Page 4 - GP Spring 2020

From the President-Elect

Teresa Skalyo, DDS, FAGD Prepare yourself ahead of time. Many of these events are out-
Hold your own oral cancer screening event. doors and require a canopy tent, table, and camping chairs. Be
Serve your community, enhance your reputa- sure you have giveaways with your office information on it. Mini
tion, and promote the AGD! keychain-flashlights are great for the Relay events as these often
go past dark. Free items are a good draw to bring people to your
April is Oral Cancer Awareness Month, but table. As you hand them the item you will then have about 10 sec-
you can hold an oral cancer screening anytime. onds (yes, that is it) to introduce yourself, let them know you are
It can be easier than you may think if you hold there to answer questions about oral cancer or dentistry, and to tell
one as part of a larger community event, as them that if they know of anyone that needs a dentist in the area
most of the publicity will be done for you. I’m lucky that the to send them your way. Anyone that isn’t from the area is given
American Cancer Society holds an annual Relay for Life in my information on Find an AGD dentist.com to find an AGD dentist
city. You can look online for a local Relay for Life and sign up as a in their area.
team or register for a table/booth spot at a local community event.
If you have concerns about being able to do a proper oral cancer If all of us did an oral cancer event in our cities, we would go far
screening outside of your office, you can still provide information in helping to educate our communities about the prevention and
on oral cancer and dentistry. treatment of oral cancer. The AGD is made up of each one of us…
by working together we can do far more than any one of us can
individually.

From the National Trustee

Ira Levine, DDS, MAGD be some validity to that, but every membership organization faces
the same problems. Is this the end of membership organizations or
I have spent the last 20 years on the is there a way to adapt? There are so many papers on the subject
NYSAGD Board. I can’t believe that it has and so many different opinions, but there are no “one size fits all”
been that long. The world has changed. I have answers.
changed. The AGD has remained mostly the
same. However, there have been some major I like to think that I am where I am with relation to my private
upgrades in the areas of advocacy, ADA rep- practice and my organizational work because I am good at listen-
resentation, technology (including the AGD ing and that I am good at coming up with creative solutions. I have
transcript), and member benefits. Surprising- spent the last 3 years as the Regional Director. This year I was giv-
en an award by my fellow RDs for Regional Director of the Year.
ly, most dentists are not aware of what the
AGD offers them as members. When you ask someone what they Personally, I believe that the RDs are the workhorses of the AGD
and they have all earned this award. I am happy to say that your
know about the AGD, most often they will answer with a question; current RD is Dr. Seung-Hee Rhee. I am positive that she will be
“You are the CE guys, right? You are the CE junkies, right?” a great representative for Region 2 (NYSAGD) and will be even
better than I.
Continuing dental education was the original concept for the AGD.
It started as a study club. When the AGD became an independent My current job is Trustee. I have to admit that I am anxious about
organization, we needed to become so much more. The organiza- being able to do the job as well as my predecessor, Dr. Abe Dyzen-
tion has had an upward battle changing perceptions and keeping haus, who is now the AGD Secretary. I have never been one to
our members informed. How is it that we have failed? The truth is follow in anybody’s footsteps. I like to forge my own trails. For-
that our younger members see us as a more complete organization, tunately, I have a good working relationship with most of the oth-
yet still don’t know all that we offer. The problem is that the or- er trustees and the Executive Committee. They already know my
ganization is terrible at communication and dentists are terrible at eccentricities and my big mouth. Everything I have seen so far has
listening. You combine those two items and you start getting into been very positive. I hope that you will watch for organizational
the discussion of, “If a tree falls in the woods and there is nobody growth and even participate in that growth.
there to hear it…”
“Without continual growth and progress, such words as improve-
We still haven’t come to terms with publicizing what we do to ment, achievement, and success have no meaning.”
our members, non-members, and the public. We have made some Benjamin Franklin
significant headway, but we are far from where we need to be. The
other side of that is that the battle to get people to hear us is going in “If you want to grow a giant redwood, you need to make sure the
the wrong direction. Everybody is stretched for time. Everybody is seeds are ok, nurture the sapling, and work out what might poten-
stretched for money. Everybody has a shorter attention span with tially stop it from growing all the way along. Anything that breaks
every passing day. These are the reasons that have been cited as it at any point stops that growth.”
the primary reasons why we have trouble retaining members and Elon Musk
attracting new members, especially younger dentists. There may

www.nysagd.org l Spring 2020 l GP 4