ORTHO BITES am proud of so many of you in the AOS who have achieved a Diplomate status or have begun to progress though our Tier Advancement program. Many of you will not realize the importance of these achievements until (God forbid) you have a legal issue. I serve as an expert witness for general dentists in orthodontic litigation. The opposing attor-neys are always attempting to discredit the orthodon-tic education of the generalist. I always challenge them to come to one of our meetings and look at the Diplomate cases presented. I will put the cases of our Diplomates up with any orthodontically treated cases in the world. If you have your Diplomate with the AOS, you are an excellent orthodontic clinician. And having the Diplomate in a legal proceeding is a plus to put it mildly. I challenge each of you to pursue tier advancement with our Society. Please continue your orthodontic continuing educa-tion path. Please do not stop with a four-weekend course and think you have all of the answers. Diversify your knowledge by experiencing all of our talented instructor/clinicians in our Society. And pursue contin-uing education in all modalities of dentistry you perform within your practice. Life is short, my friend, and all you have is now. It is what you do with the now that matters. Be the best clinician you can be. And, enjoy each day that God has given you. When you go see your doctor, don’t you read his plaques on the wall? I do. I want to know everything about the guy who is treating my family and myself. I 14 May/June 2011 JAOS
Journal of the American Orthodontic Society May-June 2011: Page 14
