We're back! After two years of inactivity, the Dental Equipment & Materials Web site is back online! The current issue, along with archives and other special features, can be found at www.dentalequipment.net. The best thing about the site, however, may be the fact that it is a partnered Web site, with ownership split among four of PennWell's dental publications — DE&M, Dental Economics, RDH, and Woman Dentist Journal. We've worked for months to make this site one that the entire office staff can visit and explore. It's also a site where you can share articles with your fellow staff members and maybe learn a little bit about what topics are important to them in the workplace. The new and improved site launched at the end of September, and we know it will be a valuable resource for your entire staff. Be sure to check us out on the World Wide Web at www.dentalequipment.net.
Speaking of computers, inside this issue of DE&M you'll find the form for the first-ever practice-management software survey, which will be conducted by DE&M over the next two months. We think the format of this survey will provide a unique twist — the only input for this story comes from you, the software user. In August, Dental Economics ran a buyer's guide featuring all of the information supplied by the software manufacturers. DE&M is going to be looking at the software issue from your vantage point in the January/February issue. Drs. Paul Feuerstein and Lorne Lavine, two of America's most technology-minded practitioners, will be writing the story and helping me compile the data. Does Company X really perform as well as it claims? You tell us! Fill out the form on page 11 and return it to us. We'll compile the results and let you know. Remember, we want to hear from you, so complete the form on page 11 and send it in today.
Like seemingly everyone else in America, I was recently reading a book on management when I came across an interesting story about Mahatma Gandhi. It seems that Gandhi was walking down the road one day when a mother brought her young son up to him and asked Gandhi to tell the boy to stop eating candy. She pleaded with Gandhi to explain the reasons why candy was bad for you and wasn't part of what a boy needed to be eating on a daily basis. Gandhi looked at the mother and thought for a moment. He asked her to bring her son back in one month and he would then tell him then to stop eating candy. Not doubting Gandhi's wisdom, the mother and child went away. Exactly one month later, the mother and her son were back in front of Gandhi. Again, the mother asked him to explain the virtues of a candy-free diet to her son. This time, Gandhi knelt beside the boy and told the boy the problems caused by candy. As he arose from speaking to the boy, the mother thanked him for his time. However, she still had a burning question — why wait a month before telling the boy to avoid candy? Gandhi looked at her and smiled. "I was eating candy at the time you first came to me, and it wouldn't be right for me to tell the boy one thing and then I do another," he explained.
What a great story with a great message. It seems that, too often, people will say one thing, then turn around and do the complete opposite. My pastor recently asked the congregation if, morally, we were more than one person. Do I have different morals when I'm in church than I do in the office, or at home, or on a business trip?
Gandhi also had another quote that I recently discovered: "A person cannot do right in one department whilst attempting to do wrong in another department. Life is one indivisible whole."
As the clock winds down on 2003, I hope that you find you are leading by example, in the home, office, and community.
Read on, this is your magazine...
Kevin Henry, Editor
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