Seek out CE for a value specific reason: The best and most simple contribution anyone on your team can make is to share what they’re learning. But not everyone on your team cares about the migrating patterns of monarch butterflies. The best continuing education is directly related to the challenges you are facing as a […]
Seek out CE for a value specific reason: The best and most simple contribution anyone on your team can make is to share what they’re learning. But not everyone on your team cares about the migrating patterns of monarch butterflies. The best continuing education is directly related to the challenges you are facing as a team now. The next best are those those opportunities related to how you think you can improve your value proposition to your team. Every learning opportunity is an investment of money, time, energy, and attention. The return on this investment is greatest when the education doesn’t just impact you but your whole team gets something out of it. This return grows exponentially when everyone on your team starts learning in a focused way. Imagine if all 10 team members are sharing the most important aspects of their CE. Your group’s knowledge grows exponentially.
Ask for all resources: The worst part about CE is that you invest a significant amount of money for you and/or a team member to go learn and you often get zero return on that investment. Why? Because the speaker has a flimsy powerpoint to show you with no concrete info populated. If you’re kind of lucky they give you a photocopied handout of their slides. If you are super lucky these materials are in a binder. Sure add notes but ask the speaker for a digital version of his materials. Often speakers will offer extra guides, resources, and materials “if you just shoot them an email” after the lecture. Do it!! Upload links to tutorial videos, websites and contact info to your team’s fyv resource module. You’ll thank yourself later when something comes up and you need the resource at your fingertips.
Take notes with a purpose When you are at a class, there are things you are learning that are important to you and things that are likely beneficial to your group. If you classify accordingly you can make discover posts effectively. Make a solid discover post on fyv that is consistent with what’s important to your whole team and that will provide a basis for commenting and communication on your fyv feed. Make private discover notes with all the little pearls that you can use both in your own work and also that will be important for adapting and evolving your practice systems. You can use them later. Good discover posts set off a chain reaction. Take a screenshot if cool with the instructor and post. If you have a learning culture they will provoke commenting and inquiry and further learning on your team.
Don’t start drinking immediately after the course! Discipline yourself to sit down and challenge yourself to build a system, checklist, and/or upload all resources to your fyv for future access. It’s fresh in your mind and doing the work now will make your beverage of choice even sweeter. (mention the whitecap institute) For example, at a Whitecap Institute implant conference I took everything thing I learned and made a preoperative implant checklist my team could use when we safely effectively screen an implant patient. I sketched out a process diagram for what would happen from the time a patient who needed an implant in my hygiene chair to the day I placed the implant to the day I restored it. I made contacts with needed suppliers by shooting out a quick email requesting an in office appointment. What I learned in the course would need to be understood by every different team member in my office in a unique way, depending on their role. So I shared accordingly. And then I found a place that served margaritas.
When you get home, start sharing what you learned at a team meeting.If you don’t share anything with your practice, it’s hard to justify the investment in the class in the first place. At the next team meeting, share a bit. Make an imagine post on an idea that you learned that you really wanted to talk through the team. Be prepared for some dialogue. People don’t like anything new or a suggestion of change at first glance. But this is how progress and growth in your practice occur! What you create for your patients is a direct result of what your team has learned and implemented over time. Discovery leads to imagination leads to creativity. When teams don’t think of learning as an investment that should return in growth of your practice, value for their team, and health for your patients, it’s hard to understand why you are sitting in the class in the first place.
