Spring 2018

23 nmdental.org NEW DENTIST COMMITTEE If We Want To Be In Charge, Let’s All Be In Charge By Joe Gherardi, DDS— New Dentist Committee Chair As the new year is under way so too is the season of change. There are two big policy processes that come each year, the state legislative session and the NMDA House of Delegates. Our state legislative session is always a very important time not only for our state but for our profession as it brings with it many possible policies, agreements (disagreements), and rules that can greatly affect the practice and landscape of dentistry as we know it. Sometimes this season of change can be for the positive, but many times it can be the opposite as well. Not that all change is bad, but the “too many cooks in the kitchen” motto applies here well, and if we want to have our profession shaped in the best way that we believe will serve our community the best then we, collectively, need to be in charge of this. Now by the time you read this article, the legislative session of 2018 will have come and gone. I hope that if you had the opportunity to engage with any of your local representatives and/or senators that you did so or remember to do so when the time comes next year. But if you feel like you missed out, not toworry because on the horizon is the 2018NMDAHouse of Delegates (HOD) which is the absolute, most direct way that we as a collective body come together to make changes to our profession. And unlike the state legislation which is comprised of many different special interest groups and entities all jostling for seat at the table no matter how well or uniformed they may be on the issue, the HOD is run by state dentists for dentists in our state. And is there a better way to govern our profession? Aren’t we the ultimate authority who know how dentistry works best in our community? Many issues to the practice of day to day dentistry, big and small, have come up to the HOD in years past. And by the simple fact of somebody voicing it we have been able to come up with sound, unified resolutions to these problems, many of which have traveled from our state all the way to the national level at the ADA. In this setting, change does happen, and many times this change is significant and for the better. So when it comes to the idea of “too many cooks in the kitchen,” the opposite applies to the HOD because we need more voices and we need new voices. If you have ideas and thoughts, and would like to be engaged in this process, contact us, and come be a delegate or at least make it to the reference committee hearing. Thus, I invite and challenge everyone to come and be a delegate this year and let us all be in charge of “us.” My email is jgherard7217@gmail.com .