Pacific Coast Society of Orthodontists Bulletin Summer 2020 - 7

PCSO News and Events

PCSO Delegation Report 2020

Pushing Our Boundaries

Dr. Paul Kasrovi
PCSO Delegation Chair

Summer 2020 PCSO Bulletin

2020 has been an unusual year for all of us. The
COVID-19 pandemic has affected every aspect
of our lives. Certainly, organized orthodontics
and the governance of the American Association of Orthodontists (AAO) were not immune
to this pandemic, and when the AAO made the
tough decision to cancel the face-to-face annual
session in Atlanta, the leaders involved in AAO
governance faced the big decision of what to do
next. Several conference calls took place among
the eight constituent delegation chairs and the
speaker of the house to brainstorm a number of
possibilities, including a limited face-to-face gathering of the 2020 House of Delegates (HOD) in
St. Louis, completely eliminating the 2020 HOD,
a limited agenda and/or a mainly informational
virtual HOD (VHOD), and a more comprehensive
VHOD, among others. The longer we brainstormed, the more ambitious we became. The
tagline that resonated in everyone's mind was,
"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!"
We all felt that despite the technical challenges that we will have to overcome in roughly a
month, this pandemic may be challenging our
association with an opportunity to implement
ideas that we had never previously considered,
and if we succeed, this will be giant step forward for our association. The AAO delegates had
already participated in a VHOD gathering around
November of each year for the past two years, so
this was not a novel concept. However, the VHOD
gathering was mainly an informational and supplemental virtual meeting and merely a mid-year
sanity check to inform the AAO delegates of some
of the activities of the board of trustees, councils,
committees, and task forces and the ongoing
affairs of the association. No voting ever took
place, and there were specific rules that limited
the capability and scope of the VHOD gathering,
such as no discussion or deliberations on any
bylaws matters or any issues that had a significant budgetary impact, just to name a few. Many
delegates were beginning to question the value
of a VHOD, which had originally been put in place
to make us more nimble as an association and
afford a mid-year opportunity for deliberation

and furthering of ideas as opposed to waiting
for a face-to-face annual session. However, with
no opportunity to vote or discuss issues, was the
VHOD given a chance to reach its fullest potential, and did it allow us to become more nimble as
an association?
Well, folks, the COVID crisis certainly solved that
issue. If we were to have a meaningful HOD
gathering, deliberate and vote on resolutions, and
allow the governance of the association to operate in a normal manner, we needed to push our
boundaries and let the 2020 VHOD (which would
be our only mode of HOD operation this year) not
be shackled by its limitations and restrictions.
Kudos to the AAO staff (in particular, Ms. Lisa
Chandler), eight constituent delegation chairs,
our speaker of the house (Dr. Jeff Rickabaugh),
our parliamentarian (Mr. Roger Hanshaw), the
Freeman group who provided technical assistance, and, last but not least, all of our dedicated
AAO delegates and alternate delegates. We were
able to conduct a highly successful VHOD via
Zoom on May 1, 2020. The delegation chairs had
worked hard to create an ambitious agenda of
16 resolutions that would hopefully be managed
well considering the virtual format. Some of the
resolutions that would have required much discussion or the ones that were not considered urgent for the immediate needs to the association
and the benefit of the members were postponed
to the 2021 HOD. There were two constituent caucuses, one before the virtual reference committee
(VRC) and one immediately following the VRC, in
which the resolutions were discussed and preparations were made before the sitting of the 2020
VHOD. In addition to testimonies of participants
in attendance at the 300-capacity Zoom sitting of
the VRC, online testimonies submitted by members at large (which was a significantly greater
number than in previous years, because of the
absence of a face-to-face opportunity to attend
an RC) were reviewed and considered by the VRC.
PCSO was proud to have its own past delegation
chair, Dr. Ron Wolk, serve on the 2020 VRC, which
was a team of five delegates. The 64 voting AAO

Pacific Coast Society of Orthodontists Bulletin Summer 2020

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