(800) 560-6066Rolando Mia, from Zyris, hosts a video series focused on the latest news, topics, and conversations happening in dentistry featuring dentists across the nation. In this session, we sat down with Dr. David M. Bonner, DDS, MBA, MAGD, FICD, FICOI, FACD and Adjunct Professor at University of Texas gives his opinions on why dentists should further their education as COVID-19 presents rare opportunities.
Watch this video to learn the following:
- Furthering your dental education by attending CE courses and seminars
- Reduction of aerosols in dentistry and the importance of furthering this initiative
- Alternatives to in person meetings for education credits through teledentistry and online education
- How the Isolite® can save dentists time and reduce airborne particles in procedures
Transcript
Rolando Mia:
All right. Good morning everybody. Welcome to Zyris and this is Dental Voice. My name is Rolando Mia. The purpose of our session here is to give our listeners an opportunity to hear from clinicians, to hear from experts and to hear from people who are dealing with everything that our industry is dealing with today. Today we have a special guest, Dr. David M. Bonner who is a dentist we’ve been working with and is an incredibly knowledgeable person in the space. What we’re going to do during the course of this session is talk about education, but before I begin, I just want to say Dr. Bonner is an adjunct professor at University of Texas’s Health Dental School in San Antonio. He also has an MBA and is a lecturing doctor. He has a really strong understanding of the business and underpinnings of dentistry.
In addition, he’s one of our elected officials in Texas. So he’s got an incredible breadth of information and understanding and I’m really looking forward to hearing from him. Good morning, Dr. Bonner. So when you look at what’s happening, typically we would be talking about different things in dentistry. Right now, a huge issue is the crisis that we’re dealing with and this pandemic, Covid-19. How is that affecting you and what’s happening with your practice, your family, and all?
Adjusting to a New Dental World: COVID-19
Dr. David M. Bonner:
Well, I practice with my son and we just opened up a new dental office about 3 months before all of this hit. So, certainly different. I think we’re all going to get through it. It’s not a good thing that’s happening to our country, but officials and researchers are working hard to get us through it, and I think things are going to be fine when it’s all said and done. I mentioned earlier before we started that when I lecture on the business side of dentistry, I mentioned to dentists that we don’t sometimes realize that with just a stroke of a governor’s pen. Things can change. That has happened now and I’m sorry that it has, but it’s truly affected everyone.
Rolando Mia:
Well, I appreciate that. It’s interesting. I speak with a lot of clinicians and there’s a huge amount of uncertainty that’s going on right now. Especially given that the practices are basically shut down except for emergency procedures for dentists who are kind of stressing about that right now. What advice would you give about, how to, I love the message, “We will get through this”, but what advice would you give to clinicians right now who are feeling anxiety and stress?
Dr. David M. Bonner:
What we need to do is to work on things we have control over, and we don’t have a lot of control over this. When we’re going to be able to get back to complete and full operation. I’m always an optimistic individual and look at what can I do to make lemonade out of lemons. So, I’ve never been off more than two weeks. It’s a rare occasion I take a 2-week vacation. This is the fourth week that I’ve not been working. My son’s taking care of the emergencies. So, there’s a lot of things that I’ve been doing and preparing for. I think we can make productive use of our time. So, we are not happy about it, but we can make it the best thing possible for it.
Educational Opportunities Have Risen
Rolando Mia:
Oh, very much appreciate that. I agree. We’ve been hearing a lot of things. Something that comes up often, it’s interesting is because a lot of clinicians are currently not working other than dealing with or performing emergency procedures, is education. We’ve had several talks about education. You see a lot of see a lot of talk about taking the time to educate yourself now that you have the time. What are your thoughts on that and what would you recommend now that you have the time?
Dr. David M. Bonner:
Well, that’s a great question and I think education is the key to success, especially in dental practices. It’s one of the things that we have been doing. There’s a lot of seminars that are very inexpensive. Some have actually been free. I’ve been attending several. The Texas Dental Association has an annual convention, the very first part of May. That’s been canceled because this coronavirus situation. I do continuing education courses at the dental school. Dr. Scott Stafford is in charge of continuing education there and excited about what he has decided to put together.
We have put together somewhat of an alternative dental meeting. So, a lot of dentists we’re counting on the Texas Dental Association meeting to further continue their education credits. What we’ve been able to do is put together a 2-day meeting. It’s going to start this this week on Thursday and Friday and there’ll be at least 11 speakers, 3-hour meetings, some speakers will do 2, 3-hour segments. We’re only charging $28 for each 3-hour segment, which is pretty close to free. I’m speaking Thursday morning and there are a number of excellent speakers that are speaking throughout those 2 days.
So, you’ll have choices, there’ll be speakers that’ll be on obviously different segments but there’ll be several speakers Thursday afternoon and same thing goes on Friday. So, there’s a lot of great speakers that are lined up for this meeting.
Education Forums: What to Look For
Rolando Mia:
So, when you’re looking at sessions or educational forums, what are some of the things that clinicians should be looking for when they’re evaluating the courses especially since everything now is being done online as opposed to in person? What are some of the things that people should be looking for when they’re thinking about courses? You mentioned that some of these are free or the cost is nominal, which is wonderful. So, you can get your CE.
Dr. David M. Bonner:
Well you know, one fundamental thing is will your state board use or accept these meetings is for educational credit? In Texas, and I think it’s true for a lot of states, one of the things that’s critical is that it be where you can have live interaction. When you have live interaction, our state board considers that a live course even though it’s done over the internet.
So, this meeting, what we’re going to do is we’re going to have it where people can interact, they’ll be able to submit questions, we’ll answer those questions. I think that’s an important thing because it’s not just listening to someone lecture where your questions may or may not be answered. So, it makes it a better meeting when you can ask questions. Also, is important to know if your state board accepts these hours as credit. I think that’s the first thing you want to look at and make sure you’re making a wise use of your time. There are a number of meetings that are doing that sort of thing. I attended some that last week that were exactly that way.
Rolando Mia:
It sounds so very important that when, or if clinicians are looking at participating in these education courses, you want to make sure that they will be recognized otherwise it’s just taking time to go listen to somebody. It sounds like the interactive part is really important because it gives you that dynamic of being able to challenge, to ask questions and all that.
Dr. David M. Bonner:
Yeah. I’m not saying that you can’t learn a lot from a meeting where there’s no interaction, but I think it’s important to have interaction where you will be accepted as credit and so that you can have even a greater learning experience. That’s the first thing I would suggest. There’s also, I think the need to constantly evaluate, “Where am I weak, what do I need to do?” To make myself a stronger dentist, a stronger business person, and to be able to serve my patients in the very best way possible there are always those areas that we have to know in order to be licensed, to meet the requirements of our regulatory bodies. Those courses, those educational pursuits are sometimes a little less exciting.
So, what I’m saying is this is this is a good time to say, “Hey, I’ve got extra time. Maybe I need to reread the rules and regulations the state board makes me do.” Our state board has a regular education course that you get online, you have to take every so often, you know, nobody looks forward to having to do that, but it’s important.
This is a good time to say, “Well I’ve got nothing better to do and I’ll think I’ll just take care of that.” There are some courses that you can take care of and it’s a good time to review ethics. I’m a member of the American College of Dentists and we have a great emphasis on promoting ethics in dentistry. Sometimes that seems like a subject people are not as interested in, but you know, when we revisit, then we realize it really is important and it helps us better serve our patients.
Rolando Mia:
Oh, I love that. So it’s accreditation, where am I weak or what are the areas that I would like to improve or enhance my abilities, and then the third one is there are requirements that you’re just required to do that are not as that not as attractive. And it’s a great time to do that. Is that what I’m hearing?
Taking the Time to Focus on Areas That Need Improvement
Dr. David M. Bonner:
Yeah, that’s exactly right. And then there’s always those books that we’d love to read. But when do you have the time? Because you’re busy working at your office, you come home, you’re tired, and you go, “Well I don’t know if I have time to not to read that book.” Yet this is a great time to catch up on some reading that’ll actually do us all a lot of good. That’s one of the things I went through my MBA education program with Texas Tech University. We read and they were all books that anyone can access. They weren’t dry, boring university textbooks. They were great books that they really had lasting value. I think books like that are – it’s a good time to be able to reengage with those, to read them, to maybe get them on audible and to listen to them.
Rolando Mia:
That’s a great idea. I appreciate that very much. Now you work with the dental school and one of the issues, one of the topics that’s been coming up is for first and second years it’s mostly didactic in class, but for the third and the fourth-year students, there’s a clinical aspect. And because of the quarantine we’re dealing with globally, they’re not able to physically work with patients. What advice would you give them, especially the fourth years, who need to get the experience education wise. How would you suggest they look at that and what kind of feedback would you give them?
Dr. David M. Bonner:
Well, that’s a challenging question. We’ve looked at that, I’m not personally involved at the dental school on that issue, but there are doctors like Dr. Stafford and others that are at the dental school looking at that, trying to help the students. One of the questions is how are they going to be able to take their regional board exams? There’s a lot of regional board exams have been on lab patients. There’s been discussion, can they take those board exams on non-lab patients? In other words, on a mannequin and be able to do that. And you know, a lot of good can be done by practicing your preparation, your other techniques on inanimate forms.
I would encourage dental students to be reviewing their knowledge to be thinking about the future, think about their business plans, who they are going to go to work with, or are they going to start up their own practice? And that’s not as often done anymore, but it’s certainly something that’s viable. It gives students time. When they’re in school, they don’t have a lot of time to think about a lot of their options because they’re so busy fulfilling their education requirements with patients and their education. But here’s a little time to sit back and go, “Okay, what do I really want to do?”
Rolando Mia:
So, is it even feasible to do? Because there’s been talk of maybe pushing out or accelerating these exams. From the dental school perspective, in addition to looking at that, what else can they do to kind of keep the hands-on piece up to snuff?
Dr. David M. Bonner:
Yeah. Working on patients is not going to happen until the president and the governor or make a decision to let that happen. So that area is just out. At our dental school, it’s a very modern school and I think a lot of schools are like this where they can actually mount with a head where you can do preparations – again, not as exciting as working on a patient. Not as challenging as working on a patient, but it’s good to be able to keep your skills going.
I know when I was in dental school and in the first few years I was out, I’d take a week vacation. You’d come back after one week it’s like, “Wow.” You know, it’s like you’d been gone a month and you’d feel like it could affect your knowledge almost. You know, you didn’t forget anything, but it almost affected that. Now after you practice 40 years, you can take off a month and it’s going to be like going back to what you’ve always done. I really empathize with our dental students. They’re the future of dentistry and actually they’re the present in dentistry. So there’s not a lot of great options, but I think that’s one of the better options they may have.
A Word of Advice for Dental Students
Rolando Mia:
Yeah. And I liked the, the context, which is, even though it’s not a live patient, still take the time to actually work your craft because even on a, on a mannequin, you’re still having to work through. At least you have the experience of using the instruments and all. Did I catch that correctly?
Dr. David M. Bonner:
Absolutely. I think there’s also things that the dental students sometimes do not have the time for like continuing education courses. I mean I teach continued education courses in dental schools and sometimes dental students will attend those. This is a time where dental students can pursue education that they’re interested in, that they may not have gotten as much of in dental school and you know, beef up their knowledge of implant dentistry. Maybe they’re interested in doing orthodontics or endodontics. One of the sad things is in dental schools today compared to many years ago is there’s not as many patients available to do procedures on.
So, when I was in dental school, there was no telling how many root canals we had done by the time we graduated. And you know, they’re not doing as many root canals, as students. One of the things I really appreciate dental schools doing is when they really promote the dental students in their undergrad years to pursue a lot of these types of procedures. This is a time where you can do that. I mean, extracted teeth. And there’s other ways of working on root canals. So, like this is a good time to go, “Hey, where am I weak? Where do I want to be stronger?”
Rolando Mia:
I love the message. Where am I weak? Where do I want to be stronger? Let’s go focus on that. Now let me ask you, I’m also seeing in addition to the CE courses that are being given by like your state associations or as adjuncts or schools, a lot of the manufacturers are providing education as well. From your perspective is there a difference between the kinds of courses that you’re seeing on the educational side or with the schools and associations versus the education that you see from manufacturers?
Dr. David M. Bonner:
You know, and it kind of depends on the manufacturer. There are some manufacturers that are putting out some excellent courses. There are some manufacturers that are hurting so much, they just really kind of pulled back and they’re not spending the money they could spend in and providing speakers. Now, I’ll tell you, Ro, I think is an interesting aside. This dental meeting that we’re putting on for Texas, but people out of state are certainly welcome to enroll, every speaker is speaking for free. I’m not being paid, no speakers being paid. We have all weighed our compensation.
You know you typically give a speaker a fairly decent honorarium and we we’re all like, “Hey, we understand dentists are hurting because they’re not receiving active income that they’re earning and so this is a great way to do our dental profession a favor.” I don’t think most dentists are very giving along that way and so you know, this is an opportunity to be able to do that. Some manufacturers are involved in doing continued education this way.
So I think you can get good education for manufacturers, but you can also perhaps get less biased information sometimes at a dental association meeting or from a dental school where you may mention certain products manufacturers, but you also have some guidelines on how you do that.
Rolando Mia:
That’s awesome. I love the fact that the clinicians are kind of coming together and giving their time to the state association, the Texas association, to kind of offset all of the courses, all of the trade shows that have been canceled and there’s a lot of courses that were given during those and they’re excellent. Where do you get them? The fact that you’re coming together to do that and you’re, doing it as a, as a value to the population is wonderful and really very much appreciate that. Education is gold. It’s funny, sometimes you kind of take it for granted and then all of a sudden you realize how important it is. So that’s awesome. Thanks for that.
Dr. David M. Bonner:
You know, I’ll tell you, I got out of dental school in 1980 and there were a lot of fantastic dentists that were great mentors. One of the things that they taught me was we are a brotherhood, sisterhood, a family. We really help each other. We’re not really in competition as much. I know sometimes with a little different emphasis on business and how business has been done in dentistry, things have changed somewhat, but I really think that dentists are are very caring people and they’re wanting to do whatever they can do to help each other and also help the population receive dental services.
Educating Yourself on Dental Aerosol Reduction
Rolando Mia:
Yeah, that’s awesome. So, I’m going to shift gears slightly from education. During this crisis, one of the biggest issues that we’ve been hearing about is the dangers of aerosols. So, dangers of droplets and spatter. There’s almost a fear because people are wearing masks and all sorts of things. Even when we’re allowed to come back again, there is still going to be this issue of aerosols. So, spatter and splatter. What are your thoughts with regard to how to deal with that and this whole focus on infection control? What are your thoughts on that in terms of education?
Dr. David M. Bonner:
Yeah, that’s a fantastic question. It’s one that’s dear to my heart, but I want to preface it with this. Zyris has never been a sponsor of mine. Okay? So, it’s a totally unbiased opinion. I’ve had corporate sponsors in different venues and you and I have never reached out and create a relationship like that. But I’m going to tell you one of the things I talk about and just about in every clinical course I do is how you can use an Isolite to answer some of these questions.
First, I want to tell you a little bit of my story. I went to a dental convention and had been interested in the Isolite products so, and I know that name has changed and Zyris is the name of the company, but it’s still the Isolite product. I saw what I thought the Isolite would do and so I bought three of the setups to bring back to my office. We put them in and then I did exactly what a lot of dentists do. I didn’t use it.
We sometimes laugh about that dentist. How many dentists buy equipment and instrumentation and then they don’t use it? How many times have you bought an articulator that it went into the closet you didn’t actually use? That’s been a conversation in dentistry for years about how most dentists, if they have any age at all on them, have a closet full of stuff that they’ve not used, right? So we have it set up. I’m not using it, you know, I’m a busy practice and so my son’s working with me. My son said, “Dad, why aren’t you using the Isolite?” And I said, “Well, I just don’t have time to slow down and you put it into action.” And he said, “Dad, it’s so simple. Why don’t you, why don’t you use it?” And so I said, “Okay, I’m going to do it.”
Then you look at all the different options of mouthpieces and so you look at that and you go, “Wow, which one do you use?” And it looked like it – what do you all have, seven sizes? So, you go, “Okay, I’ve got a patient, they’re all different sizes. Which one do I use?” And that was kind of daunting cause I’m not wanting to use one, throw it away, pickup another one, throw it away, pick up a third one.
Then I realized, after I use it a few times, that almost every adult, is a medium DV – a medium deep vestibule fits even people who could be better used with a large, even people that need just a medium. You pick up a pair of scissors and then 30 seconds it has been customized where it goes in. So, that was a thing that really was my obstacle.
That was my obstacle that kept me from using the Isolite, is I didn’t want to waste a whole lot of mouthpieces. And then I realized, “You know what? This is super simple.” On most children, I’ll use a small and I know you have a pediatric size, but most children can open their mouth extremely wide. So, a small works and sometimes a medium, but if you’ve had a little experience, you realize which one you’re going to use it.
Those are really about the three sizes that I use primarily, and most adults are primarily medium DV. I got past that and then there was the next thing, how are people going to accept this? Because you know they’re not used to it and you’re putting something that appears to be large in their mouth. And I thought, “Well you need to present this from the patient’s point of view.”
So, I would show them the mouthpiece and I said, “Have we ever used one of these on you before?” And at first the answer is obviously no, but it was a way to introduce the subject from an education perspective and I would say, “It’s a super soft mouthpiece that does a lot of great things for you. What is going to do is it’s going to keep your cheek, your lip, your tongue out of the way to protect them. It’s also going to remove all the saliva and water out of your mouth. You’re going to be able to lean back and be able to just literally go to sleep if you want to. You don’t have to, but a lot of people do.”
So, most people were accepting it – that kind of surprised me. In fact, when I say most, it’s rare that someone doesn’t accept it.
Dr. David M. Bonner:
It’s a rare week when someone won’t accept – it really is. So, I started using it and then the real test was when my daughter, and I think she was about 35 at the time, came in and she’s always the kind of individual that wants things a certain way and I respect that. You go to her house and it is immaculate. Everything is in place, it’s perfect. She has the way she wants to do things and it’s, it’s great.
So, I’m thinking to myself, “Okay, is my daughter going to accept this?” So, I just presented it as I do to everyone and I put it in. Then I did the work on her and I took it out. I didn’t ask her anything, I sat her up and she immediately and spontaneously turned around and said, “Dad, that was awesome.” And I said, “Are you kidding me?” And she said, “No, that was awesome. I love that.”
So that was really a mental testifier where I saw that and I went, “Wow, that really shows me something even though I’ve been using this for a while.” Then I wanted my son to use one on me – I’ve had some chipped teeth and he was going to do some bonding on them. He looked at me and he says, “Dad, do you want to use the Isolite?” And I think he thought I was going to say no. That may be presumption. But I looked at him and I said, “Well of course, I want to use an Isolite.” So, he put it in and as he was working on my teeth, I literally fell asleep because I didn’t have to relax.
From the dental point of view, we’ve all had these conversations. When you’re not using an Isolite or a rubber dam and you’re working on the patient and you say, “Could you open? Could you open please? Could you open bigger now? I mean really wide this time. Could you keep it open?” And you say that for the entire 30- or 40-minute procedure. I got so tired of that and even though I’m kind of a talker, you might be able to tell.
I got where it was just silent in the treatment rooms, listening to the music, working on them. You don’t have to keep telling people – and I know from a patient point of view, they don’t want to hear that. They get tired of the dentist asking them incessantly to open their mouth larger.
It was a convenience. Then I began to do some time motion studies, I realized that with most adults I was saving at least 30% of my time, which is great for the patient. Patient doesn’t want to be there any longer and they have to, no matter how pleasant you make it, this is not entertainment for most patients.
Now I’ve got to tell you, I’ll walk in the treatment room every day. Patients look at me and I go, “Hey, you ready to have fun?” And they go, “What? Fun?” And I go, “Yeah, we’re ready to have fun.” I think dentistry ought to be fun. What I mean by that is if it can be a pleasant experience as opposed to, well, what a lot of people think it’s going to be when it’s all said and done, you walk out and go, “Well that was an unpleasant and I expected the unpleasant, therefore, you know, in a way it’s fun.” So, you know, I guess I’m a character, but I ask that to people all the time.
Rolando Mia:
You want to have fun. Now, have you seen the effect that or you know this whole aerosol thing is a big issue right now, spatter, splatter, all that type of stuff. What are some of the things that are important with regards to procedures and education?
Time and Motion Studies: Isolite
Dr. David M. Bonner:
Yeah, and that’s what your original question was, and I was about to get there and I’m glad you asked again. That’s a great question because we’re all concerned about infection control and we should have always been concerned about infection control. I’ll go back to the 1980s before AIDS. It really came out in the early 1980s or an understanding of it anyway. You know, we had Hepatitis B and there’s a certain number of people who are infected Hepatitis B that become carriers and never get over it. And yet in dental schools, what were they teaching us? Be bare handed, don’t wear gloves, be bare handed.
Unless you’re doing surgery. Well you know, you could do a prophylaxis on a patient and have more blood on your hands then in some surgeries. So, we should have always been wearing gloves, but AIDS comes out and it’s a terrible thing, but it taught us something.
It taught us to wear gloves, and then somewhere along the line everybody realized, “You know what? We need to wear safety glasses to keep this splatter out of our eyes.” If you’ve ever seen anybody that’s had, you know, a Herpes Simplex infection in the eyes it’ll make a believer out of you wearing safety glasses. So, all along we should have been wearing safety glasses, masks, and wearing gloves. There’s always been a need for something like an Isolite. Well, hey, originally it was called a rubber dam and a rubber dams are great. I’ll still use rubber dams for endodontics, but I love an Isolite for a number of reasons. It is a great way to prevent aerosols.
In fact, what surprised me is when I read a study recently that showed that the Isolite actually is better at controlling an aerosol than a rubber dam – now, I know that’s probably hard for a lot of people to believe. However, there’s a scientific study out there where they’ve shown that this seems to be true. When you’re doing bonding on composites, you need a controlled environment for what you’re bonding in with controlled humidity in the mouth.
You’re going to get better bonding the same way when you’re putting on crowns, you’re going to have a better bonding of the crown and the crown is going to stay on, but if you don’t control that, you’ve got a problem. It affects dentistry. Coming back to your question, it’s a great way to have great infection control by helping prevent this aerosol. The mouthpiece for an Isolite goes back and it blocks the mouth. It keeps the cheek out of the way. It keeps the tongue back and extremely minimizes how much saliva is in the mouth, but as important or maybe more important, is there’s this continuous full mouth suction going on.
Now I want to breakaway for a second to tell you, one of the things I experienced with my patients when they’ve never used Isolite is I’ll tell them, “You need to breathe through your nose because it has such a strong suction that when you’re not experienced to this, then it may feel like it’s taken your breath away.” So I’ll put it in their mouth and I’ll turn it on first. I always ask people all the time, “You doin’ alright? Are you okay?” Then every once in a while, you can just see in their eyes that I am not able to breath, or at least they think that and so I take it out right away and don’t make a big deal out of it. I say “Just get your breath, relax. You’re doing what most people do.” Reassure them and then put it back in.
Usually the second time they’re great and that doesn’t happen very often, but it happens with some. The point is though, is this suction is tremendous and if you’re tired of having saliva in the face – I was. I don’t like having saliva in the face and bless their hearts, dental assistant, do the very best job they possibly can. They have a high-volume evacuator, they’ve got an air water syringe, but it’s impossible not to, every once in a while, spray the dentist and that spray a lot of times is reflected off the surface that they’re spraying on.
So, what do you want to be in that surface? Very minimal bacterial load and viral load or do you want it to be full of bacteria and viruses? Well, for us the Isolite is a great option and I use rubber dams a lot, but I use rubber dams now more exclusively with endodontics.
I use the Isolite for everything else. Now, I’ll tell you there’s a great infection control aspect of this, but there’s also convenience. There’s been times where my dental assistants, and we have several in our office, but they’d be tied up doing things and I wanted to get started. So, I’ll put an Isolite in and do surgery. I’ve got to tell your Rolando, I don’t know if anybody else calls it this. When I’m doing my presentations, I talk about Isolite, I call it the dental assistant in a box. It does not replace your dental assistant, but it makes his or her job a lot easier. I don’t want to sound like I’m a gender specific.
COVID-19 Has Given Us the Opportunity to Focus on What Is Important
Rolando Mia:
Really appreciate the story. Thank you for sharing that. We’ve definitely heard that, and I think it’s important, especially now given that there’s such a high awareness around patients. There’s, this fear of “I don’t want to affect my team. I want to make sure I’m doing everything I can.” I think that’s really helpful. So, thank you for sharing that. I appreciate that.
So, just shifting gears real quick here and you’re going to be doing a education session and thank you for sharing the context around finding courses or finding education to help you with things that you want to deal with, but also the things that you have to deal with. Where would someone get more information with regard to kind of the sessions that you’re doing and if they had questions that they’d like to ask or reach out to you, what would be the best thing to do?
Dr. David M. Bonner:
Well, I’ll tell you if you want to reach out to me, my email address is the easiest way to contact me. It’s simple. It’s Dr. David Bonner as in Dr. David Bonner. No dots in there. Just D R David Bonner, drdavidbonner@gmail.com. If you’re interested in the virtual dental meeting, whether it’s to listen to me or another one of the great speakers, then there’s a simple way to do it. Just Google UT Health and it’ll bring up the health science center.
When you bring that up, you’ll have all the different schools of dentistry, go down to that, click on it, on the upper left-hand side. You’ll see academics click on that. Then on the upper left-hand side, you will see a continuing education on the school of dentistry. It’ll take you right to a banner that scrolls across the top and you’ll see the very first thing, the virtual dental meeting.
If you don’t mind, I’ll hold up a little, a sign that’ll kind of give you the address of this. So it’s a UT Health School of Dentistry and it’s at smile.uthscsa.edu. The UTHSCSA is the old name of the dental school, University of Texas Health Science center, San Antonio. And there’s my email address as well, Dr. David Bonner. You’re certainly free to call me. I’m here to help. And I’m also, you’ll notice on that website, I’m doing a live seminar at the dental school unless it gets canceled by the governor at the end of the month in May. I do a number of lectures. This one is called, “Grand Slam Restorative Dentistry”. It’s a 7-hour course.
Rolando Mia:
Awesome. So, for people who will be viewing this later and those who are still with us, thank you for being on here. If you have any questions, please ask. What kind of final words or closing words would you like to give folks regarding this and what we’ve been talking about and your thoughts on getting through all of this.
Dr. David M. Bonner:
No, we’re talking to the dental community and the dental communities are kind and I would encourage us all to continue our kindness every day in the office, out of the office. Be kind to one another, make wise use of your time. There’s a lot of good things that we can do. This is going to pass. Unfortunately, it’s affected a lot of families, a lot of people, but it’s going to pass and it’s going to give us opportunity to spend time with family and to spend time thinking about the things that are really important.
Rolando Mia:
That’s awesome. Really appreciate that. Yeah you can apply that beyond dentistry to kind of everything that you’re doing in your life and, and the people that you’re around. Thank you for that. Thank you so much. I’d I love the context that you bring. I’m sure you have so much experience that you could share and I wish we had more time, but really want to thank you for taking the time today for sitting with us and sharing your insights. Good luck during the during the sessions.
To those of you who are watching, if you have any questions, please feel free to put them in here and we’ll, we can follow up on them. If you liked this content of this or if there are ideas that you’d like us to, to continue talking about, please send those to us. We’d be happy to do that. If you’d like this information, please go ahead and share it with other people who may benefit from the information that Dr. Bonner’s provided with us. If you’re looking for CE courses, go ahead and click on the sites and visit the sites he’s mentioned, and we’ll be talking to you soon. Thank you so much. Have a great day.
