Pretty suspicious title, if you weren’t me last week. I have had this gut feeling in my stomach over the last several years that there was something else that I wanted to do with my passion in dentistry, that is, I want to make a difference besides in my dental office. I wanted to find a way to help educate kids about preventive dentistry. Really, if I could make a living teaching kids how to brush and floss their teeth and add some nutritional counseling in for good measure I would be a happy man. After all, I feel it is the most ethical way to practice dentistry.

Alas, I needed a little help so I reached out to a super hygienist/lecturer that I had met, one Shirley Gutkowski, for some help and she told me that I should attend the CAREERfusion meeting in Florida. It was a meeting where one could find other opportunities outside of pure clinical practice to expand their dental horizons. But, here was the catch….I was the first dentist ever to attend this seminar, nothing but hygienists.

Ok, I was a little apprehensive at first, I mean, the only person I knew at the meeting was Shirley and I had only met her at the World Congress of Minimally Invasive Dentistry. But this 4 ½ day meeting turned out to be probably the best seminar I have ever attended in dentistry.

The information was the most pertinent that I had heard in a long time. The organization of the meeting was carefully done and had dental education interspersed with personal growth and development (the growth and development I did not expect and it was very enlightening).

But what really blew me away was the level of warmth and genuine concern that everyone had for one another. I have never had anything like this happen to me before. When I got back home to the office I realized that the best analogy I could give was that for 4 ½ days I was in the womb of a loving dental community of outside the box dental professionals and when I got home I had been given birth to some new directions in dentistry for me to pursue.

I found I had a new level of appreciation for hygienists (not that I don’t already appreciate the three great ones that work with me in our office) but I also came to a very important conclusion about our national health care systems. There is only one true prevention based health care model in the country today and it is the dental prevention/hygiene system of dentistry. It really is perfect, it’s people that are screwing it up. But if you take care of your mouth at home, listen to your hygienist and have your recare at the interval that is appropriate for you, you will be healthier, your medical costs will be less and you can keep your teeth a lifetime.

So what am I the world’s dental expert at. That’s easy; I am the first dentist to go to CAREERfusion so I am the dentist expert on the field. And you know what; I already paid for next year so I will be there again, to continue being the expert on it.

AND TO ALL YOU LADIES WHO GAVE ME YOUR FRIENDSHIP AND SUPPORT, WHO MADE MY EXPERIENCE SO INCREDIBLE ALL I CAN SAY IS THANK YOU A HUNDRED TIMES OVER.