatments on patients. Their conduct challenges the academic integrity of UNLV and the dental school. If any doctoral student had presented false or plagiarized information in his dissertation, his degree would rightly be revoked. The same standard must be applied to the dental school.

Cheating can never be allowed under any circumstances in colleges -- and especially in professional schools. Medical and dental training is known to be rigorous and not everyone who wants to be a doctor or dentist should be. We trust the professional schools to identify those who should not enter the profession and remove them. It is not enough that a doctor or dentist be technically competent. Society validly demands that health care practitioners also be morally sound. If a student cheats his way out of dental school, what could we expect of this dentist in practice?

Further, the gravity of the students' misconduct evidences a serious departure from fundamental tenets of health-care ethics -- chiefly the duty to the patient's best interest and to morally sound professional conduct.

Patients submitted themselves to the dental school for treatment by the training dentists. It is reasonable to assume that these patients understood that any treatment they received would at least approved and or supervised by an experienced faculty member. If the training dentists in fact treated patients without proper supervision or approval, then the dental students violated the fidelity to the patient's fundamental trust by indirectly lying to them.

Complete trust is essential to the healing relationship between patient and any health care provider. The patient is vulnerable and is yielding not only to the practitioner's technical skill, but also the practitioner's sound moral judgment that the treatment is in the best interests of the patient.

It cannot be supported that unapproved treatment was in the best interests of the patient in this situation, even if no harm was done to the patient.

The best course of action in the best interest of the patient would be to ensure that the training dentists validated their treatment plan with their supervising faculty member.

To usurp the policy of verifying a treatment plan places the personal interests of the student above the best possible care for the patient. Such a departure from procedure evidences a dangerously bold arrogance.

This system is clearly broken. The school is looking to the Nevada Board of Dental Examiners to determine if the conduct of the cheating students would subject the new dentist to licensure denial or other discipline. This is the wrong approach.

The regulatory and licensing boards of the states represent the legal standard for practice of the profession. In large part they accept the credentials of the applicant and issue the license based on the validity of the accreditation of the training and passage of the national tests. It is certainly the prerogative for each board to perform their own testing to supplement these credentials. But the boards are largely unable to enforce certain moral standards.

It is the responsibility of the training programs and professional schools first and foremost to ensure that they are producing technically competent and morally sound doctors and dentists. Correcting this wrong is the school's responsibility.

The integrity of the school is on the line, the accreditation of the school could be threatened, the validity of the training is suspect, and if these students can't get licensed in this state then their professional careers are at risk. But above all else is the risk to the public of unethical and fraudulent dentists.

The morally aberrant conduct of these students is severe. It should be met with equally severe consequences by revoking their degrees. This is the only way to correct the wrong, prevent future cheating and demonstrate to the public that only excellent dentists will graduate from UNLV's dental school and serve the public in the most technically competent and ethically valid manner.

Trey Delap

HENDERSON

THE WRITER IS CURRENTLY A UNLV GRADUATE STUDENT STUDYING MEDICAL ETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY. HE IS ALSO FORMER DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE NEVADA STATE BOARD OF OSTEOPATHIC MEDICINE, A STATE LICENSING AUTHORITY.

To the editor:

Regarding the recent news of the 10 students who were found to have cheated at the UNLV dental school:

Let's not forget the remainder of the students who worked hard at completing school the correct way without cheating. Criticize the students who were wrong in the matter, but don't deplete the morale that the other students need to achieve their academic goals.

They don't need to be discouraged. They need to be encouraged to continue the good work they have done so far and will keep doing in the future.

Maryann Cecere

LAS VEGAS