Summertime and the living is so good!

Welcome to SilvermanDMD, my personal blog site.  Most of you know me as the president and cofounder of the Dental Organization for Conscious Sedation.  But like you, my life revolves around work, family, recreation and other non-business activities. 

SilvermanDMD is my effort to celebrate dentistry and what it has allowed me to do in my personal life.  Dentists are a unique breed.  Heroes in my humble opinion.  Most of us have overcome significant obstacles to acheive our goals and we are a community.  How much more so members of D.O.C.S. who had the courage, vision and commitment to expand their dental skills to better serve their patients.  In turn, we have also enjoyed a higher standard of living.

I hope you visit this site often and get to know me and my passions.  I'll bet you'll find that we have a lot in common -- both in dentistry and outside of it.

What follows is the letter I sent to all D.O.C.S. members officially announcing our relocation from Philadelphia to Seattle.  I think its sets a foundation for what is to come on my blog.

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It is with great pride that I am writing you today to let you know that D.O.C.S. has taken another important step in our commitment to remain a dynamic, responsive partner in your dental practices.

Effective June 1, 2006, we have relocated our headquarter offices from suburban Philadelphia to suburban Seattle.  This move, in the planning for more than 9 months, will address the growing need for D.O.C.s to provide timely and expert consultations to our members, as well as utilize state-of-the-art technology to support our efforts.

I, myself, can hardly believe how rapidly and successfully D.O.C.S. has grown since we launched it xx years ago in the basement of my Lafayette Hill dental practice.  Since then, we have been at the forefront of sedation dentistry, training more than 3,500 practitioners in our safe, reliable and popular techniques.

In addition, D.O.C.S. has led the charge nationally to educate regulators about the benefits of sedation dentistry and to ensure that competent dentists are not prevented from offering this crucial service to the nation’s 145 million patients who suffer anxiety at the thought of dental care.

Likewise, D.O.C.S. has fostered and funded scientific research into sedation dentistry, offering grants to researchers interested in studying oral sedative medications for the purpose of anxiolysis and conscious sedation.

Throughout our expansion and development, D.O.C.S. has remained true to its core mission:  To make certain that high-fear patients have access to safe, comfortable care.

Our decision to relocate to the Seattle area flows directly from our commitment to meet the changing and expanding needs of our members and their patients.

In the fall of 2005, we evaluated our current level of service and forecast our future needs based upon the popularity of our organization among the dental community.  At the time we had 17 employees, but concluded to continue and expand our level of member services we would soon have to at least double that number.

Such an expansion would not only entail recruiting many new client service specialists to our organization, it would also require both the upgraded physical and communications infrastructure to support our enlarged organization. 

Late last year I looked around our already cramped Philly offices and realized we would have to relocate to accommodate our growth.

Initially, I assumed that we would select a new location in the greater Philadelphia area.  But once I thought some more about it, I recognized that we need not confine ourselves to our then current geographical location.  Once everything is loaded on the moving vans, it occurred to me, it really makes no difference if we are moving one block or cross country.

So I began a search for a new location with no geographical limitations whatsoever.  I had multiple goals, including:  locating an area with a well-educated, highly motivated labor force; easy access to communications infrastructure and related consultants; an attractive locale for employees and their families; and a cost-of-living that would benefit both the organization and its people. 

When my search was over, we loaded up the moving vans and pointed them to Seattle.

I wanted our relocation to Seattle to be equally seamless.  And, I believe it was.

So here we are in our new facilities in America’s Northwest.  We are ready as ever to meet and exceed your expectations, only now we are even more able to do so.  As a community Seattle is blessed with friendly, bright and tech-savvy people who love the outdoors and embrace all the region’s many cultural and sporting activities.

If you are planning to be in the Seattle area, I invite you to stop in to our new facilities and see how we’ve grown.  If I’m available on the day you visit, I’d love to buy you a cup of coffee and talk further about the bright future of D.O.C.S.  (Turns out, Seattle is also blessed with an abundance of delightful coffee shops, as if you didn’t already know.)

Our address may have changed, but our commitment to you, your patients and your success remains steadfast.