Embracing a New Era
What a wonderful weekend we had for Session 2 of the Gerety Comprehensive Ortho course in Tulsa! Everything was just perfect, Tulsa opened up her arms and welcomed our students with an absolutely beautiful weekend with lots of sunshine and warm weather. Session 2 was so positive that it will be hard to top, but we have big plans for Session 3 too. We are looking forward to a Lunch & Learn during our January course, Dr. Damon Huffman has been gracious enough to accept Kay's invitation to share his presentation on "The Art of Indirect Bracketing". Damon shared his indirect bracketing techniques with our Update course and it was so successful that we have asked him back for an encore performance. The Lunch & Learn is optional and free for our Tulsa class, we will provide the lunch and look forward to a fun learning experience!
This ortho course is structured for the general dentist with no orthodontic training other than dental school. Each of our sessions builds on information, presented in the same sequence you will encounter in treatment delivery. Our format for each of the sessions is to have a blend of lectures, hands-on exercises, case review and group discussions. When our students complete this course, they will have the knowledge, skill, and confidence to treat 80% of the malocclusions that come into their office.
During session one our focus was on the initial stages of treatment which covered proper record taking, cephalometric analysis, diagnosis and treatment planning, treatment options, treatment sequencing and the proper placement of brackets and bands. We started session two with a review of these concepts and then focused on building on that foundation to introduce Big Bob Gerety's archwire sequence, force systems to include compensating curves, rotation wedges, open coil spring, cinch back bends and ties, utility wires, ligation methods, and the use of the Multi-Distalizing Arch. The MDA is our workhorse for predictably managing class II occlusions. It is a fixed appliance with bilateral adjustment to resolve the discrepancy of unbalanced malocclusion that we so often encounter. We had hands-on projects for each of these topics to reinforce the lecture material and it was a pleasure to see the teamwork and diligence as our group of doctors tackled these exercises.
On Sunday we had the case review segment of our ortho course which is an invaluable part of our program. It was thrilling for us to see all of the cases that our students brought to share during session two and appreciate the cases that our Monitors shared with the class, providing a perfect blend of beginning cases and cases well into treatment. The case review offers our students the opportunity to present cases for help with initial diagnosis, or cases that are in treatment, and provides them with the exposure to many different treatment objectives. We are looking forward to watching as these cases progress during our course!
We are always striving to improve our course and add features that will enhance our student’s experience in our program. This year we have added "The Clinician’s Corner" which is an area designated for us to spend individual time with our students. We have instruments and items on hand to demonstrate techniques and help you to improve your skills, we can answer your questions about your cases, or we can help with questions that have come up during the course. Don’t be bashful, visit with us at The Clinician’s Corner!
Our next session will be January 8-10, 2016 at the Crowne Plaza Southern Hills Tulsa and we welcome all of Big Bob's past students to attend and participate as a Monitor and start off the New Year with a dedication to refreshing and increasing your orthodontic knowledge.
Our ortho course is being held in Tulsa, OK at the Crowne Plaza Southern Hills. The dates for the remaining sessions are:
January 8 - 10, 2016
March 4 - 6, 2016
May 13 - 15, 2016
To register as a monitor please phone Straight Wire Seminars at 877-448-8606 or visit their website at www.StraightWireSeminars.com.
