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DENTAL TRIBUNE | May 2010 Opinion Feedback 3A The goal is to encourage health with proven minimally invasive treatments, and this can only be done with evidence-based facts, proven knowledge and objective clinical results. Malcmacher clearly stated that he bases his opinion on no authoritative evidence except discussions with dentists he has had during his travels. Malcmacher makes an analogy of being a quarterback, so allow me to build on that analogy and leave you with this to think on: a quar- terback who doesn’t play with an effective, cohesive team gets sacked every time. DT Best Regards, David L. Hoexter Editor in Chief I am happy to report that Den- tal Tribune has received many pro- vocative responses (some of which appear below) to the opinion piece by Louis Malcmacher, DDS, MAGD, “Where did all the periodontists go?” in the Vol. 5, No. 12 edition. Personally, I am still here and I didn’t know that the rest of us had gone anywhere, but I guess that, too, can be a topic of provocative discussion. First off, let me acknowledge that the piece was supposed to be labeled as our new Opinion section, but due to a production error, the article retained the Practice Matters sec- tion label. However, even without the correct section label, the piece achieved our goals for it: it got peo- ple writing us with their responses. The goal of the new Opinion sec- tion is to give dentists a forum in which to agree, disagree, discuss and inform, and given the response to the first article, it has certainly achieved this goal. Thankfully, we live in a country where our Constitution guarantees us the right to free speech. You should feel privileged to exercise that right and send in a response to future Opinion section articles should you be moved to do so. That being said, Malcmacher’s article is especially provocative because he discusses an approach that allows patients to determine the dental treatment that they will receive based on the patients’ own habits, rather than depend- ing on evidence-based facts, proven knowledge and objective clinical results. AD Dear Reader, Dear Dr. Hoexter, We are writing this let- ter in response to Dr. Louis Malcmacher’s article, which appeared in the May issue of Dental Tribune, titled “Where did all the periodontists go?” First of all, let us assure you that, as a specialty, peri- odontology is alive and well, and the increasing number of research studies supporting the perio-systemic link dem- onstrates that the role of the periodontist is more relevant than ever. While we agree with Dr. Malcmacher that gen- eral dentists are the “quar- terbacks” of the dental team, we also view the periodontist as the specialty team member who is uniquely qualified in providing an accurate prog- nosis of all viable treatment options, whether it is non- invasive periodontal therapy, periodontal surgery or extrac- tion followed by replacement with dental implants. Dr. Malcmacher men- tions that he has spoken to many periodontists but this, in our view, is anecdotal and does not accurately rep- resent the entire periodon- tal profession. We believe that the majority of periodontal specialists make ethical deci- sions every day regarding retention of the dentition ver- sus extraction and placement