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June
9, 2005
Little Rock--
“Dentist Saves Patient’s Life” SM is the theme of the Fourth Annual Governor’s Oral Health Summit. The day-long conference on Saturday, June 11th in UALR’s Dickinson Hall showcases tobacco use, prevention and cessation as well as serious outcomes of tobacco use – mouth and throat cancers. The Summit is sponsored by the Arkansas Department of Health and the Arkansas Oral Health Coalition, in conjunction with the American Dental Association and the National Cancer Institute. The conference will bring together dental professionals, medical professionals, legislators and advocates interested in optimum health for all Arkansans.
This year’s Summit is dedicated to the memory of the late Dr. Fay Boozman, Director of the Arkansas Department of Health, who perished in a farming accident this past spring. “The Coalition unanimously supported honoring Dr. Boozman in this way,” stated Dr. Lynn Douglas Mouden, Director of the Office of Oral Health and Chair of the Coalition. “Dr. Boozman was a wonderful friend, an innovative leader in public health, an untiring champion of oral health, and the exemplar of servant leadership for all who knew him.” Mrs. Vickie Boozman will speak at the Summit dedicated to her late husband.
To build on the Healthy Arkansas theme so enthusiastically supported by Governor Huckabee, this year’s Summit will focus on preventing mouth and throat cancer illness and death by getting health professionals more involved in early detection and tobacco prevention activities.
Speakers include Dr. Michael A. Siegel, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Diagnostic Sciences at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and President-Elect of the American Academy of Oral Medicine. Also speaking will be Ms. Gerry Barker, who retired in September 2004 as Professor in the Department of Dental Public Health and Behavioral Science at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Dentistry.
More than 100 health care professionals, policy-makers and advocates attend the annual event.
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