April 2013 Issue

ASDA UPDATE April 2013

The Composite LECOM SDM ASDA Chapter Newsletter

Upcoming Events

4/9/13 Loupes Information Meeting 11:30

4/10/13 Loops Event

5pm-8pm

4/24/13 Dinner and Dentistry

5/1/13 Heartland Dentistry Speaker

Take a study break and support ASDA. The ASDA Snack Wagon is available on the weekends. These are

the items that we currently offer: Coke, Vitamin Water, candy, trail mix, Five Hour Energy, chips and gum!

Annual Session Networking

While at the Annual Session in Atlanta, not only did we learn

about several political, technological, and specialty related topics, but we also gained invaluable experiences through students from other dental schools. District 5 is composed of 7 dental schools: LECOM, University of Florida, Nova Southeastern University, University of Puerto Rico, Louisiana State University, University of Alabama, and University of Mississippi. We worked closely with District 5 leaders throughout the week and discussed their experiences as ASDA officers at their dental schools. During networking lunches and dinners, our district compared ideas and discussed issues addressed throughout the day.

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By: Stephanie Mazariegos, Membership

This month’s newsletter explores what our officers learned at National ASDA’s Annual Session. Four of our officers traveled to Atlanta, GA for five days to learn ways they can help make our chapter succeed and most importantly, to network with other chapters and vendors.

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Soap Note from the President

Don’t Miss Our Loupes Event!

We are excited to announce that we will be having a loupes fair on

Wednesday, April 10th from 5pm- 8pm at a local hotel conference room.

More details on page 5, so please mark your calendars! So far we have

confirmation from Designs for Vision, Surgitel, Q-Optics, and UltraLight

Optics!

While using loupes the magnification can increase up-to 2.5x- 6x, which will dramatically improve the visibility of the field and your precision during treatments.

By: Jenna Weldon Pascoli, President

We are proud to report that LECOM's School of Dental Medicine had four students attend ASDA's Annual Session March 6th-9th in Atlanta. The 2013 Annual Session welcomed over 470 ASDA members from 61 U.S. dental schools and LECOM was one of them!

ASDA is a National student-run organization, which protects and advances the rights, interests and welfare of students pursuing careers in dentistry. Each dental school elects a First and Second Delegate to represent the school in ASDA's House of Delegates. Kayla Macri and I were honored to represent LECOM this year in the House business meetings to set new association policy and to elect the new executive committee, speaker of the House, and District trustees.

In addition to House meetings, Kayla, Samantha, Stephanie and myself listened to presentations on the current "hot topics" in dentistry, such as licensure, alternative workforce models, and student debt to name a few. We attended many "breakout sessions" with topics ranging from

“Advocacy for the Next Generation of Dentists,” “Digital Dentistry and the Future”, and “How you can make a difference with that Dental Degree.” Overall, the four of us gained so much insight and knowledge about the present and future of dentistry, which will enable us to tailor our future LECOM ASDA meetings to address these issues and topics discussed at Annual Session.

Lastly, we networked throughout the week with hundreds of ASDA members from across the country. We learned about what other ASDA chapters are doing nationally, locally, and each chapter’s day-to-day struggles. We are building the LECOM ASDA chapter from the ground up and Annual Session enabled us to meet with other students and ask those crucial "how" and "why" questions for the betterment of our chapter as a whole. Additionally, students were impressed that LECOM had attendees at Annual Session in our first year as an organization and dental school, and were equally impressed at the strong 90% membership we currently have. We were very proud to represent LECOM's ASDA chapter and to share with the other dental students about our wonderful school!

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Benefits of Dental Group Practices-Aspen Dental

By: Samantha Johnson, Secretary

Aspen Dental is a privately owned company that runs approximately 360 dental practices in 27 states in convenient locations with extended weekend hours. While the dentist comes in with autonomy and expertise, Aspen takes care of the business management aspect. However, their focus is on comprehensive care.

As a new graduate, the dentist comes in as an associate and has the opportunity to move up to a managing clinical director, who guides the office or a practice owner. Compensation is tied to patient satisfaction, so typical annual earnings can be up to $130,000-$150,000 for an associate, $170,000-$250,000 for an MCD, and up to $750,000 for a PO. Increased growth and earnings are based on the development of the practice and there are bonuses offered occasionally based on patient surveys. When a dentist first starts with Aspen, they would get a mentor, go through extensive training, and start out with a 1 column schedule to ease into the job. They can also build their schedule based on how long they need for a particular procedure as there is no requirement for high patient volume at first. All the offices have an on-site lab with a lab technician, and dentists work a normal week Monday through Friday with one weekend requirement per month. If you are looking to specialize, they hire one endodontist, oral surgeon, etc. per region and offer continuing education for all throughout your employment.

There are no term contracts, so if you want a seamless transition into a dental career before you open your own practice, you might want to look into a company like Aspen Dental.

We had the opportunity to attend an impressive vendor fair while at the ASDA annual session this past month in Atlanta. The 75 exhibitors included: the Academy of General Dentistry, American Dental Association, American Dental Political Action Committee (ADPAC), Benco Dental, Crest Oral-B, Dental Decks, Designs for Vision, FLOSS, Heartland Dental, Medical Protective, Patterson Dental Supply, SmileBrands Inc., Ultralight Optics, and many more. We made some great contacts that we are excited to invite to future ASDA events such as Dinner and Dentistry and the loupes fair.

The Vendor Fair

By: Samantha Johnson, Secretary

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Student Debt By: Jenna Pascoli, President

Dental students from around the country will be attending National Dental Student Lobby Day in Washington, D.C. next week, April 15th-16th. Students will meet with legislators and discuss issues important to dental students and our profession, one being student debt. ASDA members will lobby in favor of the Earnings Contingent Education Loans Act of 2012(ExCEL).

What is ExCEL? This legislation would simplify the entire loan repayment process, encourage habits of responsible borrowing, and take some of the weight off of the taxpayers’ dollars. Under ExCEL, the borrower would pay a percentage of his or her income, taking into account living expenses, until the loan is paid in full. This would alleviate the “mortgage-like” payments we will be shelling out per month once we graduate! Essentially, it would enable borrowers to pay more on their loans when their business is doing well and less when unemployed or earning less income. For more information on ExCEL, please visit: www.petri.house.gov

As stated on ASDA’s website, “ASDA considers the growing debt crisis a top priority and advocates for financially sustainable, long-term solutions”. To the right is a graph from the ADEA depicting the average educational debt among graduating students with debt by type of school. What can I do now to lower my expenses? We have all heard it before, but it is crucial that as a professional student, we stick to a budget.

Below are few tips to saving money while at LECOM.

• Eat at the café on-campus or pack a lunch….most of the time.

• Party on the cheap…you get my gist. • Ride the “student ID” discounts as

long as possible. • Eat for free at ASDA meetings! • Set aside a dedicated amount of

money each month for “fun money” and go crazy!

• Download Mint.com’s app to your Smartphone and set a monthly budget and savings budget. This app is fantastic for alerting you through text messaging when you have over spent in your budget categories! You went over your coffee budget by $10 this month? The website texts you that you are in the “red”. Try it out!

• Try to not max out your loans; get a roommate, carpool, apply for grants and scholarships and do whatever you can to save a buck or two.

Let’s do a quick calculation: If you average 2 red bulls at $2.50 each, per week for the next four years, this would be around $1,000, not to mention the interest you are paying on those red bulls! The time is now to spend smart to keep your student loans at bay.

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Continued from page 1

Some of the chapter leaders were extremely helpful; we were fortunate enough to meet the new District 5 Trustee from Nova, Jason Watts. He is currently involved at his local chapter and has offered his advice and help in setting up our ASDA chapter. As the new District Trustee, he hopes to meet all of the chapters to help improve and meet their current goals. Other chapter representatives from Nova also gave us new ideas on how to set up vendor fairs, loupes fairs, membership recruitment, and financial aspects of ASDA chapters. Vendors are a crucial part of ASDA and the Nova student leaders informed us on how to communicate and form relationships with these representatives. We are currently working closely with them for ideas and advice on issues and the challenges we face as a new chapter. The Nova chapter was impressed with how involved we have been and was excited that we brought four representatives to the Annual Session.

Another influential leader that we met was Ross Isbell from UAB. He is currently the ASDA representative for ADPAC, President of ASDA UAB and his father Dr. Gordon Isbell is the Co-chairman of this national political advocacy group. Not only did Ross give us advice and files from his local ASDA chapter, but he also gave us more in-depth insight on the political issues facing dentistry. He encouraged us to all join ADPAC and to recruit more of the members at our local chapter. He has attended several national lobby days and explained the importance of attending these events in the future and to recruit other dental students to understand the urgency of these political issues. Shortly, we plan to get as many members of our local chapter as excited as we are about being involved with ADPAC.

Although we spent most of our time meeting leaders from our district, we also met several leaders and students from dental schools in other states. From District 4, we met the new trustee Christian Ortiz. District 4 works closely with our district through events and supporting local chapters. The students and contacts we made gave us advice on the factors to consider when choosing loupes, what they plan to do after graduation, how to study for boards, and what to do while in dental school.

Loupes Meeting Information

Get excited for our first annual loupes fair, April 10th from 5:00 until 8:00pm! We are excited to welcome Designs for Vision, Surgitel, Q-Optics, and UltraLight Optics. The event will be hosted at the Holiday Inn Express, 5464 Lena Road, Bradenton Fl, in the Manatee Conference Room. Food and refreshments will be provided.

Additionally, ASDA will be providing a short presentation on Tuesday, April 9th at 11:30am before lecture about the “quick and dirty” facts of loupes purchasing! Dr. Mark Romer will be assisting us with this presentation and providing suggestions and his experience with loupes. You do not want to miss this…as we all know, Dr. Romer is rather entertaining!

This event is to inform you of the various companies and products out on the market. Even if you are not ready to purchase loupes, this will be a wonderful opportunity to speak with representatives from the various companies, get a feel for “what loupes really feel like”, and to learn about the wonderful world of magnified dentistry! We look forward to seeing everyone there!!

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Some of the students we met were first or second years with whom we compared our education styles. Others were older students who were getting ready to graduate and plan for life after dental school. They gave us some advice on the benefits of a General Practice Residency (GPR, post-dental school, as well as introducing us to the complexities of licensure. Since we have no upperclassman at LECOM, we gained knowledge from students who were recently in our position.

While at the conference, several specialty programs also brought representatives such as Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Periodontics, Endodontics, and Orthodontics. They attended the vendor fair and were also at the Annual Session to give advice on how to specialize, benefits of their specialties, and aspects about their programs. They were friendly in offering written material and also presented lectures to provide interested students a more comprehensive look into their professions.

The connections we made while at Annual Session were truly invaluable. Meeting leaders from other states and districts was very motivating and gave us even more excitement about the upcoming year in ASDA. With the ideas we gained about how to organize and maximize chapter participation and involvement, the next year will be very exciting for our chapter. During the award ceremony at the Annual Session, an award for best upcoming new chapter was presented. We are already planning on applying for this honor and will be working extremely hard to be a competitive applicant for next year. We plan on having a large vendor fair and starting several community service events, such as Oral Health programs, Loupes fairs, and social events.

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We also plan on getting more of our local members involved at the state and national level. There will be a District 5 meeting with the other schools in August and a State Lobby Day in June. We will encourage as many members as possible to attend these meetings and make the same connections with other dental students that we were fortunate enough to make. We will also encourage our students to become involved in ADPAC.

(continued)

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The House of Delegates is ASDA’s national policy-making body where association policy is determined and the Speaker of the House, the vice president’s and president are elected. The House of Delegates meets once each year and is comprised of two delegates from each chapter. Jenna Pascoli and myself, Kayla Macri, were pleased to represent LECOM ASDA as first and second delegates at this year’s meetings. Chapters are grouped into 11 districts based upon geographical distribution of dental schools within the United States and Puerto Rico.

With approximately 16 hours of House of Delegates Business Meetings, 16 resolutions were brought in front of the House. Resolutions brought to the floor included discussion on ASDA’s policies regarding current state licensure exams, substance abuse programs and treatment, dental school due process procedures, regulations for establishment of new chapters as well as ASDA’s encouragement for dental schools to provide instruction on effective dental assistant utilization.

Ross Isbell, UAB delegate, proposed a resolution for the Council on Professional Issues to investigate a concrete definition of “oral health” and “quality oral healthcare delivery.” After much debate, this resolution was adopted with the hopes of having a way to demonstrate dental student’s dedication to generating and sustaining quality public health as provided by a properly licensed dentist and dental team. This definition would be particularly helpful from an advocacy standpoint regarding midlevel care providers. This definition will be presented at next year’s annual session.

The amount of national annual dues was also discussed. With much debate, it was resolved that the amount of national dues will increase $5 from the current established dues effective for the 2015 membership year. Considering that this would not be implemented for another three years, this increase would come at a time when LECOM ASDA has a stronger foundation on campus and would not severely hinder our chapter’s involvement. Although LECOM ASDA did not initially think favorably about this resolution, the benefits of the proposed usage of the dues income outweighed the potential additional burden of $5 year to the members (the mere price of one latte at Starbucks).

A very practical resolution that was passed will implement the consolidation of chapter websites to the umbrella of national ASDA’s webpage. This will be beneficial to our chapter, as we do not currently have a website and would have had to purchase a website domain name. National ASDA will now be covering all costs related to chapter websites. We are looking forward to getting our website up and running once this new system gets underway.

If you would like to learn more about the organization of National ASDA, ASDA’s policies or proposed and adopted resolutions you can find information on ASDA’s website at www.asdanet.org under the “About ASDA” and “Leadership” tabs. I also have all of the paperwork from these meetings and would love to chat and share this with you if you are interested.

ASDA House of Delegates Business

By: Kayla Macri, Vice President

See next page for a breakdown of the national ASDA leadership hierarchy.

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Breakdown of National ASDA Leadership

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Golden Crown Gala

7:00pm-7:30pm Guests Arrive

7:30pm Dinner Begins

8:30pm Slide Show of D1 Year

8:45 Student and Faculty Awards

9:00-11:00 The Dance Floor Opens

Soon to Come • YMCA’s Healthy Kid’s Day, April

20th, 9am-1pm. • Community Service – ASDA Youth

Service Project • Boat Party for the Membership Drive • Disability Insurance: We have

partnered up with SGA to see that the administration understands that students receive free comparable disability insurance benefits for being an active ASDA member. A meeting with the Dean is scheduled. We will keep the class informed of the progress on this issue. Thank you for your patience.

Useful Resources

The best place to get the latest news on what’s happening in the world of dentistry is ASDANET.org. You are able to sign in with your ADA number to gain access to exclusive content.

ASDA T-Shirts are in, pick up yours today. Stephanie will be handing them out during lunch before RCC this week.

ASDA T-Shirts

• Floridadental.org • ADA.com • www.doh.state.fl.us/mqa/dentistry/ • nerb.org/b/nerbb.html


Golden Crown Gala Menu Announced

Fabulous Fete Artisanal Cheese Display • An Impressive Assortment and Gorgeous Display of

Boutique Cheeses, Grapes & Olives Served with Sliced French Baguette

Freshly Baked Mini Buns • With Whipped Butter

Fête House Salad • Mesclun Greens with Walnuts, Grape Tomatoes,

Sun-Dried Cherries & White Balsamic Vinaigrette Pan Roasted Chicken

• With Roasted Garlic Jus, ��Caramelized Onion Potato Gratin, ��Hericot Vert & Roasted Carrots Garnished with Edible Nasturtium Flower

English Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake • With Freshly Whipped Cream

Officers:

Jenna Weldon: President

Kayla Macri: Vice President

Samantha Johnson: Secretary

Stephanie Mazariegos: Membership

Salvator La Mastra: Treasurer

Committee Chairs:

Jasmine Shafagh: Community Service

Stephanie Nguyen: Social

Connor Despot: Publicity

Sapneil Parikh: Dinner and Dentistry

Kaycee Wilcox: Fundraising

If you have any questions, concerns, or service/event ideas please do not hesitate to contact your LECOM ASDA Chapter!

[email protected]

Documents

April 2013 Issue