A few years ago, I received a call one evening while getting ready for dinner. Apparently someone had nominated me for president of our local professional chapter, the Nevada Academy of Pediatric Dentistry. Should I choose to accept, I would join the committee and spend a year as president-elect, and then assume the role of president for a year thereafter.

If you read my first post, about being introverted, you would have some inkling that I spent a good portion of my life avoiding being the focus of attention. Yes, I joined several clubs in high-school… mostly to have something to pad my college application with. Not once did I ever consider/desire/strive to be in a position of power or take on a leadership position. I have never liked the limelight.

When I was a kid, I saw my father do it once, as he became president of our local Friends of India (FOILV) association. That baffled me. He had a similarly shy and reserved demeanor about him; and yet here he was taking on a role that required quite a bit of socializing, event planning, and worst of all, public speaking. To this day, I am proud of him still, but now I certainly feel like I have a new appreciation for his selflessness and his social consciousness towards helping our community be better.

The president position of our NVAPD, traditionally, was not really a very time-consuming role. Some years were better than others. We always have to organize and host an annual meeting; invite speaker(s), book a venue, find sponsors, arrange meals, provide continuing education credits, etc. Sometimes, Medicaid and political issues arise throughout the year, and so then there are other matters that the president typically has to tend to as well.

My president-elect year was quiet and uneventful. Granted, the president that year likely did an excellent job at blinding us to the many tasks she was likely under-taking. Frankly, I was hoping mine would be a similarly easy year.

My term started January 2020, and (for the first couple of weeks) was off to a good start – made a name change on our business bank account, deposited some checks that slowly rolled in, no sweat.

Then COVID-19 hit.

Don’t get me wrong, I love being a dentist; but its a bit scary when your profession calls for you to be mere inches away from someones mouth and open airway while a novel, aerosol-transmitted infectious pandemic plagues the world. In the uncertainty and chaos, we followed local and national guidelines from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), ADA (American Dental Association), AAPD (American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry), and our state dental board.

For a short while, it felt like the blind leading the blind. Every organization was just as clueless as the next, and fortunately, dental offices in town shut down for a bit while things were being figured out. In dentistry, we take personal protective equipment and infection control very seriously and keep those high standards for every patient we see. However, temperature checks, social distancing restrictions, questionnaires, all of those measures and precautions are new to our standards of care and slowly started to emerge with time.

I appreciated the offices closing because 1) it afforded me time with my kids I normally would not take and 2) I started to devote more time to my duties as NVAPD president. I started drafting regular email correspondence to our members to update them about new state and national guidelines and restrictions; I worked with other local dental associations to try and acquire PPE for our members; as COVID-19 related state budget cuts started to emerge, I tried to unite our members and organize efforts to protest the politicians and legislators that were proposing a bill that could have severely threatened dental benefits for our most vulnerable patients.

At the end of the day, that was the main reason I took the president position. Certainly not for the fame, notoriety, prestige, what have you. I genuinely love my job and the patients I serve; and I want to do my part in protecting their access to dental care. If that means swallowing the uncomfortableness of being an introvert for a year – so be it.

In all fairness, I could have made this year as easy or hard on myself as I wanted it to be. One thing you will come to learn about me, is I tend to over-analyze, over-prepare, over-worry about almost everything. Very much Type-A, obsessive-compulsive characteristic traits. And although, internally, a position like this is very stressful; I am happy I accepted the offer and am glad I decided to step up to the challenge.

I am currently attempting to figure out how to host our very first VIRTUAL Annual NVAPD Meeting! I will keep you posted on how that goes! Wish me luck. Thank you so much for reading, I’ll be writing again soon!