Our hotel was in Times Square, which is an amazing place! It is light like daylight all day long. Thank goodness for black-out curtains in the hotel. But at the same time it was a wonderful place to stay in the middle of the heart of New York City. I took several classes and so did Stefanie, our office manager. On Friday we took what is called "Miniclinics", which is a bunch of small lectures condensed into one 3 hour class. We learned about "Performance Management of the Dental Team" first. It was a very interesting lecture about staff retention, measuring success of your staff and their interactions, figuring out the best ways to make your staff work well with one another and with the patients and other staff issues. It was truly fascinating and wonderful. Second topic of discussion was "Clinical Tips for Successful Placement of the Bonded Resin Composite Strip Crown". It was a very good clinical lecture on how to make front baby teeth look good in case they have early childhood decay. I learned a lot from this portion of the class and hope to use the techniques on the little ones. The third topic was "Etch, Bleach, Seal Technique: Alternative or Adjunct to Microabrasion". Many of our patients have hypoplastic (under-formed) teeth that are esthetically challenging and upsetting to both the patients and the parents. This lecture discussed methods of treating them using simple bleaching and sealant techniques that could help our patients with overcoming these slight imperfections without aggressive treatment. The final topic in this lecture series was "New High Tech Gizzmos That Every Pediatric Dental Office Needs to Increase Efficiency and Productivity". I am always excited to learn about new advances in technology and inventions in pediatric dentistry and this was a very fast paced, information loaded session. We learned that we basically use the latest and greatest technology for our patients and I was so excited to hear that! It is so good to know that we are up on top of the innovations and that our materials, instruments, techniques and software are the cream of the crop!
After this class we went to visit the exhibits. We purchased a few new things that will aid us is better dentistry. We are trying new front teeth crowns, we purchased Isolite dental illumination system and we shopped around for toothbrushes, toothpaste and such. We spent many hours talking to dental manufactures and exploring new ideas for pediatric dentistry.
After that we had a bit of entertainment and saw Jersey Boys musical after dinner with a bunch of fiends from pediatric dental field. We also trotted over to the Empire State Building which is truly amazing! And then found our way back walking to Times Square.
On Satruday morning we took the final class: "Fraud and Embezzlement in the Dental Office"
It was a truly scary class as you find out exactly how mean and conniving people can be. It was sad to see the case studies and it made us want to only have good and honest people in our office as we hope we have now! Stefanie and I appreciated thinking of our staff and how amazing they are!
This was our final class. After that we enjoyed New York City for another day of musicals, walking tours, biking in Central Park and lots and of sunshine. It was a great trip and such a wonderful learning experience. I'm already looking forward to next year's class in San Diego!
