The following letter was submitted by CVMA member Dr. Edward Eisner. Have a submission for the CVMA blog? Email CVMA Director of Communications Katherine Wessels at [email protected].
Dear colleagues:
I am writing to let you know that I will be retiring, around the June 2020 time frame and my successor will be joining our practice shortly after. I have loved my profession. The daily challenges of diagnosis and effecting a definitive treatment as quickly as possible are what has made me continually say “Thank goodness it’s Monday again.” I have been in practice for 56 years; enough time to have cared for three generations of clients and ten generations of their four-legged family members. I have served on and chaired committees and given presentations to the public and my profession at the local, state, regional, national and international levels and served in Colorado public office under both Democratic and Republican governors. I have published more than 70 professional papers, textbook chapters and books and will be publishing one more textbook this summer on Zoo and Wild Animal Dentistry.
I have been involved, since the mid-nineteen seventies, with the veterinary dental evolution and performing animal dentistry at the highest level for forty-four years. But, my fingers are getting tired and I’m experiencing some chronic health issues. Many of my friends twenty and even thirty years younger have retired, and it is now my turn. I now know the feeling many top athletes have toward the end of their career. It is difficult to stop when you feel you still have more gas in the tank. But, I want to quit while still at the top of my game. I call it “The Elway or Peyton Manning Finish.”
I have been planning this for a year now, and have found a wonderful board certified veterinary dentist to succeed me at VCA Highlands Ranch Animal Specialty and Emergency Center. I have known Roxane MacLellan for 10 years. As a colleague, I have found Dr. MacLellan easy to talk to, easy to work and teach with, and I appreciate her enthusiasm and attention to detail and thorough preparation in roles both in clinical and educational settings. I welcome the opportunity whenever we, by chance, have been working together.
Roxane has had an unwavering passion for dentistry, has taught at Colorado State University and the University of Minnesota Veterinary Schools, as well as been in private dental practice, most recently in Tucson, Arizona. Trudy Howerter and Kathy Pershing, my dental technicians for the past 16 years will continue working at our hospital and with Dr. MacLellan. Please welcome Dr. MacLellan into our practice and continue your referrals. Thank you for choosing VCA Highlands Ranch. Dr. MacLellan is eager to continue the same high level of oral care and communication you all have become used to receiving in the years I have known you.
Wishing you all good health and the same for your pets,
Edward R. Eisner
Edward R. Eisner, AB, DVM
Dipl. AVDC, AVDC-Certif. Zoo and Wildlife Dentistry
