Orthotown June 2017 - 8

embrace progress

A Diverse and Didactic
AAO Annual Session
by Dan Grob, DDS, MS, editorial director, Orthotown magazine

First impressions
and the exhibit hall

The hall had an
impressive display
of variety. Bright
displays, updated
booths with KOLs
standing on mini
stages to support
the latest in
brackets, wires-
and, yes, plastic.

8

JUNE 2017 // orthotown.com

The 2017 AAO Annual Session in the
coastal city of San Diego made a move to
acknowledge, attract and support millennials.
With an abundance of technology, a
large-screen message board in the lobby
displaying up-to-date tweets and posts, and
the three-ring circus schedule of speakers
reduced to 30-minute snippets, it is now
apparent that the sessions of the future will
take on a different tone than in past years.
It's not a bad thing, it just is. Take it from
me, a person living in a series of 15-minute
increments: I find it difficult to sit through
hourlong lectures these days more than ever.
The scope of this year's meeting was
broad and all-inclusive. There were topics
of all varieties catering to almost every type
of orthodontist, from the solo practicing
good ol' boy, (do good work and they will
come) to the corporate titans concerned
about ROI and brand strategy.
I walked into the exhibit hall with Dave
Allesee, one of the founders of Professional
Positioners, a leading dental laboratory sold
to a large concern many years ago. This was
his 43rd orthodontic meeting.
The hall had an impressive display of
variety. Bright displays, updated booths with
KOLs standing on mini stages to support the
latest in brackets, wires-and, yes, plastic.
Consultants were there in abundance,
specializing in practice startups, transitions,
websites, social media and everything in
between.
And then, of course, there were equipment manufacturers smoothing out their

product lines by taking advantage of the
latest in ergonomics and modern materials.
I would have to say that there was no
clear winner in the new product category,
but there were improvements on many
familiar ones.
Management software is taking new
steps and moving more toward cloud services,
and moving away from traditional methods,
like having your own server on-site. One
emerging trend is in patient education in
hopes of encouraging starts by using sliders
and scripting to get more people to say yes
to treatment.
Of course, the alternative (clear aligner)
products are expanding, and the established
ones are digging in their heels for the long
term. Patents are soon to expire, and they are
making sure that the competitive advantage
stays in their court.
There were 3-D printers everywhere,
indicating the growing trend for in-office
laboratory fabrication of appliances and
indirect bonding. Scanners have moved
from the simple "show me the teeth" to
lightweight devices able to capture the
finest detail and shade for total patient care.
Of course, bracket improvements were
everywhere, named after respective orthodontists. Their prescriptions may be different
by a slight degree of tip and torque, but each
one was described as the most stable and
the best available on the market.

Speakers and
educational sessions
Turning to the lecture halls, I found it
a difficult task to capture the speakers of
Continued on p. 10
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Orthotown June 2017
