Advancing, Connecting & Enriching
The Lives of Women Dentists
In This Issue:
Page 02: President’s Message
Page 04: 2017 Board Members
Page 05: Slate Officers and Board
Page 07: AAWD’s Exquisite Heritage
Page 09: AAWD Ladies’ Day
Page 10: Member News
Page 14: Student News
Page 17: Award Announcements
Page 18: AAWD’s Newest Members
Page 19: Student Recruitment Tips
Page 20: Colgate Research Award
Page 21: Corporate Partners
Page 22: Calendar of Events
The American Association of Women Dentists is calling for nominations for officers and directors to serve on the 2018 AAWD board.
The candidate must be a current AAWD member in good standing with the desire to lead the organization into its next phase of growth and policy leadership. Prior leadership experience would be beneficial, but is not a necessity. Time commitments vary by position, with a minimum of 10 hours a month in most positions. All positions must contribute uncompensated travel to national meetings.
Self-nominations are encouraged. Please complete a nomination form and send with your resume to the AAWD National Office or email to Christina Reeder at christina.reeder@internationalamc.com.
All materials must be received by than June 30, 2017.
The 2018 Slate of Officers will be announced at the 2017 Annual Conference, September 22-23 on Amelia Island, FL.
In This Issue:
Page 02: President’s Message
Page 04: 2017 Board Members
Page 05: Board Nomination Announcement
Page 07: AAWD’s Exquisite Heritage
Page 08: Tales from the Dentist’s Chair
Page 09: Member News
Page 14: Chapter News
Page 15: Student News
Page 16: AAWD’s Newest Members
Page 18: Student Recruitment Tips
Page 19: Award Announcements
Page 20: Corporate Partners
Page 21: Calendar of Events
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Deeva Bhatt, Nova Southeastern University, College of Dental Medicine
Deeva Bhatt is in her third year at Nova Southeastern University. She is concurrently pursuing her MPH degree with a goal to help enhance her contribution to the community upon graduation. Deeva joined AAWD during her D1 year. The following year, she served as Secretary and is currently Vice President. She loves the strong female community AAWD provides and feels it is a great resource for advice, camaraderie and ideas. Her favorite part about her local chapter is the holiday event where they raise over 900 pounds of food for the local community. In her free time, Deeva is an avid reader, and enjoys spending time with her family and friends, as well as traveling to new places.
Katherine Sage, Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, School of Dental Medicine
Katherine is in her third year at LECOM. She was born in Burlington, Vermont and grew up in Michigan. In 2012, Katherine graduated with a degree in Biology from Loyola University Chicago. Her first career aspirations were to manufacture synthetic organs. During her third year of undergrad, she became interested in dentistry and changed her entire career path. Katherine is passionate about women in dentistry and orthodontics. She has served on both founding organizational executive boards for the Predoctoral Orthodontics Association and the AAWD Student Chapter at LECOM. Katherine is excited and feels blessed to have the opportunity to serve as a National Student Representative. She looks forward to enriching and furthering the lives and careers of the women in AAWD. Katherine enjoys spending time with her two sisters, her “spunky” 18-month-old niece and her “sweet” nephew.
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In This Issue:
Page 02: President’s Message
Page 05: Meet the 2017 AAWD Board
Page 07: AAWD’s Exquisite Heritage
Page 09: National Children’s Dental Health Month
Page 11: Diversity Summit
Page 11: Member News
Page 13: Building Student Relationships
Page 14: Student News
Page 16: AAWD’s New Members
Page 18: Eleanor J. Bushee Award
Page 20: Corporate Partners
Page 21: Events Calendar
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Spring is here! Don’t you love it? I love watching the first flowers bloom among the dead leaves and grass of winter. I love watching trees bud. Whether you are looking at redbuds, cherry blossoms, or bluebonnets, there is an attitude of happiness and newness that is so refreshing. That is what AAWD is experiencing now under the direction and guidance of our new management company. We will be launching a new website in May, which will give our entire organization the same fresh look that the great outdoors is experiencing right now. Keep watching your e-mail for the announcement.
In February of this year, the entire Board met in Chicago for a full day of learning and collaborating on ways to share our organization with other women dentists. We had two very dynamic speakers who inspired and directed us on our mission. First, Dr. Kathleen O’Loughlin, Executive Director of American Dental Association (ADA), spoke to us on the governance of associations. She was very adept at showing us the difference between leadership (our job) and management (our new company’s job). The topic is very important at this juncture in our history, as we have spent 2015 doing both! Our 2015 Board should be given a great vote of gratitude for carrying us forward into this new era.
Our second speaker, Dr. Teresa Dolan, gave us a picture of women in dentistry today and in years past. She spoke of her own journey as a dentist, educator, and businesswoman. Listening to Dr. Dolan and watching the expressions of the young dentists in the room made me realize that one of the most valuable assets of AAWD is our story! It is your story and my story and every woman dentist’s story woven together. That is why our organization has existed for almost 100 years. We are making a difference in each other’s lives by connecting and sharing both dental information and life issues, which keep us persevering together. We hope to share this presentation later in the year as a webinar. Again, watch your e-mail for updates.
The AAWD Board has also just adopted the revolving anniversary method of dues renewal. This will make the recruiting and retention of members throughout the year much easier, as you will be invoiced the following year on the same date you originally joined AAWD. Members have been talking about this for years, and our new management company is making it happen!
During the first quarter of this year, AAWD was represented at several meetings: the National Roundtable of Dental Collaboration, Yankee Dental Congress, the Chicago Dental Society’s Midwinter Meeting, the 2016 American Dental Education Association (ADEA) Annual Session & Exhibition, and the Hinman Dental Society’s meeting in Atlanta. Please let us know if you are planning a local program, either state or regional, in which women dentists are highlighted, and whether you would like AAWD involvement. We want smaller regional groups to experience the feeling of unity and power that can only come from a national organization.
In closing, I would like to encourage each of you to think about your story. Think about how your life as a woman dentist has been enriched by talking to other women dentists and by laughing and crying over all the day-to-day struggles we encounter. Please get a copy of the March issue of DentalTown and read about other women dentists who are not just surviving, but thriving and giving back. I hope you are inspired. I certainly was. We are definitely the new face of dentistry. Let’s keep it growing!
Sincerely,
Mary E. Martin, DDS, M.Ed.
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At last month’s AAWD Annual Meeting, “Leading the Future of Dentistry” members and annual meeting attendees cast their votes for the 2014 Best New Product for Women.
Contest entrants were AAWD sponsors and exhibitors participating in the meeting. Meeting attendees judged new products that were geared toward women dentists and/or their women patients. This product was judged as being the most beneficial to the practicing woman dentist and to improve her practice. Its ease of use and light weight, combined with the quality and enhanced features of other heavier intraoral digital cameras, was cited for its selection.
Designed exclusively for dentistry, the lightweight, durable EyeSpecial C-II digital camera is engineered to produce superb image quality. It offers exceptional depth of field range along with “smart” features like fast auto focusing and anti-shake capabilities. Further enhancing users’ ability to create high-quality images in all conditions, the EyeSpecial C-II includes infrared, UV, anti-reflection filters and 8 pre-set shooting modes.
Historically, dental photographic equipment has been expensive and complicated to use. However, in the past 10 years or so, dental photography has undergone a transformation with the advent of a wide range of easier to use and more affordable digital cameras that are both popular and less expensive. Digital photography in dentistry has revolutionized teaching and lecturing in the field as well as educating patients in the office. With this technology and a more hands-on approach, dentists can efficiently and effectively treat patients with a clear plan in place.
These are just a few the of reasons why the EyeSpecial C-II digital dental camera by Shofu was named 2014 Best New Product by the American Association of Women Dentists.
Learn more by contacting customer-service@shofu.com , visiting www.shofu.com or calling Shofu Dental at (800) 827-4638
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Learn more by contacting customer-service@shofu.com,
visiting www.shofu.com
or calling Shofu Dental at (800) 827-4638
View Video (flash video is not supported by all devices)
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Dr. Geraldine Morrow
by Dr. Mary Licking
Dr. Geraldine Morrow died March 20th at the age of 86 and as a resident of Wasilla, Alaska.1 While Dr. Morrow accumulated many accolades during her long career as a dentist, including service to the American Dental Association in 1991-1992 as its first female president, the American Association of Women Dentists has its own memories from her years as a member of the organization. Despite the barriers that her residing in Alaska posed in getting to AAWD meetings in the lower 48 states, she and AAWD found ways to communicate.
In 1985, Dr. Morrow was the third recipient (preceded by the first recipient, the late Dr. Jane Selbe, and by Dr. Marie Nylen) of AAWD’s highest honor, the Lucy Hobbs Taylor award.
In 1990, in the campaign that would take her to presidency of the ADA, AAWD members who were savvy in the ways of downtown Boston answered her call to help at the ADA convention being held in the city that year. Dr. Morrow acknowledged the campaign support she received from AAWD by mentioning the organization by name during an interview published on youtube.com in 2015. 2 In that interview she noted that AAWD itself had no vote in the ADA election process. However, she remembers AAWD’s support fondly and in talking about it, quoted June Warren Lee [the late Dr. Lee was an AAWD past president and a Lucy Hobbs Taylor recipient]. Dr. Lee had indicated to Dr. Morrow that a valuable outcome of Dr. Morrow’s candidacy and term was inspiration to those dentists who desired to participate in organized dentistry on their own terms. The corporate model of having a life’s goal of doing whatever is necessary to defeat opponents aspiring to the top of an organization became passé with Dr. Morrow’s example. Dr. Morrow tended to view the promotion of the idea that there was a place in organized dentistry for dentists who wanted to put boundaries on their time and energies toward the cause of organized dentistry as worthy of her efforts. Dr. Morrow’s campaign was fueled by her passion for keeping dentistry in the private sector and having the middleman being kept at bay. In the late 1980s and early 1990s there was a view gaining prevalence that the government had the ability to run healthcare in the United States. Dr. Morrow viewed the idea of a government takeover of dentistry as being incompatible with professionalism. Prior to her campaign, Dr. Morrow had achieved notable accomplishments in Alaska keeping dentistry as a private sector endeavor. Dr. Morrow credits the ability to join together with other members of organized dentistry in working toward common goals as key to those accomplishments.
In the early 2000’s, Dr. Morrow contributed to an Annual Meeting program that was held in Chicago by a taped presentation designed for the AAWD meeting audience.
1accessed April 10, 2017: http://www.ada.org/en/publications/ada-news/2017-archive/first-ada-female-president-dies-at-86published March 22, 2017.
2accessed April 10, 2017: www.youtube.com, “RL509 No 38 Geraldine Morrow” on the account of UMichDent, published August 26, 2015.
AAWD at the University of Florida
President: Michelle Thomas, Class of 2017
University of Florida AAWD Women at our Annual Initiation Dinner
It has been an incredibly productive school year thus far for the ladies of the University of Florida Chapter of AAWD full of socials, community service, networking, fundraising, recognition, and travel.
Our initiation dinner was the largest it has ever been to date, resulting in the doubling of our membership for 2016. Our increase in membership has made our organization one of the strongest and most well known on the UF Dental campus and we couldn’t be more excited about our progress. Despite the increase, we are so thankful to have been able to continue working with Patterson Dental who sponsors our Pearls of Wisdom Dinner where all members were welcomed to partake in a delicious 3-course meal while learning about aspects of dentistry we don’t typically touch on in the classroom. During the dinner we were given the opportunity to pick the brain of a local woman dentist as well. This year we also worked with Patterson to begin a new upper- classman study club to further delve into topics of business, associateships, and more.
For the second year, we hosted our Girl Scout Patch program developed last year by current president, Michelle Thomas, for the local girl scouts of our area. During the program, members work with girl scouts to help them learn about proper oral hygiene, what to expect from a trip to the dentist, basic tooth anatomy, and nutrition all while earning a fun dental health patch. The program is a blast for all involved and we are excited not only to continue this in the future but to share the program with other chapters very soon.
In order to recognize the dental achievements met this year by all of our members, we started a new initiative called “milestone gifts.” We identified major milestones met each year by our members: the first operative psycho- motor for the D1s, Boards Part 1 for D2s, White Coat for D3s, and Graduation for D4s. Upon each milestone, the members are given a small gift. For example, D2s were given good luck “boards bows” – a hair bow to be worn for good luck, where as D3s were given wire hangers that spelled white coat to commemorate the achievement. As dental students, we all know the level of hard work required and believe these small tokens not only further unify us as an
organization, but keep us smiling during some of the harder times in dental school.
Finally, for the first time ever UF AAWD was able to send members to this year’s AAWD Annual Meeting which took place in Washington D.C.. We sent 4 women – Michelle Thomas, our president, Annie Siassipour, our vice president, Rosa Wu, our historian, and Gina Nicoloso, a general member. We feel so fortunate to have been welcomed not only to the student portion of the meeting but to the dental portion as well, teeming with CE and networking opportunities. We had a blast meeting student leaders from other school chapters as well as some very strong and inspiring female dentists. In addition to the AAWD events we were all able to attend some ADA CE, the New Dentist reception, and explore our Nation’s Capital. We can not thank AAWD and the University of Florida College of Dentistry enough for opening up this opportunity to us and we are looking forward to making this a long-standing tradition.
As a growing chapter, we are so excited to have been able to uphold old traditions while creating new ones along the way and can’t wait for what the second half of the school year will bring!