Thursday, July 21, 2016

Life's Mission Statement

Almost 15 years ago I came to the conclusion that our government’s efforts to control every aspect of our life was becoming so oppressive that as a small business person it was impossible for me to keep up with all new government regulations.  We opted to hire a staff outsourcing company called Staff Resources who would handle all of our human resources needs and essentially I would be “leasing” my staff from staff resources. Jo, our HR representative from Staff Resources, was in charge of general supervision of our practice. She instilled in me the necessity of equal treatment for everyone in the practice. I could not play favorites with staff members. I had a close working relationship with staff members. We have worked with this concept for many years and it has serviced us well which brings me to the reason for this blog. In contemplating this concept of fairness for all I came up many years ago with my life’s mission statement so I thought I would write it down and it has been in my file ever since and I thought I would now blog it.

 My life’s mission statement reads “I believe that I have a responsibility to be a good person by that I mean fair, honest, hardworking and honorable. If I do that, if I am good to my family, fair to my staff and patients, true to my friends. If I give back to the community, if I am not a liar, a cheat or a thief then I believe that should be good enough. At the end of the day if there is indeed somebody or presence standing there to judge me, I hope that I will be judged on whether I lived that true life and not whether I worshiped a certain “God.”

 Even though I wrote this many years ago, I believe it is as true today as when we first hired on Jo from Staff Resources to verify that we are “fair” to all of our staff. See you on our next blog. 

Thursday, July 7, 2016

Digital Radiographs

We at Boulevard Family Dentistry have been using panoramic x-rays for 24 years to help us diagnose an extended range of potential oral conditions.  These were originally done with analog x-ray film which we ran through an x-ray processor.  That was a great process but had certainly many limitations.  We converted our panoramic x-ray in 2002 retrofitting it for digital x-rays that substantially lowered our patients x-ray exposure levels and improving the image quality.  To take that to the next level, we opted to replace our Gendex panoramic x-ray with a brand new state-of-the-art Orthopantomograph OP30 digital panoramic x-ray unit.  It provides us with many upgrades which benefits us as diagnosticians and the patient with increased diagnostic capabilities.  For the patients that means radiation exposure that is half of what it was with the analog machine.  A total of 10 seconds exposure compared to 20 seconds, that is more that 4 times better than the old analog pano.  Our patients with severe gag reflex or large tori or fearful young patients, the new panoramic x-ray offers external bite-wing radiographs for diagnosing cavities with no x-ray film in the mouth.  We can do temporomandibular joint targeted exposures for better TMJ dysfunction diagnostic capabilities and we have state-of-the-art image quality.  This leads us to a win/win situation for the patients, staff and for our diagnostic capabilities.  We will continue to strive to update our office with the latest state-of-the-art techniques and equipment as always trying to give the best possible care to our large family of patients.