THE CHALLENGE TO STAY RELEVANT Dr. Gary D. Oyster

THE CHALLENGE TO STAY RELEVANT

Gary D. Oyster, DDS; ADA Trustee, 16th District

To paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, it is not the critic who counts. The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes up short. There is no effort without error and shortcomings, as they strive to do the deeds. That person’s place shall never be with those cold and timid souls, who neither know victory nor defeat.

The ADA, state, and local dental societies are at a crossroads in choosing bold strategic plans and ideas to stay relevant to both their members and the public at large. At our last Board of Trustees meeting, the challenges facing organized dentistry were discussed. The list is lengthy: the relationship with ADPAC, SmileCon, CDT updating, Executive Director changes, a new platform to replace Aptify, membership, Delta virus, teledentistry, eldercare, Medicare, and interstate compacts. Each comes with its own unique challenges, yet all must be dealt with successfully.

Two of these issues, CDT code updating and relacing Aptify with a new platform, will be costly. They will require states and the ADA to work together to achieve a satisfactory product. Dental Medicare coverage and eldercare issues will have successful outcomes only through dentists advocating successfully with their congressional senators and congresspersons.

No matter how organized dentistry chooses to meet these challenges, errors may occur, and we may come up short, but we must try. If we do not make daring decisions, especially concerning membership, the ADA will fall by the wayside as other organizations and companies have done. Who thought that Sears, Texaco, Blockbuster, and Toys ‘R’ Us, to name a few, were too big to fail? We now have four generations of practicing dentists and our market share membership among Millennials and Generation X is declining. We must encourage young dentists to join and then work hard to ensure their retention. These two generations are more diverse and are entering the workforce with different mindsets around practice choices. The challenge is to make membership in the tripartite relevant for them. SmileCon is a bold idea for a national meeting that will hopefully attract younger members to attend. One of the goals is for the younger members to be inspired and become advocates among their peers, who are not members. The ADA will both survive and become stronger by proactively addressing these challenges yet also showing patience with the changes needed to be relevant.

“If we do not make daring decisions, especially concerning membership, the ADA will fall by the wayside as other organizations and companies have done.”