Ihope you are enjoying some of the beautiful spring weather we are having in St. Louis. We wowed the folks who came for the Final Four with our weather and hospitality. The flowers are in bloom, the trees are budding, and it is a wonderful time of renewal.
Springtime means the Hinman Dental Meeting in Atlanta. This year, the weather seemed more like winter, but the meeting had its usual warm, southern ambiance. Dr. Dan Dunwoody, president of the Hinman Dental Society, and Dr. Paul Isler, general chairman, put on another great meeting, with many fine speakers and more than 40 hands-on courses. One of the highlights was the keynote address, and this year’s was no exception. Deborah Norville - two-time Emmy Award winner and anchor of the nation’s top-rated syndicated news magazine “Inside Edition” - gave an outstanding keynote presentation, sharing her personal message on how to refocus your life when it seems you have lost your direction.
My good friend, Linda Miles, CEO of Linda Miles and Associates of Virginia Beach - who has been a featured clinician at the Hinman six times in the past 20 years - was honored during the opening session with the Thomas P. Hinman Distinguished Service Award for her 43 years in dentistry and her 27 years as one of dentistry’s leading speakers and consultants on practice management and staff development. In the 93 years of the Hinman, this award has been presented only 23 times. Ms. Miles was the first nondentist clinician and the first female speaker to be honored with this distinction. Congratulations, Linda, on a well-deserved award.
Linda is a member of the American Academy of Dental Practice Administration. She will be a speaker at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the Academy to be held March 1-5, 2006, at the beautiful St. Regis Hotel in Dana Point, Calif. You will not want to miss this outstanding meeting. For more information, visit the Academy’s Web site at www.aadpa.org.
In addition to sponsoring its annual meeting, the Hinman Dental Society provides more than $250,000 in scholarships and gifts to many of the country’s leading dental, dental hygiene, dental assisting, and laboratory technician schools, as well as dental education groups and clinics. This year, a donation from the Hinman Dental Society will fund an endowed chair in general dentistry at the Medical College of Georgia (MCG) School of Dentistry in Augusta, Ga. Dr. Thomas Callahan, chair of the society’s Board of Trustees, and Dr. Charles T. Ruhl, a member of the board, visited the campus to present the first installment of the $500,000 endowment.
I departed April 9 for the International Dental Show in Cologne, Germany. When IDS 2005 opened its doors April 12, more than 1,400 suppliers from some 50 countries presented their products and services covering all aspects of dental medicine and technology in the Koelnmesse exhibition halls. This leading international trade fair is held every other year, and is organized by the Association of German Dental Manufacturers, in conjunction with Koelnmesse. The only way to describe this show is to say it was huge! The space for the exhibits was more than three times the size of the New York Meeting or the Chicago Midwinter. I spent an hour at the KaVo booth alone, viewing the 20-plus new products the company had on display.
Several members of the American Academy of Dental Practice Administration write for Dental Economics®. To identify them and to remind you of the 50th anniversary meeting of the AADPA in 2006, you will find the Academy logo (such as the one next to my signature) on their column pages.
If you did not read Dr. Michael Gradeless’ column in the March issue, you owe it to yourself to find it and read “March Madness and my Uncle Larry.” If you can’t find the column, go online at www.dentaleconomics.com to read it.
Joe Blaes — email: [email protected]
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