Contour Extended: Hidden Figures in dentistry

Dear Hidden Figures,

Perhaps you have seen the new motion picture that describes the life of Katherine Johnson, an African-American math prodigy who grew up in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia. She grew up counting numbers and manually computing equations. In 1953 she began working for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), later known at NASA. She joined hundreds of other women as a human computer. Pre-dating Apple or Microsoft, these women helped to win the race to space. As a math computer, she completed calculations for Alan Shepard, John Glenn, the Apollo moon landing mission, and the start of the space shuttle program.

CRUSHing pre-clinic and clinic just got tons easier

asdanet_ignitedds_bannerThose of you who know igniteDDS, know we’re BIG BIG fans of collaboration and, at the end of the day, BIG BIG fans of giving you a GPS guide to your success. So, although, at graduation, you’ll need to master each letter in our CRUSH it acronym, today, I’m going to focus on one…the C in CRUSH it…Continue your Clinical Education.

So you graduated … let your destiny begin!

thumbnailGraduation is a whirlwind. It’s like being caught in a tornado of laughter, parties, paper work, and fear. We all survive and are left breathless on the footstep of June. The sweet 4 weeks of bliss that we have before we start our residency!

My first recommendation to use this time wisely is: travel. Go out and see the world, live without a schedule, and experience a life that is slow paced.

My next piece of advice is: set goals. I traveled through Europe after my graduation and spent hours on planes, trains and automobiles just thinking. Use this time to jot goals down on your iPad or phone. It’s easy to get caught up in day-to-day life or emails and forget where you want to be in 20 years. It’s also easy to be so overwhelmed with dentistry your first few years that you can’t even think about long term goals.