By: Howard Farran, DDS, MBA, MAGD,
Publisher, Dentaltown Magazine

Working hard? Not spending enough time with your family? Traveling more than you’d like to attend Continuing Education? Are expenses more than you’d like for CE? Now, you can get FREE CE credits on your own PC, on your own time and in the comfort of your own home or office on www.Dentaltown.com. The members of Dentaltown.com (called Townies) have e-mailed us over and over asking us to provide CE credits on Dentaltown.com. Townies, you asked for it, so now you got it!

Last year we hired CE expert Rita Zakher, DMD, MBA and started working on offering you CE programs that will take online education to the next level. Rita first practiced general dentistry full time for eight years. She then spent the next five years creating online CE courses for medical professionals. Rita knew the time was ripe for online CE in dentistry. After looking at every Web site in dentistry, Rita only knocked on one door! We had just started looking for an online CE director! Now, how amazing is that?!!

We do not want to put up a CE course on Dentaltown, let you watch it of free, and then just let you go back to the golf course!! We want you to use this online CE as an opportunity to take your mind out for a five-mile run, create lively exchanges that clean the cobwebs out of the gray matter, and create a truly exceptional learning experience. Forget the static self-learning methods of the past; welcome in the new world of dynamic, interactive online learning.

What does all this mean? You will be able to view PowerPoint slides and hear the speaker, just like if you were attending a live conference. In fact, I just took the online CE course from the hottest oral and maxillofacial surgeon on the lecture circuit, Jay Reznick, DMD, MD. The course is on surgical extractions and complications of 3rd molars. Very impressive!! Jay is a brilliant oral surgeon and normally you would have to take tons of notes. But now, no more notes!! You do not have to take any because the entire course will always be right there in your own PC. Need to revisit a particular part of Jay’s presentation? No problemo! Go back and see it again! Watch it as many times as you like.

Another advantage is after watching the course you can use the interactive message boards to further discuss it with other course participants and the speaker. You will be able to raise all the questions and special issues that will no-doubt dawn on you after taking the course. No matter what the dental issue is, there are always a half-dozen Townies or more who seem to have read every piece of literature written on the subject since Leif Erikson landed. This inquisition of enquiring spirits is what makes our message boards such a huge hit!

Your participation could help the entire dental industry! Think of this: you watch one of our CE programs online, you see how a new instrument or product is being used, so you go out and purchase it. Now, you have comments or improvements on its usage and you express them on the message boards. Then, others will add their comments and experiences. The manufacturer will read all this and incorporate this feedback into improving its product. How tremendous is that?! Everything in dentistry can evolve faster, easier, more efficiently and for less cost! This is definitely an increase in dental productivity.

Have a clinical technique or a practice management philosophy you’d like to share with the dental industry? Make your own online CE course with us! Send Rita an e-mail at Rita@FarranMedia.com.

All that aside, I would like to take this opportunity to give a big thank you to every Townie who has spent countless hours debating their points so eloquently! Your efforts do not go unnoticed, as we have just passed 48,000 registered dentists!! That number is mind boggling if you stop and think about it! You are the reason why this community is the success that it is. Thank you for all of your participation.

May the floss be with you!