Attending in person orthodontic events, dental conferences, and airway seminars should be a priority for anyone wanting to learn about or increase their knowledge in the airway arena. Some of the top dental events and orthodontic workshops featuring lectures on airway orthodontics are the best places to learn from a variety of speakers with knowledge and experience in treating patients with airway disorders. The dental industry has no shortage of meetings to attend, but some of the most important CE events dentistry has to offer are on the subject of airway.
Hearing speakers with knowledge and first hand experience treating patients of all ages is a huge benefit of attending meetings. Perhaps an even more important benefit comes from meeting other doctors who are on a similar learning path with their own stories of success and failure to tell. Establishing connections with like minded professionals helps comfort the new student in their own, sometimes challenging, CE journey.
I am looking forward to speaking at the IAOMT meeting in Salt Lake City this spring on how sleep and breathing affects our overall health. The AAGO meeting will be a joint meeting with my E.R.R.S.™ Mentorship in Savannah in late September where we will learn about reading cone beam x-rays and how that may affect treatment plans. There is also a joint meeting of the AAO and the AAPD on early ortho treatment in Marco Island in January. The AAPMD is not meeting again until 2026, but that is always a “don’t miss” event. These will be good events and learning opportunities.
The AAGO has some very good courses to take beginners by the hand and introduce them to orthodontics. It doesn’t take a 2-3 year orthodontic residency to learn the basics. Once the basics have been learned I strongly recommend getting involved in airway treatment. That is what we focus on in our Early Childhood Health-centered Orthodontics™ (E.C.H.O.) and Extraction Retraction Regret Syndrome™ (E.R.R.S.™) Mentorships.