AGpO MEMBERSHIP NEWS New Year and More Continuing Education Designed For You! As your incoming president for the 2012-2013 year, thank you for your nomination and trust. This September at our annual meeting in Houston, Texas, I enjoyed seeing so many familiar faces and meeting many new ones. We had 80 plus dentists in attendance, along with their wives and assistants. Every year, we get a little bigger. This is tremendous! The highlights of that weekend were: 1) New products and discounts introduced by the exhibitors. 2) Unlimited troubleshooting by all the AGpO instructors. 3) Excellent two full days of lectures on Early Treatment by pedodontists Drs. Carapezza and Wilkerson. Orthodontists treat their patients in a limited window of time of one to two years, so these lectures were most relevant since we are mostly GP clinicians, who many times see patients from early on in to adulthood. These early treatment lectures gave us a great appreciation of growth and development rela-tive to the growing patients we see and follow in our daily practice. New this year, the AGpO offered a free “Charles Yates” lecture series where extra knowledge and continuing education credit were available to all at no extra charge. Looking forward, our association’s financial picture looks great and with nothing but positive feedback from our hands-on courses throughout the United States, and we are on target for a great year. Another highlight was a new course started in Vancouver, Canada. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re starting to go international --most exciting! Many thanks to the AGpO executive team lead by Adam. They work hard behind the scenes for the Academy and everyone of us. What’s new? In April 2013, our annual refresher meeting will take place in the Dallas, Texas area. The lectures will be truly TIP EDGE related. These lectures will be given by many of the instructors who have taught you on topics ranging from diagnosis to tips and pearls of the Tip Edge technique. Also don’t forget our Annual 2013 meeting in Chicago. We shall meet and listen to Dr. Chris Kesling whose father is the inventor of the TIP EDGE PLUS bracket. Also Adam is working on the possibility of visit-ing the Tip Edge Facility where this bracket was born and manufactured. A truly “Made in America” story. For those who quest for knowledge and can’t wait until later, check out and sign up for Dr. Ron Austin’s Advance Course Series starting in January 2013 on the AGpO website. Until my next entry, please let Adam, me or anyone at the AGpO know what we can do to make our organization better. Only through you, being involved, will we become stronger. So no ideas are ever too small to be considered. Final note, if anyone would like to host a class, please let me know, because this is the best way for us to grow. Fred Der, DDS AGpO President Fred Der New This Spring: Early Treatment Course The Academy will be introducing an Early Treatment Course in Austin, TX featur-ing Dr. Keith Wilkerson starting this spring. This course will be comprised of 12 two-day sessions that will include one day of lecture and one day of clinical treating of live patients. With 70% of all facial growth completed in children from the age of 4 to 9 years, it becomes important to step in and provide early treatment to guide the develop-ment of the face and redirect the eruption of permanent teeth. This hands-on course will provide you with the knowledge and tools needed to bring this treatment to the patients in your practice whose parents have been asking for correction of their younger child’s problems as well as to the parents who have not realized how impor-tant this treatment can be to their child’s facial development. www.orthodontics.com November/December 2012 49
Journal of the American Orthodontic Society November-December 2012: Page 49
