today GNYDM 2

speakers 19Greater New York Dental Meeting — Nov. 26, 2012 young profession with lots left to learn. There will hopefully always be more to discover and more to learn, so themostimportantthingwecanhave is an open mind! Any dentist or dental health care professional should be able to gain from the discussion. Your session is sponsored by LVI, of which you are the clinical director. How did you begin working with LVI and can you tell us a little more about it for those who may not know? LVI is an amazing place that contin- ues to grow and evolve. It was created out of the frustration of one dentist with dental practice. Feeling forced to do what every dentist did, he was becoming burned out and bored. Thenoneofhismentorshelpedhim torealizedentistryisaboutoptionsas much as anything and that he could always refer away the treatment he didn’t enjoy doing. That spilled into esthetics, and the treatment of esthetics led to the inevitable quest for a better system of understanding occlusion. As it happened, the study of neu- romuscular dentistry was well under way in the year 2000, and it was a platformfromwhichLVIcouldevolve and grow. Teaching neuromuscular occlusionatLVIwiththebenefitofthe live patient courses, the field of NM grew more quickly in the decade-plus than it had in the previous 30 years, and now it is a very predictable and methodical process of evaluation and data gathering to support decisions in patient care. This perspective has led to thou- sandsofdentistsfromacrosstheglobe implementingNMintheirpracticeand helpingtheirpatientstoenjoyahigher quality of life. Better management of the micro- and macro-occlusion led to more predictable and more pervasive healing, and along with that, came the painfully obvious management of airway. Thirty years ago a dentist helped to develop a pacifier and nipple for babies that supports proper growth anddevelopmentofthedentalarches. This undeniable connection to the airway led to the inclusion of airway in the workup of patients. While we obviously are not able to make the diagnosis of medical issues, it is irresponsible to not have a dentist on the team that is manag- ing these patients. The statistics are staggering. With more than a third of male adults in North America being affected and our increasing girth as a population, this is a health-care issue that must be addressed. While there areanumberofopportunitiestolearn about sleep disturbances and airway, most are focused on a particular appliance or an arbitrary starting point. The programs at LVI include discussion of sleep issues, starting at the very first one, Core I. Airway issues are what created malocclusion to begin with, so it is only appropriate that dentistry join in the management of airway when our patients need it. The beautiful thing is dental support will help in nearly every patient who suffers with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA)! If there is one thing you hope attendees to your session come away with, what would it be? The most important thing I would like to leave with the attendees is the appreciation for the huge impact we can have on our patients. Dentistry is an amazing profession, and we can do some incredibly good things for our patients and never do anything we weren’t taught in dental school. However, in Jim Collins’ book, “Good to Great,” the single biggest obstacle to attaining greatness is simply being good. It is easy to be good at dentistry. I hope in some way I encourage or inspire someone to step forward and start the quest to be great! We have an opportunity to help patients live significantly better lives. We can end migraine in the major- ity, if not all, migraine sufferers. We can catch periodontal infection and reverse it before the entire body is affected and slips into metabolic syn- drome. If we screen for OSA, those eight yes/no questions may not only save the life of a patient, but end the needless suffering of so many. We havecontrolofthereinsofsomuchfor our patients, but we must look beyond the “pano and four bitewings”! Is there anything else you would like to add? Only the obvious, I am full time fac- ulty and clinical director at LVI. No question my perspective has been modified by my association with LVI going back to about 1999. I have seen some amazing dentists as I have tried to grow my skills and knowledge, both at LVI and other places. I have witnessed the way edu- cation changes the dentist and affects the patients from every angle, and I have no doubt any dentist who truly cares to deliver the best for his or her patients must be aggressive in his or her education. Dental school quite simply isn’t enough. There are a few places where comprehensive care is addressed; however, I am not aware of any that combine the balance of hard and soft tissues (and in particular, mus- cles) with the business and commu- nication skills, along with leadership development and, finally, live patient education. It has been said “you can’t be down on something you aren’t up on,” and regardless of what you have heard about LVI or neuromuscular den- tistry, we are making peoples lives better. AD