Dr. Big Bob Gerety Was A Very Special Surprise Guest Lecturer During Our Tulsa Course!

Our March courses in Tulsa were phenomenal! There was excitement in the air all weekend as we presented the fourth session of the Robert Gerety Comprehensive Orthodontic Education Program, Kay Gerety's newly updated Basic Ortho Training for Assistants, and the brand new Cephalometric Tracing Course for Assistants. Our goal for the weekend was to teach Interceptive Early Treatment to the doctors in the comprehensive ortho program and to introduce orthodontics to the staff members in the Assistant courses. It was such a pleasure to welcome back to the Comprehensive course so many of our friends from past courses who attended this weekend as monitors. It was so nice to get caught up with each other's news, and to see them sharing their cases and experience with our new students was very rewarding. Perhaps the brightest part of the weekend was Big Bob's attendance on Saturday. Big Bob surprised the class with an incredible lecture on the MDA appliance and shared his cases with them, it was truly magical! Big Bob thoroughly enjoyed being back in front of a class. At break he was so happy to visit with the monitors that he has known for years and to meet our new students as well. I think what was most evident to everyone in the room was the confidence and commitment that Big Bob has in the predictability of the technique. It was truly a special treat for all of us to have Big Bob share his cases, techniques and philosophies with us again!

The excitement wasn't limited to the doctors classroom though! Kay had a very enthusiastic group in her Basic Assistant course and we sincerely appreciate all who attended and hope that they enjoyed the experience as much as we did. Kay presented a completely restructured Basic Orthodontic course for the dental auxiliary, she listened to your requests and introduced a clinical photography module to the basic program.　 Our focus in this module was to teach proper techniques and procedures for producing consistent high quality images for orthodontic documentation. Kay had a full schedule as she presented the basics of orthodontics, record taking, practice management, administrative needs, bracketing and ligation methods. 　The program featured several hands-on projects to develop and reinforce these new skills, including bracket placement. For the clinical photography portion we had several stations in the classroom to allow each student to produce a complete set of images (facial and intraoral) that meet the standard of care guidelines. The stations were managed with the help of Julie Ivey from Straight Wire Seminars, Chris Locker, CDA, EFDA from Indianapolis, IN where she practices in two specialty offices, both pedo and ortho and Debbie Brown from John's Dental Lab who previously worked as a clinical assistant in an orthodontic office and Robin Schmidbauer CDA, EFDA from Oregon, OH. This was a fun exercise and what a pleasure it was to see the teamwork and enthusiasm of the class.

On Sunday Kay had another new class to present, the Cephalometric Tracing Course for Assistants. Due to the increased usage of third party ceph tracing services and digital tracing software, we removed the clinical portion of ceph tracing from the Basic course and made it available on Sunday for the students who had an interest in learning how to trace a ceph. We supplied the lights and tracing supplies and had a wonderful time teaching a very bright and inquisitive class.

Because we believe in providing a complete program for the General Dentist to learn ortho plus provide training for the staff, Kay Gerety also offers an Advanced Ortho Course for Assistants which is structured to be a next step for assistants who have participated in the Basic Assistant course or for those who have extensive experience in orthodontic assisting. The Advanced Ortho Course for Assistants is also a 2 day course with the same format of lecture, demonstrations, and hands-on exercises and will be presented May 16-17 along with session 5 of the Comprehensive course. We hope to see you there!

Our next session of the Comprehensive course will be May 16-18 at the Crowne Plaza Southern Hills Tulsa and we welcome all of Big Bob's past students to attend and participate as a Monitor. There will be lots of action during session 5, in addition to the course we will have the Graduation ceremony and Kay will be presenting her Advanced Orthodontic Training for Assistants. Kay's course is the perfect opportunity for you to build on the process of providing your staff with the knowledge and confidence they need to successfully perform the duties you choose to delegate. To register your staff for Kay's course or to register as a monitor in our comprehensive orthodontic course please phone Straight Wire Seminars at 877-448-8606 or visit their website at www.StraightWireSeminars.com.