On behalf of all Officers and Council Members of the Academy of Prosthodontics, I would like to wish all of you and your families much happiness and serenity during the holiday season and the new year.

The executive’s mid-term meeting at the Chicago Airport Hilton was a very productive one. We focussed on the many items of business which ensure the Academy’s governance. We also sought (through reasoned debate) to nurture further those plans which ensure a viable future for the AP, one which never loses sight of the Academy’s distinguished past.

Three particular items were debated and deserve to be shared with the membership at large before the Calgary reunion. The first concerns our Academy’s ongoing relationship with the American College of Prosthodontists. While all of us Prosthodontists have appreciated the need for the advancement and longevity of Prosthodontics led by the ACP, we have also been aware of apparent lingering misunderstandings between the College and our Academy. It was therefore time to analyze old attitudes, perceived hurts and political discords, and to acknowledge that the present climate of enlightened leadership should not be burdened by emotive baggage. Tom Taylor took the lead on this issue last May, when he and Ned Van Roekel proposed a joint informal meeting between representatives of the two organizations. Tom and I organized such a meeting for the Friday afternoon of the Greater New York Academy of Prosthodontics Meeting. We met, and were resolved to apply the rear-view mirror approach to ensure negotiation of future journeys without repetition of old mistakes. Our discussions were frank and focussed, friendly and constructive. Our collective objective sought to emphasize our Academy’s support for the College’s leadership and missions; as well as to reconcile such support with our commitment to our Academy’s activities. In this context I invited Tom to address the AP membership, and his editorial in this Newsletter issue is the result. His Presidency of the ACP augurs well for Prosthodontics, and on behalf of all of you I expressed indebtedness to him for his inspiring leadership.

The second issue concerns the nature of our Scientific Sessions. The inspired leadership of Past Presidents George Smutko and Ron Desjardins produced a commitment to evidence-based information for at least part of our annual meetings. The Halifax Symposium ushered in such an approach and future meetings will be expected to follow that initiative, at least in part. Scientific Chair Howard Landesman has therefore assigned two of the five half day sessions to the evidence-based theme for Calgary: one comprises selected presentations as a Focus Session, the other will involve a workshop on one of the critical appraisal utilities: Therapy. The latter effort is co-organized by the Education and Research Committee’s Co-Chairs Rhonda Jacob and Aaron Fenton. The overall objective is that this will become the format for our future scientific meetings. The yield will then be the best available Prosthodontic postgraduate course for our Academy’s membership. The annual half day workshop will reinforce our commitment to critical appraisal of the literature – an instalment approach to the determinants of the McMaster-inspired research conference. The focus session(s) on the other hand will synthesize knowledge on selected topics and provide state-of-the-science information which can be published as Proceedings in our Journal of Prosthetic Dentistry. In this context we have applied to the Awards and Grants Committee of the Editorial Council of the JPD for financial support. The Editorial Council has been particularly sensitive to the Academy’s scholarly mission in the past, and we hope that we can sustain the Council’s trust in our Academy in its quest for excellence in science as applied to Prosthodontics.

The third and final issue addresses the major concern of organization and structure in our Academy. I had requested that Ron Desjardins and his committee (Bill Kotowicz, Tom Taylor and Gerry Ziebert) study this issue, and as expected we were rewarded with a brilliant and provocative document which focuses on two key features. The first is a clear need for a significant reduction in our number of committees. An integration of the essential committees into three or four appears to be both feasible and desireable. The second demands recognition of the need for a selection process for committee membership which acknowledges the realities of efficacy and effectiveness of small committees and therefore fewer members. Ron will be finetuning his final report in response to suggestions resulting from the Chicago deliberations. His efforts will certainly impact profoundly upon the management of our Academy.

It really is a privilege to serve the AP in this capacity. All that we achieve in this Academy is very much the result of teamwork and shared values. Your AP officers and executive council members join me in thanking you for giving us all this opportunity to further the Academy’s goals.