Last week, I went down to San Diego, California to attend our American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) 2022 Annual Session. In order to be an actively practicing dentist in Nevada, I need at least 40 continuing education hours every 2 years; and these conferences usually knock a big chunk of those requirements out of the way. Not to mention, with the AAPD being a fairly large organization, the invited speakers and presented topics are high caliber.

In case you haven’t read some previous posts, I was president of our local chapter (the Nevada Academy of Pediatric Dentistry) for one year back in Jan 2020 to Jan 2021. In addition to informing our members of new COVID guidelines within their practices, dealing with state Medicaid cuts for dental reimbursement – I also worked with my executive committee to plan our annual business meeting and CE course. Mine was an extraordinary year; as an organization, we were implementing our very first online meeting. Finding sponsors proved to be difficult (many companies reported their own financial hardships), but our speakers were kind enough to donate their time to talk to our small group (plus we had no large venue to book) so fortunately we were not on the hook for the honorarium we have paid to our speakers in the past – so it was a bit of a wash for us in terms of our bank balance.

Anyways, the AAPD had also done virtual meetings for the past couple of years so certainly there was this universal consensus amongst attendees of how satisfying it was to be back to in-person meetings. You had not only pediatric dental professionals attending, but office staff members were invited, a bunch of children were present – I mean, it had the makings of a total super-spreader event. Let’s hope it wasn’t? I masked for all of 5 minutes. I got there and realized maybe about 1-2% of people were wearing one and I admit I got into a total ‘when in Rome’ kind of mindset.

If you don’t already know, I am an introvert and not particularly fond of crowds. When I arrived, and lots of people were standing together and socializing – and I didn’t see any familiar faces, I awkwardly stood alone at a table with continental breakfast wondering if I made the right choice to attend in the first place, and thought to myself anxiously whether the next four days would be like this very moment. I consider myself fairly affable, but I am not comfortable introducing myself or striking up conversations with strangers.

Fortunately, I eventually found my boss, some dental school friends, and even met some new people along the way. I spent time roaming the exhibit hall where many of the sponsors set up booths and promoted some of their products. I learned about dental procedures (e.g. tooth autotransplantation, molar substitution, etc.), attended some mini-clinic courses, and heard from M.D. physicians talking about mental health screenings on teenagers and adolescents.

Perhaps my favorite part of attending this year was listening to the keynote lecture by a guy named Ben Nemtin. He is an impressive young motivational speaker and is the author of a book titled “What Do You Want to Do Before You Die?”. His backstory discussed bouts of deep depression, but then went on to speak about how him and his friends started a journey to cross things off their bucket lists – resulting in more fulfilment in their lives by helping others, setting goals, and accomplishing their dreams.

Here are five things I took away from his speech:

1. Write your bucket list – make it a project.
2. Share your goals – make yourself accountable with others. “Fear is the taxes you pay to achieve your goal.”
3. Be unstoppable – be persistent. Take as many “no’s” to get the “yes”.
4. Moonshots – shoot for unrealistic goals.
5. Give – happiness is only real when it is shared.

“Today is the oldest you’ve ever been, and the youngest you’ll ever be again.” 

Eleanor Roosevelt

In addition to the course, my family used this as an opportunity to turn our S.D. trip into a mini-vacation. We were able to hit up Legoland, had some fun at Belmont Park, went to the beach and saw Balboa park. All-in-all, I was very glad I attended this years annual conference!

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit this blog and read through this post!