Letter From Dear Doctor

Issue 4 of Dear Doctor Magazine

We are delighted to present Volume II, Issue I of Dear Doctor – Dentistry & Oral Health marking the second year of our magazine. At the outset of this anniversary issue we want to take a moment to thank you once again, our readers, for the overwhelming support we have received. We want the magazine to make a difference in the world by adding to your quality of life; we want to be advocates for your health and healthcare, not only because we believe in the magazine, but also because we are practicing healthcare professionals. We are proud and humbled by our colleagues, the dentists who like us believe high quality patient education is important and who have been gracious enough to provide you with Dear Doctor magazine. Our dentists have made a commitment to provide you with the finest educational information available to give you confidence in making healthcare decisions.

Dear Doctor magazine's "reason for being" is to increase your knowledge and awareness of dental and oral health topics, to provide necessary information on current topics of interest, treatment and therapies available. More importantly it is our mission to empower you with a greater ability to make informed healthcare decisions and choices together with your healthcare professionals, and have some fun along the way with great graphics, beautiful smiles and easy reading.

We have worked hard to ensure our goal, that the information in Dear Doctor presents cutting edge knowledge, with editorial material that is based "on the evidence" of what we know from dental and medical science, borne out by research and clinical experience. We are proud and guarantee that Dear Doctor is written exclusively by the foremost experts in their fields and edited for you, the public to read in an easy to understand, everyday language.

This magazine represents change, it is a first and one of a kind. It is designed to help create confidence and ensure as best we can, that you are able to make educated, informed and confident healthcare decisions in partnership with your dentist. We feel that substance and credibility are more important than "sound bites". We strongly believe that the editorial content of the magazine cannot be made up of quick reads; that is not the mission of Dear Doctor. Neither is the magazine a throw away, the issues of Dear Doctor are designed to be kept for reference; they are indexed and catalogued for future use. The feature articles will be summarized on the Dear Doctor website later this year, by popular demand; the consultations are already available in their entirety.

With these goals in mind, we need your constant and continuing feedback. If you have any questions or opinions while reading, you can email Dear Doctor your questions, comments and suggestions by visiting our website at www.DearDoctor.com. Your feedback is critical and welcome to allow us to be responsive to your healthcare needs. You are a large part of making Dear Doctor what it is. You can shape its future with your topics of interest. In the following pages you will find feature articles and consultations based on questions asked by individuals, as well as interviews and other useful areas of educational and fun bits of information — topics of interest to both professionals and members of the public at large.

Our profound thanks once again,