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How CDABO Supports Your Board Certification Experience and Career · Orthodontic Products Podcast

• 0:04
  Alison Werner: Hello and welcome to the orthodontic products
• 0:06
  podcast. I'm your host. Alison Werner. For this episode, we're
• 0:09
  going to talk about board certification and the support
• 0:12
  services available to you throughout your career to make
• 0:14
  the process of certification easier and more beneficial to
• 0:17
  your practice. To talk about this, I'm joined by Dr Jane
• 0:20
  Wright, a Board Certified orthodontist in private practice
• 0:23
  at Crawford and Wright Orthodontics in Kenosha,
• 0:25
  Wisconsin. Dr Wright is also a member of the College of
• 0:29
  Diplomates of the American Board of Orthodontics Council. Dr
• 0:32
  Wright, thank you for joining me.
• 0:34
  Dr Jane Wright: Thank you, Alison. I'm happy to be here.
• 0:36
  Alison Werner: Great. So to get started, can you talk about your
• 0:39
  practice and how long you've been practicing?
• 0:43
  Dr Jane Wright: Yes. So I am in practice with my father and I
• 0:47
  joined him 13 years ago. So we practice together. We have kind
• 0:52
  of a one and a half doctor sized practice. It's not a full two
• 0:55
  doctor practice, but it works really well for both of us to
• 0:58
  work side by side and in tandem.
• 1:01
  Alison Werner: Oh, cool. So how far into your career did you
• 1:04
  decide to get board certified?
• 1:09
  Dr Jane Wright: It was kind of my plan all along. I grew up
• 1:13
  going to college of diplomates meetings with my dad and I, you
• 1:17
  know, I watched a lot of the board certified orthodontists
• 1:20
  meet every year. So from early on in residency, I knew it was
• 1:25
  important to me and some things that I always wanted to do.
• 1:28
  Alison Werner: So can you talk to me about what the process was
• 1:31
  like for board certification for you?
• 1:36
  Dr Jane Wright: Yes. So when I got board certified, we had to
• 1:39
  take a written exam, which is the standard today, there's
• 1:42
  still the written component to board certification, but I had
• 1:45
  to prepare six cases with plaster models and traced cephs
• 1:51
  and fully worked up and little black binders. And I flew down
• 1:55
  to St Louis and presented them to examiners. So I had that one
• 2:00
  on one kind of clinical exam aspect. That's changed a little
• 2:06
  bit now. And there's another written test, but it's a
• 2:09
  clinical based test that has changed a little bit since when
• 2:13
  I certified. And we do have to recertify every 10 years, so
• 2:18
  there's initial certification, is the written exam. And then,
• 2:23
  like I said, I had the clinical, actual model exam. So it was a
• 2:28
  little stressful, maybe a little more prep work on the front end
• 2:31
  as the exam exists now,
• 2:33
  Alison Werner: Okay, okay, and so you just did your
• 2:35
  recertification a couple years ago then,
• 2:40
  Dr Jane Wright: Actually just in October.
• 2:42
  Alison Werner: Okay, yeah. So what was that process like for
• 2:46
  you?
• 2:50
  Dr Jane Wright: I wasn't sure what to study. Um, it's a little
• 2:53
  daunting when you haven't, you know, been in residency. You're
• 2:57
  not fresh out of residency anymore. I've been in clinical
• 2:59
  practice now for I mean, at the time, it was 12 years and I
• 3:03
  thought, Where do I begin? What do I study? How do I prep for
• 3:06
  this? There weren't a lot of resources out there, so I just
• 3:10
  read a lot. I read a lot of research. I reread my Proffit
• 3:13
  textbook. Probably a bit overkill. I feel like I did
• 3:18
  really well on the exam. I feel like what I actually got, but
• 3:22
  the re-exam was easier than I thought. But maybe because I was
• 3:26
  over prepared, I don't know.
• 3:27
  Alison Werner: Okay, okay. Well, the reason I wanted to have you
• 3:31
  on is because we really wanted to talk about the differences
• 3:34
  between the American Board of Orthodontics, which is what you
• 3:37
  do the testing through, and the College of Diplomates of the
• 3:41
  American Board of Orthodontics. So most orthodontists who are
• 3:44
  boards, especially the ones who are board certified, are very
• 3:46
  familiar with the ABO. They handle the testing, the
• 3:48
  certification, the recertification process, and if
• 3:52
  orthodontists, once they pass their boards, they will pay a
• 3:54
  quote, unquote membership fee to keep their ABO board status
• 3:58
  active. And they also do get resources and patient education
• 4:01
  materials, tools, their plaques, their certificates. But the
• 4:05
  College of Diplomates is actually a separate organization
• 4:08
  and but a lot of board certified orthodontists will think they're
• 4:10
  already a member because they're board certified. So can you
• 4:13
  explain, as a member of the Council of the College of
• 4:16
  Diplomates, how does the College of Diplomates come into play,
• 4:19
  into this process, and what does the organization bring to
• 4:23
  doctors who are board certified?
• 4:26
  Dr Jane Wright: Yes, and that's a great question, because that
• 4:28
  is our biggest hurdle right now, is helping to differentiate
• 4:31
  ourselves from the American Board of Orthodontics, and
• 4:35
  really help orthodontists understand the support that we
• 4:38
  bring and what we can do to help everybody who wants to and
• 4:42
  already is board certified. So we are, we have an annual
• 4:47
  meeting, which is probably our biggest event of the whole year.
• 4:50
  It's usually in July, and they're at really amazing
• 4:53
  locations, cool resorts, places that you wouldn't necessarily
• 4:58
  otherwise maybe go to. They're very family friendly meetings
• 5:02
  and high caliber lectures. I mean, these are people that have
• 5:06
  written textbooks. They're doing the latest research. It's very
• 5:09
  evidence based, very research. There's, you know, it's not just
• 5:15
  theorizing or the trendiest new things. They're really excellent
• 5:20
  lectures. And so the annual meeting is one thing that we
• 5:25
  provide all CDABO members. They're invited to come to this
• 5:28
  great meeting every year. We also do resident case displays.
• 5:33
  So we invite the residents to prepare cases, kind of like a
• 5:37
  mock board exam, almost, where they're doing little binders
• 5:41
  full of the cephs and their panos and their treatment plan
• 5:45
  workups. They bring their models, and we grade them
• 5:50
  blindly based on the excellence of the case. And then there is
• 5:54
  an award, and the winning resident gets published in the
• 5:58
  Journal of Clinical Orthodontics. I believe they are
• 6:02
  allowed to present their case and it gets published. Another
• 6:06
  thing that we do is help people prepare for the initial board
• 6:09
  exam and to, you know, to become board certified, and also the
• 6:15
  recertification, which is every 10 years. So there are two
• 6:18
  separate courses that we offer for people as well. So we're,
• 6:23
  we're a fun group, you know? We have the big party, the annual
• 6:26
  meeting, but also a lot of resources and help throughout
• 6:29
  the year to become board certified and to help maintain
• 6:32
  your status.
• 6:34
  Alison Werner: Okay? And actually, you took part in
• 6:37
  developing that recertification course, because, I'm guessing
• 6:40
  there's a lot of orthodontists out there who are already board
• 6:43
  certified, who, again, assume they're already members of the
• 6:45
  College of Diplomates. Can you talk about what that
• 6:47
  recertification course took to develop and what they can expect
• 6:51
  from that?
• 6:54
  Dr Jane Wright: comfort of our own homes. The challenge is
• 6:55
  knowing how to prepare for that and what's on it. It is a
• 6:58
  clinically based exam. So you know, if you're in clinical
• 7:10
  practice, you really should have no problem, but there are some
• 7:13
  research based, evidence based questions, so you need to be up
• 7:17
  to date on the latest research as well. So what I did is I read
• 7:21
  a lot of systematic reviews and studies, and I reread Proffit
• 7:27
  and I tried to help summarize this information for
• 7:31
  orthodontists so that they maybe don't have to do as extensive
• 7:35
  preparation as I did for the recertification exam, because I
• 7:39
  really had no idea what to study. So now we offer a course.
• 7:43
  It's a one hour course, and you can either take it in person at
• 7:47
  the AAO meeting annually, or we're about to offer a web-based
• 7:51
  version, a Zoom version, at the end of July. And once again, you
• 7:56
  know from the comfort of your own home, you can sit and
• 7:58
  participate in this training so that you're better prepared for
• 8:03
  the recertification exam.
• 8:05
  Alison Werner: Okay. And then you mentioned the annual meeting
• 8:09
  that takes place, and next year is going to be in Colorado
• 8:12
  Springs, Colorado. You talked a little bit about, you know, how
• 8:16
  it's very evidence based in terms of the lectures. What else
• 8:20
  do those annual meetings offer? Because I know you grew up going
• 8:23
  to those meetings with your father. So it sounds like it's a
• 8:27
  very family focused opportunity, especially since it's in the
• 8:31
  summer, when you know a lot of kids are home from school and
• 8:35
  everything. So can you talk about that aspect of the annual
• 8:37
  Alison Werner: Can you talk about, you know, I'm assuming
• 8:37
  Dr Jane Wright: Yes, well, it is honestly like, I know there's
• 8:37
  meeting.
• 8:39
  the old saying, work hard, play hard, but that's what these
• 8:43
  meetings are. The lectures are kind of intensive, very
• 8:46
  informative, morning meetings, morning lectures, but they're
• 8:50
  only in the mornings, and then the afternoons are filled with
• 8:53
  all sorts of fun family activities. You know, they'll
• 8:56
  have gondola rides or hot air balloon rides. All these are
• 9:00
  optional. You can sign up for any activities that you feel
• 9:03
  like doing tours, depending on what city you're in, they've had
• 9:07
  pub crawls, so the whole afternoon is usually open to
• 9:10
  enjoy with your family. But what's cool is it's a very
• 9:13
  small, intimate group of orthodontists, and so we're
• 9:16
  literally rubbing elbows and sitting next to some of the
• 9:20
  leaders in our field as we're being shuttled from one activity
• 9:23
  other, or at morning breakfast, you know, I'm sitting across
• 9:27
  from somebody who wrote the textbook that I used to study,
• 9:29
  you interact a lot with a lot of orthodontists, especially
• 9:31
  and it's like, holy cow, I can't believe we're just chatting
• 9:34
  like, this is no big deal. So it's really a cool, intimate
• 9:38
  group of not just our peers, but the leaders in our field. So
• 9:41
  that's really amazing.
• 9:49
  starting out in their careers. Can you talk about why they
• 9:53
  should move forward with getting board certified, and then how
• 9:56
  the College of Diplomates can serve them? Because, you know,
• 9:58
  you're starting out; you're trying to decide if you should
• 10:01
  devote your resources and your time to getting board certified.
• 10:04
  Can you talk a little bit about that?
• 10:06
  Dr Jane Wright: Yeah, well, I think the general public assumes
• 10:09
  that we're all board certified, and when a patient finds out
• 10:13
  that it's not mandatory, they're actually shocked. I think that
• 10:17
  that an orthodontist wouldn't choose to become board
• 10:19
  certified, and I remember having a physician's wife come in for
• 10:23
  an exam with me, and she was questioning, you know, Oh, I see
• 10:27
  you and your dad are board certified, but isn't everybody?
• 10:29
  And I said, No, it's optional. And her question was, because
• 10:33
  her husband's a physician, why wouldn't everybody just, you
• 10:36
  know, it almost makes those that are not board certified seem
• 10:39
  like, not lazy, but just like, Well, why, why wouldn't
• 10:43
  everybody become board certified? Almost like there's a
• 10:46
  different level or standard of practice. And for me personally,
• 10:51
  I wanted to meet the highest standard that was set, you know.
• 10:55
  So if there's a level of expectation that the ABO sets, I
• 10:59
  wanted to make sure that I was meeting it or exceeding it. So
• 11:02
  for me personally, it was really important to become board
• 11:05
  certified. And I never wanted to be in a position where somebody
• 11:08
  was comparing me, if I was un board, if I was not board
• 11:11
  certified, to another board certified orthodontist, saying,
• 11:14
  why didn't you do it? I never wanted to have to answer that
• 11:18
  question. Yeah. So I would encourage any young orthodontist
• 11:22
  to become board certified, yeah.
• 11:23
  Alison Werner: On a day to day level, back in your office, what
• 11:26
  does being board certified bring to your practice? You talked
• 11:28
  about there with a patient who has a husband who or husband
• 11:33
  who's a physician, but just on a day to day level, what does it
• 11:36
  mean for you clinically?
• 11:38
  Dr Jane Wright: Well, I feel more confident knowing that I
• 11:40
  have knowledge of the most recent research studies, the
• 11:44
  latest techniques, the lectures that come to us are coming from
• 11:48
  all over the world. So these are not just US-based lectures and
• 11:53
  presenters that are coming to speak to us. It really is the
• 11:55
  cutting edge around the world of what's going on. And so I come
• 12:00
  back with a different level of confidence, feeling really good
• 12:03
  about the choices I'm making for patients and the treatment plans
• 12:06
  that I'm presenting. But you know, I can also very proudly
• 12:10
  display my ABO pamphlets in our welcome brochures for patients.
• 12:15
  And, you know, I've got my back on the wall. It just It means a
• 12:19
  lot to me knowing that I that I've done this extra training,
• 12:24
  and I think it means a lot to my patients as well.
• 12:26
  Alison Werner: Well, I'm actually curious, how did you
• 12:28
  decide to go beyond just membership in the College of
• 12:31
  Diplomates and actually join the council?
• 12:33
  Dr Jane Wright: Well, I was asked to join by Ashok Kothari,
• 12:37
  an orthodontist in Illinois, and I remember when he called me one
• 12:42
  cold February night and asked me if I would consider being on the
• 12:45
  council just I was blown away. I mean, I think that my name was
• 12:50
  probably brought up because of my dad, and people would always
• 12:53
  see me at meetings. They knew that I grew up coming to College
• 12:57
  of Diplomate meetings, so they probably knew that I had a
• 13:00
  vested interest in the College and helping maintain and promote
• 13:04
  and encourage membership, so that's probably why I was asked.
• 13:09
  And I really had to think about it, because, you know, I'm a
• 13:12
  busy mom and running a practice and full time orthodontist, but
• 13:17
  it is, it's, it's a really powerful, meaningful position,
• 13:21
  and I really enjoy being on the College Council.
• 13:25
  Alison Werner: For those who are eligible to join the College of
• 13:27
  Diplomates or who have left their membership lapse, how can
• 13:30
  they join or get their membership reinstated?
• 13:32
  Dr Jane Wright: Yes. So this is what we've noticed has been
• 13:36
  happening. Is the, you know, the AAO sends out membership fees,
• 13:40
  saying you need to renew your membership. And then the ABO
• 13:44
  sends an email saying your membership is due. And even
• 13:47
  between those two, you start to think, didn't I just pay this?
• 13:50
  But then the College of Diplomates send an email saying
• 13:53
  your membership payment is due, and some of us have support
• 13:58
  staff or front desk team or spouses that are helping us pay
• 14:01
  our membership dues, and it's really easy for these do slip
• 14:05
  through the cracks. And a lot of active CDABO members have
• 14:10
  accidentally, you know, been dropped from membership. Not
• 14:13
  accidental on our side, accidental on their side, where
• 14:16
  they don't realize they get renewed. So if you aren't sure,
• 14:21
  or if you know for sure you've been dropped and you want to
• 14:23
  renew, you would email our executive director, and it's
• 14:28
  just info at cdabo.org, and we can either check on your
• 14:33
  membership status or reinstate you. And there is, I think, a
• 14:38
  one year's like log, almost like a penalty fee to read to be
• 14:42
  reinstated. But otherwise, our membership fees are phenomenal,
• 14:46
  especially compared to AAO and a lot of other larger membership
• 14:50
  fees. So it's worth it. It's certainly worth it. Yeah.
• 14:55
  Alison Werner: well, Dr Wright, thank you so much for joining me
• 14:57
  today and kind of explaining the differences and the importance
• 15:00
  of board certification, I really appreciate.
• 15:02
  Dr Jane Wright: Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
• 15:04
  Alison Werner: As always. Thank you for joining us. Be sure to
• 15:07
  subscribe to the Orthodontic Products podcast to keep up with
• 15:11
  the latest episodes. And be sure to check out
• 15:14
  orthodonticproductsonline.com to keep up with the latest industry
• 15:19
  news. Until next time, take care.