The first thing I need to relate is that this is not a retirement announcement letter. I got in trouble with several of you, OK, a bunch of you, when I wrote you my "I've-been-in-practice-3O years-arid-I-still-love-'ya" letter. That said and since I plan to be around for another 10 years, or so, I wanted to answer a question posed to me often, "What's new in dentistry that will make a difference for me?"

What comes up immediately for me are five technical advances we have added since October that together, are designed to help with:

• enhanced diagnosis of your level of health.
• improved communication and your increased under¬standing of your level of health.
• conservative and effective treatment of people needing therapy.

Each treatment room has been equipped with a computer and 19-inch monitor. This will, in part, give us the ability to network data from any treatment area to every work station in the office. Paired with our new intraoral cameras, a photograph of your tooth taken in any treatment room can be viewed by you to more fully understand our verbal descriptions {for the visually-oriented, "Show me what you are talking about"), can be kept on file to be used for comparison-of-status at future visits ("Has this filling/lesion/recession/crowding changed much since last time?"), and can be printed for an interested patient or spouse ("Why did that tooth need to have an inlay?").

Because helping you maintain your best periodontal (gum and bone tissue surrounding teeth) health is crucial to maintaining and improving your overall health, early diagnosis of problems and your full understanding of your condition is crucial. This is more than a casual relationship: Periodontal disease has been directly related to an increase in strokes, heart attacks, diabetes, premature/low birth weight babies, and more. We now have a computer-assisted way to comfortably measure periodontal pockets with 2/10 mm accuracy while displaying results on the monitor and printing those results for your chart and/or personal understanding. Early diagnosis and understanding is invaluable and will be greatly assisted by our Florida Probe.

For people whose periodontal condition is not healthy, I have upgraded my training and have been using an incredible, new laser technology. With our Periolase, we are saving teeth I formerly thought were unsavable and are conservatively treating teeth that formerly would have been candidates for extreme surgical intervention. This Laser Assisted New Attachment Procedure (called LANAP) has been amazing aid to keeping more of the original parts God created us with: An amazing aid for people to keep their teeth in a healthy state.

I cannot go on without announcing that we have found the exact hygienist for whom we have been looking, Melanie Cantarella. She is tender, talented, teaching, and terrific. We are so excited to have her work with us and with you.