Dr. Charles Eller
The annual ritual of officer change has come again. I look forward to serving the Pierre Fauchard Academy as your new President.
Having been a PFA Fellow since 1962, it has been amazing to watch the progress of the Academy through the years. To be able to see the progress made by each of the Past Presidents and the Officer Corps is to observe, first-hand, the dedication and talent of each of these individuals. We complement each one of them. The Pierre Fauchard Academy now has more than 7700 Fellows in 48 countries. Recently added are the Republic of Georgia, the Republic of Macedonia, and Kenya. We are currently working on adding the United Arab Emirates. Any assistance for our missing Scandinavian countries and Finland would be welcome.
You have read about our Latin Section and their successful Congress in San Paulo, Brazil, this past January. Latin Trustee Ernesto Acuna deserves an accolade for making the arrangements for this meeting. We hope to make this a biennial event. Meanwhile, the Europeans are planning the same type of meeting in Cologne, Germany, in March 2009. It will be held in conjunction with the largest dental meeting in the world. All PFA Fellows are invited to attend. As an aside, we will eventually try to accomplish the same thing with the Australasian Section. You see, we are truly "Dentistry's Handclasp Around the World."
The PFA Foundation, a separate and independent entity, is rapidly approaching the $5 million mark in Scholarship and Grant Awards. I have personally observed in my San Diego/Mexico region how the money is utilized, and believe me, it is money well spent and greatly appreciated. More on that in a future issue! Once again, it shows that the Pierre Fauchard Academy and the Foundation get things done. You can be proud to be a PFA Fellow. The Management Team has listened to our Section Chairs--the group that does the work in the "trenches." We now have online payment options for dues and Annual Meetings. We hope to be able to add Section dues at a later date, but so far, it is a logistical problem because of the different dues structure in each Section. Some charge no dues at all!!! Our Web site, www.fauchard.org, is consistently being updated and refined. It receives up to 56,000 hits a month (May 2008).
Dental World, the official PFA publication continues to be our lifeline to our Fellows. It is under the direction of our brilliant Editor Dr. James Brophy.
As your President-elect this past year, I have been able to attend both U.S. and International PFA functions. It has been my job to inform the Membership about what the Academy and the Foundation are doing, our aims, our projects, and our ambition for the future of the Pierre Fauchard Academy. The high level of volunteerism that involves dedication and commitment is very impressive. That is what we expect of all of our PFA Fellows. Pierre Fauchard was called a fool by the critics of the time, but he "dared to dream," as so eloquently presented by Past President William Winspear.
Are our dreams big enough? We have our work cut out for us!
President