We just got back from a great meeting in Daytona Beach Florida. It was at the Shores Spa and Resort with the rooms overlooking the ocean and the pool and hot tub. There are big sand pits with adarandak chairs and huge gorgeous fire pits glowing all night. What a beautiful view off your private balcony, but above all of that was the most incredible group of movers and shakers in the dental industry!
The dream team of this meeting: Beth Thompson, Patti DiGangi and Shirley Gutkowski (Career Fusion). They have put together dental professionals that would like to follow their own dreams and make things happen, maybe speaking, writing, consulting, whatever the dream. Talk about a positive meeting and an incredible learning experience! I have to admit I was a little concerned about it being a Kumbyah weekend, not my comfort zone:) Here we were showing off our periodontal foot pedal when these gals were showing me their dreams and desires! No Kumbyah stuff, all very fun and yet very professional!!! Watch out because when you get a bunch of caring, thoughtful, lovely, giving people together they will make things- good things happen!
Great Dental Hygiene meeting as usual!! We had a great time in Vegas at the RDH UOR meeting! It’s not just your average Dental Convention, it’s a definite education and a lot of fun!
So by now you know that I invented the Dental R.A.T.; but I wanted to blog about a couple other hygienists that have been working really hard to get where they are too! These gals have invented pretty cool products too and I want to help get the word out for them also!
The first inventor I met this year is Laura Morgan, RDH who invented the Platypus Flosser. It’s the coolest flosser for braces, very innovative! Her website is PlatyPus, check it out!! It is going to help sooo many kids and adults!! So simple and yet effective!! I hope soon our patients can find them in places like Walmart and Walgreens!
Then I got to meet Marie Wickman-Dykes, RDH who invented Mirror Gear. It’s a simple cover that protects your mirrors on your tray so they don’t get scratched while going thru the ultrasonic or autoclave. Remember how we used to wrap them in a two by two, this is even better and cool colors!! Her website is Mirror Gear USA, check them out! These will be on every tray soon!! And what a sweetheart, she is due to have a baby any day now and was such a trooper at the Dental Conventions!
And then I got to meet Ann Arrington, RDH who invented the Blue Boa. It’s the coolest suction tubing that helps while using the ultrasonic or projet or sealants! It give the hygienist two hands while working! I love the simple solutions!! Her website is the blue boa, check it out too!
And I can’t forget Vonda Manley, RDH; I was so lucky that I got to share the cover of Modern Hygiene magazine with Vonda! She invented the Edge Ease for making x-rays more comfortable, even digital x-rays! Check out her website at Strong Dental Products. I shared my first RDH UOR booth with Vonda. Since then her company has been acquired by Crosstex! Congrats!!
I know there are so many more that I didn’t mention; I just love innovative hygienists and I’ve been so blessed to get to know a few so I thought I’d share.
Ok I’m going to get on my soap box but I’m getting soooo tired of the media pushing this recession along. I can’t hardly watch the news because it is all just gloom and doom, but we see another side. We’ve been going to the dental conferences and they are packed and amazingly enough; dental offices and even hygienists themselves are still purchasing things, especially things that make their office more productive!
I’ve attached some links about Dentistry and the recession but most say the same thing that people are still going to the dentist, that is a good thing:). One article below states “data from Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that dental offices did increase as much as 2 – 4% during previous economic recessions in 1990, 2001 & 2007. Recession also means people will be eating cheap, rather than healthy. This takes a major toll on the teeth, but creates business for you. Remember, no matter how much people hate dentists, they hate toothaches more.”
I appologize if your area has been hit hard, I know some have. But overall I really feel that the news media has been loving the gloom and doom which I beleive makes everyone scared and causes a huge domino effect. I just wanted to post some positive. And I believe that we are on our way out of this; God willing, just my opinion:) I’ll see you at the next dental conference!
http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/19/news/economy/consumer_seventhings/index.htm
http://brainz.org/depression-jobs/
It is definitely the dental convention season! We have been traveling everywhere from Boston for the Yankee Dental Conference to Atlanta’s OSAP Dental Conference to Denver’s Rocky Mountain Dental Convention; and thats just January! February, March we are heading to Utah, Chicago, Arizona and Atlanta again! The dental conferences still seem to be very full with a lot of doctors taking their staff for the continuing education. With all the new technology out there it really helps the offices stay up to date. We hope we get to see some of you at one of the upcoming dental conventions!! Check out our calendar on the right for other conferences we will be at also!
Wow! What a weekend in Atlanta for the Hinman Dental Meeting! We didn’t even have any warning and of course we were staying in the tallest hotel in town”The Westin”. It sounded like hail hitting the windows and the building started swaying, then the windows started breaking!! Natalie and Tasha were looking out one of their hotel windows and the other window blew in on them! Talk about luck! And we don’t believe in luck, someone was watching out for us. We had tried to get to the top of the hotel in their revolving restauraunt and the elevator wasn’t stopping on our floor! Thank God, because it wasn’t 15 minutes later when the tornado hit! I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the 80th floor!
We also felt so blessed when we finally got into the convention center on Tuesday and so many booths were ruined! Ours was fine, absolutely untouched! But, only 15 feet away was a hole in the wall that was missing!!! In the picture, thats not a window!
It was dissappointing that we couldn’t finish the show since we’d never been there and we had so much interest! In fact, Saturday morning we walked to McD’s and standing in line we sold a Dental R.A.T. to an office that had wanted to come back Saturday to buy:) That made us smile on such a dreary day!!
I did get to see a great side of Georgia too. My friend Penny let me stay with her till I could get back into the convention center. It was a beautiful weekend (70 degrees) and I felt like I had a mini vacation with a great friend out on her lake:)
I hope that if you were there that you faired well also! It sure makes you thankful to be alive!!
