I am Jim Shelton, an Iowan by birth and a Californian for thirty-nine years, one month less than I have been a dentist. I was trained at the University of Iowa, having graduated in 1964. I served six and a half years in the United States Navy where I received post graduate training in prosthodontics (the study of restoration of and replacement of missing dental parts). I have been married for almost twenty-seven years to a wonderful woman, Alanna. I have one daughter, Suzanne who now lives in Brussels, Belgium, with her husband and three children. Her husband is with the State Department in the Diplomatic Corps. My interests are the science of dentistry, horses, motorcycling, and photography. As a matter of necessity, I have become interested in computers, how they work and what they can do. Computers have changed the shape of dentistry in the past thirty years, much for the betterment of dental health, I will add. I have no plans to retire as I love doing what I am doing, treating people, helping them through their dental difficulties, learning every day, new techniques, new materials, new methods. I am not an experimenter, we Iowans are by nature conservative. I like to see solid clinical research with published long-term results before I change to a new technology. Once I am convinced that is better, safer, easier, more durable or in some way beneficial for the patient, we will change how we do something. There are often “wonderful, new products” that are offered on the market that are later discarded because they were neither wonderful nor advances. Many of my peers are considering retirement, I hear them discussing it from time to time. Often my patients will ask if I plan to retire; and I answer them in this way, “someday”. I have fun treating patients, I earn a good living, my staff is wonderful, my wife is just starting her new career, why should I retire? Sure, I will someday, we all have to. I will gracefully leave when the day comes I cannot treat with skill, care and understanding, when I am too rickety to do a good job, or I lose my love of what I do.

I am a member of the American Dental Association, the California Dental Association, and the San Diego County Dental Association. I have earned a Fellowship in the Academy of General Dentistry.

I believe that, with advances in dental techniques, there is no reason why most people should not be able to keep their natural teeth for a lifetime. My goal is to work with you to attain this.

I am dedicated to keeping up with the continuous advances in dentistry; I complete 100 hours of continuing education in dentistry each year in order to provide you with the "latest and greatest" dental care.