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Message from Dr. Miriam Robbins, AAOM President
The summer has wound down, the days are getting shorter and vacations are over. While I am looking forward to some cooler temperatures and lower humidity in the northeast where I live, I will miss seeing the sun when I wake up. Getting up in the dark always seems to be much harder. Things are beginning to ramp up again and it is time to return to business. At the beginning of my term as President, I commented that one of my primary interests for this year was to improve communication amongst all members, maximizing effective interaction within all sections in order to strengthen the organization as a cohesive group and to organize efforts for increasing AAOMs visibility amongst both oral health and medical professionals. Now, almost at the halfway point, the members of the Executive Council and the Board of Trustees continue to work closely to achieve these goals. However, your voice is an important piece and I encourage you to contact me, make recommendations, share information on needs and suggest feasible strategies that deserve consideration. We have an amazing wealth of talent in our membership and I am sure that as a group, we can develop the most appropriate courses of action that will help us serve our diverse group of patients, much better. The AAOM board, with the assistance of our SBI associates, has been working hard to maintain and enhance your valued membership benefits. Membership dues and the number of attendees and participation in the annual meeting make up the largest sources of revenue for our organization. As trustees of the organization’s assets, the board continues to exercise due diligence in ensuring that the organization is well managed and that its financial situation remains sound. Our treasurer, Dr. Nathaniel Treister and the finance committee are working diligently evaluating how AAOM did this past year and have been proactive in making adjustments in our annual budget for FY 2018 to continue the successful viability and function of your organization. I hope that you have all had the opportunity to look at our new integrated website and database system. We invite you to visit our new and improved site at www.aaom.com. A huge thanks to Dr. Jaisri Thoppay (and others) for spearheading the efforts to get the new website up and running so quickly. Take some time to check it out and see what our members are doing. We welcome any feedback you might have on how we can continue to improve our new site. One of our organization’s centerpieces is our annual meeting, which will be held in San Antonio from April 10-14, 2018 and is titled “Advances in Oral Medicine from Bench to Bedside to Bench”. The Scientific Committee is working hard to provide another great opportunity for the most diverse and topical presentations and it promises to be one of our most exciting meetings yet. Do you have an interesting case that you could work up with a resident or student to present at poster session? Encourage your interested residents and students to attend the meeting and consider becoming members. The future of AAOM will depend on our ability to attract and retain a new generation of oral health care providers as members of our professional association. I hope to see many of you at the meeting as well. Personal interaction is vital to catalyze collaboration, innovation and performance and what better place for those face to face meetings to occur than in San Antonio this spring, maybe over a drink or two? There is also be a fall meeting titled “In your Face Oral Medicine: Expert Advice for Care of Your Patients” on Saturday November 4, 2017 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Details are available on the website and in this newsletter. Miriam R. Robbins, DDS, MS |
