Well here we are again. Thirty of the best and brightest orthodontists, consultants and IT folks meeting for two straight days with the sole objective of making everything about our practices better for our patients and their families. The doctors that are here come from Canada and the US, from New Brunswick to Vancouver Island, Boston to Sacramento.
It is, without a doubt, the very best meeting I attend each and every year. This year it is in Dallas at the DFW Airport Hyatt hotel.
The Hummingbird Associates consultants, led by Karen Moawad have worked with Hatheway Orthodontics since 2001. Karen and her team have made a tremendous impact on my life and I believe in the lives of all the people we have had the pleasure of doing orthodontics for. This posting is to give you all some insight on what I do at meetings, who the people are that have influenced me and how dedicated we all are to having the very best orthodontics and orthodontic practices in North America. It all starts with you folks who have selected us for your orthodontic needs. Without you, none of this would be possible. Enjoy!!
Thursday March 31st, 2011
The day began with me jumping on a plane and heading to Toronto to meet up with Dr. Jason Tam from Markham Center Orthodontics. Jason is a great friend and someone who I have a tremendous amount of respect for. Air Canada had us quickly seated and on our way to DFW, arriving in Dallas at around 4:00 pm local time. The doctors who are from Canada always plan to get in and have supper together to chat about stuff that is specific to Canadian practices. Dr. Paul Korne is our fearless leader in the selection of restaurant every year. This year we ate at Nick & Sam’s and as they say “everything is bigger in Texas”. The steak and desert was delicious. Everyone was pretty tired so we were back to the hotel and into the quilts for a busy day.
Friday April 1st, 2011 – April Fools Day!!
And so it begins. I am seated next to two of the coolest orthodontists in the US. Dr. Anil Idiculla who is in Denver, Colorado and Dr. Jason Kaplan who is in Dunwoody which is just north of Atlanta, Georgia. The first part of the meeting is spent catching up on everyone’s lives. What is new, what is happening in their offices, what is new in clinical techniques. From there we developed our agenda for the weekend. We have been having a few issues with an appliance that we use to help correct bites. There are doctors that have been using this appliance longer than I have and they gave me some great tips on how to make sure we do a better job for our patients.
After lunch we ended up in a discussion about the Internet and social media. The landscape is changing when it comes to communicating with our patients and social media is becoming more and more important. When I started in practice in 1996 we would mail post cards and make phone calls. Then we started with email reminders and automatic phone calls. From there SMS messaging and now Facebook and Twitter are key communication tools. How quickly this all changes!!!
Dr Anthony Mair from Scarborough, Ontario recommended a book to read. “Drive” by Daniel H. Pink he said is a must read according to him so I downloaded it into my Kindle for the flight home. It is a book about motivation and what motivates people. Here is a short YouTube video about this topic.
Following this discussion we had an amazing conversation about donating to great causes. It is awesome that everyone in the room is involved with giving back. One of the coolest things that is being done is Spring for Kids in British Columbia. It is a not for profit organization that supports children with cleft and cranio facial disorders. Click on the link and see what they are doing.
Dinner was delicious and then we circled back together in the conference room to go over cases and treatment plans. We had an excellent presentation from Dr. John Callahan about the demographics of orthodontics in the US and to an extent Canada. Interesting how that all is changing as the demographics change. This was followed by Invisalign Elite Provider Dr. Jason Tam who spoke about tips and techniques to make the Invisalign experience the very best it can be for our patients. Jason has helped me a lot over the years to make sure that we do a great job with our Invisalign cases. Thanks J!!! The last presentation was a clinical one from one of the original Study Club II members and good friend Dr. Tom Webber. He is an amazing clinician and always has great ideas to share about how to better treat someone’s orthodontic needs.
Day one is a wrap. Time for some conversation with a bunch of great friends.
Saturday April 2nd, 2011 – My sister’s birthday —– Happy Birthday Pam!!
Breakfast bright and early at 7:00 am. The day started out with a somber bit of news. Our great friend and long time Study Club II member Dr. Ray Rafetto is not here because he is not feeling well. We are all concerned about Ray and wish him all the best in his recovery.
Time to get into the homework assignment. Yes kids, even at 42 years old you still have to do homework!!! The homework is about a whole host of things from talking about how to help people work through repairs of broken stuff to communication within the office to make sure we don’t miss anyone.
We followed this discussion by viewing some office designs and recent builds from members. Dr. Bruno Vendettelli in Toronto has a beautiful new office in the center of Toronto. It was amazing looking at his office design and the ergonomics of how it works for the staff. We are in the midst of designing a clinic for our Woodstock office and I ended up with some terrific ideas from the group. Stay tuned!!
Lunch doesn’t mean break time for us. We were seated at tables strategically to make sure we had a chance to speak about stuff that we needed advice on. Dr. Anthony Mair led our table in a discussion on mechanics and how to move teeth to get the best result in an efficient way. It was a great discussion with many pearls of wisdom coming from everyone seated at lunch.
Back at it for the afternoon. The afternoon was a sharing of each person’s best practices for their offices. What works, what doesn’t, ideas for enhancements of clinical care and ideas for support of schools and the communities. I was proud to share our sponsorship of District 18 Middle School Athletics. Everyone is generous and gives back to their respective communities. This is a hallmark of our group. Very exciting stuff.
Dinner plans are here at the hotel tonight. Many of us will see each other over the year at other meetings, visit each other’s offices for one on one visits or just chat online. We always end up talking about the same thing, which is how this meeting is the best meeting of the year for all of us – no exceptions. Next year it is planned for the same weekend, back in Chicago for the second time. I am already looking forward to the trip!!
To my colleagues in Study Club II, I leave you this – World Class People trade ideas to solve problems. You are all truly World Class !!
As always you comments are welcome.
Sincerely,
Bob
