The Board should be very circumspect in altering / loosening the advertising rules for dentistry and dental specialties as it is the Board's RESPONSIBILTY to ensure the public health with regards to dental medicine.  To loosen well established protocols and rules pertaining to dentists who may or may not be certified specialists in an effort to placate one unrecognized group ("implantologists") so that they can legally proclaim themselves as specialists in their field is very unwise.  Any open-eyed individual should recognize that loosening the advertising rules which presently prevent General Dentists from publicly presenting themselves as a "specialist", in whatever facet of dentistry they choose, would invite a certain percentage to then proclaim that they are a "specialist" when in actuality they are not.  Human beings are noteworthy for not always doing the right thing, and changing the presently well-constructed regulations on this matter will invite chaos to dentistry in Virginia, not clarity, and the public would not be well served.

Thank you for your consideration.

Kind Regards,

Roger A. Hennigh, D.M.D.