 Hello, everybody. Andrew Mayeski here with Dental L. So talking about your portfolio, so I know it can be very overwhelming. There's a lot to organize. There's a lot to think about, right? But hopefully, well, I know that this course will help you because that's what it's all about is just getting things organized. So let me just help you guys kind of think about the right way to write a goal with your activities with your report on learning and then also the changes you have made to your practice. So I'm going to talk about the errors, if you will, that I have seen that just by rewording things can make a big, big difference. And just by simply putting in what you have honestly learned and what you have changed in your practice will make a big, big difference. Because I feel the CEO is very, very fair when it comes to portfolios. They're not here to make us feel nervous, terrified, and they don't just deny everybody's portfolios if they don't like one little thing. From my experience, if they don't like somebody's portfolio, they will make them redo a certain amount of hours, not the whole thing. But they might say to you, well, this goal, you know, when you had said you want to learn more about oral pathology, that's not very specific. So we want you to redo that and maybe change it too. You want to learn more about oral cancers on the tongue, you know, so they will actually help you and tell you kind of what they want changed. But I want to help you guys avoid that even. So the first step is when you are to write the goal. So feel free to make notes here because I had made notes myself on my iPad so I don't forget anything. So when you are to write the goals, you want to be as specific as possible. So having a goal that is you want to learn more about oral pathology is not specific. Think about what part of oral pathology do you want to know and they want you to be specific because if you're not, oral pathology is huge, right? So if you're only talking about oral cancers on the tongue and then you move to oral cancers inside the mouth, what might look normal but isn't, that's just talking about too many things and they want you to focus. So instead of writing you want to learn about oral pathology, your goal should be I want to learn about common oral cancers on the tongue. Because even saying that you want to learn about oral cancers on the tongue might not be specific enough. It depends on who is reviewing your portfolio, it might be to them, but I've noticed sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. So be as specific as possible. You can say I want to learn more about oral cancers on the tongue, how to treat them, what to look out for, something like that, or take it a step further. And another goal could be I want to take courses on proper intraoral camera use or you want to learn how to properly use the intraoral camera to become more comfortable. That would have been a goal of mine. I'd say about a year ago in the office where I was, we had an intraoral camera, but every time I plugged it in something wasn't working. I would turn it on, but then it wouldn't zoom in, I just hated using it. So there were so many times where I wanted to be able to take a picture, but I'm thinking it's probably not going to work for me anyway, so I'm not going to do it. But think about all of those patients that could have really liked to see inside their mouth, but instead I was too nervous to use the intraoral camera because it never worked. So think of things, some honest things that you want to know. When I did my portfolio, I believe I was audited four or five years ago. I actually took it a step backwards where I looked at the easier types of goals to write. I looked at, okay, what courses did I take this year and what goal could I take from that. If you want to do it backwards, that's okay too, there's no harm in that, it just kind of depends on what's easier for you. What I would do is I would go on dentalcare.com or dentalcare.ca, I forget. There's a lot of webinars there. I would pick the webinars that I wanted to learn about and then I would write a goal based on what I learned, learning activities, you know, things like that. So there's no shame in doing it backwards. So other goal examples could be a not, what's the word I'm looking for? A goal that isn't very good also would be you want to learn instrumentation. I've seen this goal a lot actually, which is interesting, but it's usually newer hygienists. So then I saved them, well, what kind of instrumentation do you want to learn about? Because this isn't a very good goal, I'm sorry, but they're not going to accept that. And then when I look at their learning activities, they're all over the place. They learned how to clinically use instruments, they took hands on courses, which is awesome by the way, but the goal wasn't specific enough. So, you know, think of, look at the courses you have taken and then say, okay, what specific goal can I take from this? So I did tell a dental hygienist to change her goal too. I want to take online courses to learn how to use my sickle scaler more effectively because she had honestly just thought, you know, I don't like using the sickle scaler. I just feel that when I clean the interior teeth, I'm not doing a good job. Well, you know what, there's no harm in that, you guys, there's no shame. Take an online course to learn how to properly use that instrument. That's excellent. But can you see the difference how her first goal was, I think I said how to learn instrumentation to the second one being how to learn how to use her sickle scaler by taking an online course. That's perfect. The CDHO had no issue with that at all, but I can promise you that if she had said she wants to learn instrumentation, it doesn't matter all of the amazing online courses or hands on courses that she took with a goal like that. It's not really helping anybody, right? But of course, for her activities, they were excellent because she had taken two or three, I think, hands on courses. She had uploaded the certificates from those courses also. She had mentioned where the course was who had given the course and how many hours it was as well. And then for her report on learning, she had said exactly how she made changes to her practice. She had actually purchased new instruments with her own money because she had said in her thing there that the dentist wouldn't do it. So she did it. You know, she purchased, I think she said, four different sickle scalers with her own money. She felt more comfortable cleaning patients teeth because she felt comfortable doing those upper and lower interiors. That is huge. I think that's amazing. Plus, she was able to tell others. If you're not comfortable with a certain instrument, take these hands-on courses. They are fantastic. So she's actually helping other people to let them know that these hands-on courses exist. I think that's amazing. So they loved that, right? So think about that too. Now talking about activities, a lot of errors that I see are dental hygienists say the author of the course and that's it. That's not helping. They need to know is did you take the course online? If you did, that's fine. But then you need the author of the course. You need the title of the course. You need the date of when you took the course. How many hours it took you to do the course? How many hours you took notes on that course? I know it's crazy. Did I mention the link yet? I'm not sure if I did, but you also need the link to the online course. If you read pages in a textbook, you can not only put the title of the textbook. You have to put the title, the author, the page numbers, the addition, the date, all of that. So make sure to just put as much information as you can. There's never such a thing. I shouldn't say never, but there's not usually such a thing as too much information, but the CDHO hates little bits of information. So put a lot. Report on learning. A common error I see is it's very minimal. Somebody might say, yes, I learned a lot. I now know how to use the sickle scaler. They're not going to accept that. You need to be very, very specific. What new thing did you learn? Let's use another example. Let's say you wanted to learn about Alzheimer's disease and how it affects people. Okay, that's a pretty good goal, right? Because it's happening more and more. So your report on learning could be everything that you learned. What ages does it typically start at? What happens? What are some of the earlier signs? What oral care issues might they have? How can you help them? Who do you talk to, the patient and the caregiver or just the caregiver or just the patient? Talk about all of that. And then changes that you made to your practice. A lot of people that I've seen have said, yes, I've made changes to my practice. I now know how to treat patients with Alzheimer's disease. That's not a very good report on learning error. I'm sorry. Changes that you made to your practice. You need to say what did you do exactly? Do you have a template that you have changed to put in your charts for people who have Alzheimer's? Do you ask them certain questions? You know, make a note of that. Do you do anything different with the caregiver? Do you write things down? Because if the caregiver isn't there in the room, how are you going to explain things to the patient and the caregiver? So all of the changes that you have done, do you have signs up in the office saying, I don't know, here are some early signs of Alzheimer's disease and how to watch out for them. I don't know. That's a bad example. But everything that you've done differently, have you changed the way you talk to patients? Have you changed your thinking? If you see an older patient who's clearly having a bad day or they're just upset out of nowhere, are you thinking, oh, this might be an early sign of Alzheimer's disease. So I'm not mad. I feel sorry for them. And now you're making notes in the chart to watch out for next time. Is this same thing happening? Because that is an early sign is, oh, this patient is usually very nice. Now they're very upset today for no reason or they're not making sense. That's an early sign. Do you just let it go? Or do you call somebody and say after their appointment, oh, so-and-so was acting kind of funny today. I just wanted to let you know. I mean, don't use those exact words. But, you know, talk to who would be in charge. Talk to their wife, talk to their husband and say, oh, just to let you know this happened today. I hope everything's okay. You know, something like that. Everything that you do differently, put in your report on learning. They love that. It can be point form. It can be in a paragraph. It doesn't matter. But the more you put the better. So I tried to keep this video short and sweet. Sorry, it was kind of long, but I hope that helps you guys. That's a good point. That is a great way to get started. If you need help, I am here. And please remember that before you do submit your portfolio, I can have a look at the whole thing. There's about a two week turnaround time though. So get the portfolios in soon. Or it might be like a full two weeks before I can give it back to you. Okay. So thank you guys for watching. Good luck. It is possible to get the portfolio done. And as I said, thank you guys for watching. I will see you in the next one.