 I'm Robert Lam, president of the American College of Dentist Foundation, Regency 3 of the college, as Dr. Bob Plage, who is the region of Regency 3, for a tutorial on the nomination process for fellowship, and he will assist in this production. Susan Pittman, our operations manager for the college, will also assist in this tutorial. The nomination process for the college is confidential and therefore seems somewhat mysterious, and we will try to demystify it. Whether you became a fellow in Orlando or become a fellow or been a fellow for many years, one of your obligations is to identify worthy candidates for fellowship. We will discuss the nomination selection process, the profile summary and nominator statement forms, and give you an idea of where to search for worthy candidates. Hopefully this will make your nominations more successful. The nomination and selection process as I mentioned before, this is confidential. The nominee should not be told. There's a nominator and a seconder. The nominator is the one who writes the main statement, and the secondator just affirms that he knows the nominee and is a fellow in good standing. Normally I will ask the candidate for a CV, and then I'll use that to fill out the profile summary and the nominator statement, which we'll discuss shortly. After the packet is submitted to the National Office, the credentials committee will get this and get the packet, and they will send postcards to the local consultants, five or six fellows in the zip code of the nominee for further evaluation. You're not limited to nominations in just your section. You can nominate anywhere in the United States or in the world, and you can nominate any time of the year. Nominations are due January 15th, 2024 for this year, and after that date, those nominations will be held for 2025, but you could have started in January of 2023 and started writing your nominations. Once the packet is submitted to the credentials committee, the nominator and seconder's names are removed for blind evaluation, so the candidate is, or the nominee, is evaluated solely on their accomplishments and their achievements to the dental profession and leadership, and not because they know me or Dr. Plage or some other fellow. Who should you nominate and where are good places to look for nominees? You can look at the state board of dental examiners. You can you can get on the acd.org website under members and you can search to see if somebody is a fellow or not, but the state board has many qualified people for fellowship. The ADA 10 under 10 program where they evaluate and award dentists who have been under 10 years of practice for their accomplishments. The AGD 10 dentists to watch and the National Dental Association 40 under 40 or other valuable resources for nominees. Officers and leaders in our sister organizations like PFA and ICD are also excellent areas for resources. Bob, I think you'll take over at this point. Yeah. Thank you, Robert. Also, your ADA districts. I'm on the sick was on the 16th district for about 20 years and they're just filled with leaders. All of them are all 16 district ADA districts. So that's a good resource as well. Your state association has many committees and those chairs and vice chairs of those committees are also potential candidates. A lot of our sections are fairly large. The third Regency is I'd say medium sized, but our first district, our first Regency is super large. Second Regency is large. You might consider a group of people to have a zoom call from different parts of that section and assign nominators and seconders. And some sections also are encouraged to maybe construct a committee for your nominations as well. So just check with your dental society to get some of these other lists I mentioned. In 2018, in response to feedback from our fellows, the nomination packet was separated into two parts. The profile summary, which norms information normally found on the CV or resume and was de identified. So as a potential nominee might complete the form themselves and return it to the nominator or a nominator could request a CV and copy and paste from the CV into the profile summary. The profile summary states the qualifications of a nominee. Now these are pretty much just single sentences and statements of their resume versus the nomination form, which we'll talk about in detail as well. Anyway, so let's get to the profile summary. First, get a copy of it. You can't submit it as it is. It's got to be changed. It's got to be put on our PDF, you know, from the American College, but I still use it as best I can to put into that CV, into that profile summary. Now, if I put stuff in there and I really don't know something about what the candidate does, like I have questions about what this means, then I'm going to call them and see how it impacted an organization that they were dealing with. So you want to clear up any of those questions so that you have a clear and concise message when you write your nomination statements. So you might say, well, that's kind of odd me calling asking about it. Well, it really isn't. They know you're up to something, but you don't ever tell them what it is. So just be a little bit coy about it. Give them a call. I had one candidate this year who I knew the father, and I asked the father who's a dentist for the CV got it. But I needed more material. I felt like, gosh, this isn't enough right here. I've written several of these up and there needs to be more material. Well, this dentist's mother had more of the information. So I called her and knew her quite well. So you never know what your resource might be. Even some of their friends that might have worked on a committee might know more about them. That might also be in the American College. So just use your your noggin and call different people to try to clear up anything on their their CV. Robert. OK, thanks for the profile summary. Evaluation, the nomination statement and discusses the impact the nominee has made in his culture. And both on the profile summary and the nomination statement try to you need to put something in every slot. So I will take a CV and I'll figure out what I'm going to put where and where to expand on it so I don't put everything in one slot and then leave three other areas void. And I write my statements as I think that the credentials committee has no idea of what I'm talking about. So instead of just saying the patient has worked. I mean, the candidate has worked in their mom. I will say the candidate has volunteered for X number of years in a mom program, which is a two day brief clinic offered by the Y dental association where 900 patients were treated and so many dollars of services were provided during that time. So it shows the impact of what they were doing or if they had served as a lead, I say they served as a lead and restorative or endo. Or triage and don't have the candidate write their own nomination statement. The credentials committee does not like this written in the first person like I have participated in three moms. I am chair of this. They know that the nomin the candidate is then has written their their nomination statement. The nominator support statements allow the nominator to explain how the qualifications listed on the profile summary have added value to the profession and society and will add value to the college. So in review. Here is the difference between the profile summary and the nominator statement. Bob, I think you are going to do this. Thank you, Robert. So just these key points. You've got leadership positions in the profile summary. So you list them. They are lists. Those organizations are position positions held in organized industry, industry community research, academia, military, et cetera, et cetera, and then add the significant dates alongside of it. If you feel they are necessary. They usually are. I usually put the dates. That they were chairs or vice chairs and things like that. And their key contributions list the significant volunteer community service contributions and accomplishments. Those dates should be shared if you feel they are necessary. Again, I kind of think they are necessary in many cases. Versus the nominators support statement. Which they are statements and they're, we're going to go over those in both of these in a little more detail, but they're not just one sentence. A lot of times they are paragraphs. So, and there are different support statements, which we'll get into here soon. So just remember that the statements will go through leadership experience. You'll describe the value of that. They'll go into service. And you'll describe the commitment and the value of that. And there'll be more than just those couple of. Areas of service. And you'll describe the commitment and value of that. And there'll be more than just those couple of. Areas of statements that you do, but I like to make paragraphs out of them. And again, what Robert said is make sure you fill out all the boxes. There's additional ones. I'll save something for that box. I'm not going to leave anything empty. So, and then I think we're going to go into those forms a little bit. Is that correct, Susan? Yes. I wanted to just talk a little bit about. Something really important that Dr. Lam said, and that is before we send the nomination packets to the credentials committee, they are de identified. So it truly is a merit based evaluation by the credentials committee. And the different, what you all have been talking about is the difference between the profile and the nominator support statement. So the profile summary goes on the top. And followed by the nominator support statement. So it reads the credentials committee sees the list of things, and then they really get into the meat of it. So it's a really nice presentation that's made to the credentials committee. One of the pitfalls of our online system is that you cannot save a form and come back to it later. So there are a couple of ways to handle this. One is to write down everything you want to say. From the CV for the profile statement and everything you'd like to say on the nominator statement. Save it in a Word document and then you can copy and paste from your Word document into the online form. And that works really well for some of our fellows. That's actually something that a successful nominator shared with us, how they handle it. The other thing you can do is contact Stephen here in our office, Stephen Frohlish. And you can email him at Stephen with a PH, S-T-E-P-H-E-N at ACD.org. He will send you a fillable PDF form, one for the profile and one for the nominator statement. Once you save those forms onto your desktop, you can fill them out, save them, and email them back to Stephen. One of the things that I just want to kind of beat this horse a little bit more dead, as we say in Texas, it is really important on the nominator statement that you talk about the value that they have brought to the profession. So often I've sat through the Credentials Committee nine times. This will be my 10th time sitting through a Credentials Committee meeting this spring. And the thing I hear come out of, come from them the most when they read a nomination is, so what? That the nominator statement is just a restating of the CV, that there's no, there's a listing of committees and organizations for which this person has given service, but new details, nothing about leadership. So it's really important to go into those details and talk about them as if no one knows who this person is. Your nominee may be the greatest dentist ever on the planet, they may lead every organization and you may feel that everyone knows who this person is, but really in the nomination process, those five people on the Credentials Committee are the ones that have to know who they are. So even if everyone else knows them, if the Credentials Committee does not, that makes it really hard for them to interpret the nomination. So please be very specific in those nominators support statement forms. And I think we have some examples, Dr. Lam, are you going to go through some of these examples? Yes, I can. And I think we're going to put the profile summary form up now, Susan. Yep, let me stop the share here and I'll put the form up. And one thing about the Credentials Committee, the Credentials Committee is made up of five individuals and I do not know who they are. I've been on the board since 2013 and I have no idea who the Credentials Committee is. They are Susan knows and Steven know, but they are sworn to secrecy. So we cannot call the Credentials Committee and say, hey, you know, even though my name stripped off, I've got this great candidate, this great nominee that is really needs to come in. So I cannot put any pressure on the Credentials Committee. And that again, keeps us an arms distance from the Credentials Committee and makes it very important. So it is all merit based and no outdoor outside influence. And I'm sure they're very accomplished themselves. For sure. And maybe, you know, they can really read these different nominations and kind of figure out who the movers and shakers are. So write it like they don't know anything about your candidate. In the professional biographical summary page, it starts off with all the demographics. And it asks for the ADA membership number if applicable. The board a couple years ago made the decision that although we feel ADA membership is very important, it is not required at this point for fellowship. The board recognizes that there are many individuals in dentistry and our sister organizations who may not belong to ADA, but are very interested in the same things as far as excellence, ethics, professionalism, and leadership that those of us in the college are. But we encourage the candidates to be part of at least one organization. We feel they should be a part of organized dentistry again, although that's not required. We asked many statements about prior organizations they've been in. We get to the part about education, where they undergraduate, dental school, work experience, and then we get into a professional and community experience or get into the key leadership positions. And one of my nominees, I might put in the profile summary that he is a member of the city planning and zoning committee, where in the nominator statement, I will put he is a member of the city planning and zoning committee, which approves housing and developments in his hometown. So just to expand on a little bit, under key service, Bob, you had a nominee that had a vegetable garden. Right. She is a public health dentist in our state. And she treats a lot of poor people. She listed a vegetable garden. And I'm going, OK, what's that all about? I need to find out. So I did call her and got the details. She grows food a couple of acres. She dedicates the grown food for some of her patients, the poorest ones. But I didn't know enough about it with it just being listed. So you have to call them and kind of find out the details. And that's, I don't know if that's a first or not, but that's a significant thing to put into the nomination statement. Thank you, Robert. I had a nominee who was a church deacon for 19 years, which I've listed that in the profile summary. But then I, in the nominator statement, I put he was chair of the deacon body for two terms, shared the church finance and personnel committee and served on a committee to select a new minister. So this again, just telling about that he's a church deacon for 19 years in profile summary, and then expanding what he, what that dentist did in his nominator statement. And then key awards and accolades and publications. And in an award, you might, you might, in the profile summary, just, just write the award they got, but in the, in the nominator statement, explain the award, the significance of the award, how they were selected, and from how many were they selected. And I had a nominee who was very active in the Boy Scouts. And he had been rewarded, awarded the Virgil award in the Boy Scouts or the arrow. And only 2% of those in the order of the arrow become vigil. So that is quite an accomplishment, which just said, he obtained a vigil award in the Boy Scouts. The nominating committee, excuse me, the credentials committee may not have any idea what, what the significance of that was. Susan, at the bottom of the profile summary, he talks about them, the information, if it's a different person from somebody completing the forms, explain that a little bit. We did that when, when we got, when we responded to an extraordinary amount of feedback about the, so the nomination forms used to be all one form. And when we extracted just the basic profile summary form based on feedback from our fellows, it was they wanted to give at least part of the nomination to the nominee to fill out themselves. This is to be quite frank, somewhat controversial. Some people do not like that at all. Some people are very happy to have that option. So the opinions about this over the last few years have come up or kind of all over the map. But if you are someone who is comfortable doing that, we ask that this, this is a way for the nominator to tell us that the nominee filled this out themselves. So we want to know that the person who requested this information, we want to know, we just want to know that if the nominee did it themselves. So that's why we ask that question. Thank you. Thank you for explaining that. Absolutely. Now we can move on to the nominator statement. We'll go through this form fairly quickly, because I think we kind of discussed the difference between the profile summary and the nominator statement, but this will just give you an idea of what it looks like if you have never filled out one of these before. And Dr. Lam, just to point out to everyone, these are the PDF forms. These are not the online forms. To access the online form, you go to acd.org and hit the members button at the top right and log in. And then you can get there from there. You can also go to acd.org slash nominations and get to it a little bit more quickly if you're using online form. And if you have any questions logging on, they just contact the national office and you all can help set up passwords or help get them in if they have any questions. They can contact us at office at acd.org or 301-977-3223. Great. Thank you. And then this form shows the next year we'll be in New Orleans, October 16th and 17th of 2024. And then the year after the convocation will be in Washington, D.C. And then on the nominator statement, it starts out again with the nominee's name and this the demographics of the nominator and the seconder. And then there are support statements and just, again, their leadership experience. And so you've listed in the profile summary expanded it here. They're service statements and describe their level of commitment and the value that their service is and their impact on their community. And then the support statement for the awards. And then there's other relevant support information. If they entered the military after dental school, you can discuss their career in the military. I had a person who was out of the military but they continued to train OMS residents. My nominee that had been active in the Boy Scouts, he had completed Wood Badge, which is adult training program in the Boy Scouts. And he continues to teach in the Wood Badge program. So those are some examples of some relevant, other relevant support statements you might put. Susan, I think you're going to discuss some guidelines used by the credentials committee. Yes, and I, you know, I don't know. Okay, so here, these are some resources we'll talk about in a minute, but guidelines that the credentials committee are given include things like looking for dentists who are newer in their career. They should look for a clear trajectory. So maybe this person has not been president of their state dental association just yet, but maybe they are chair of the new dentist committee and they're headed in the direction of becoming the president of their state dental association. So it's looking for potential for leadership development at earlier career stages. And then accomplishments and especially contributions to the profession and society for dentists who are further in their careers. They're looking for awards. They're looking for diplomat status. They are looking for active and engaged and very involved in dentistry and in their communities. They also will ask, do you, they'll ask one another, do you all see leadership here? So that comes up over and over again in these conversations with the credentials committee. Stephen and I do attend that meeting and we take care of the administrative work and, you know, make sure Vice Fed and everybody has what they need to do their job. But it's interesting to listen to that conversation and it's different every year, but leadership comes up every single time. Civic and community involvement is very important. Academic affiliated nominees, they are looking for publication in peer reviewed journals. They are looking for involvement in research. They are looking for things that are not part of the normal job of someone in academia. Are they going above and beyond in research and adding to the scholarly body of work in dentistry? And also evidence of presentations at professional meetings. They are looking at, one of the things they look at for everybody regarding presentations are, are they at non-commercial workshops? Are they presenting a workshop on behalf of a corporation? Or are they presenting a workshop for an organization? Are they presenting for the NDA? Are they presenting for the ADA? Or are they presenting for a corporation? And they're also looking for consistency and balance. Is it only, is all of the work inward facing? Is it only for the profession? Or are they engaged with the wider community? A couple of things to note too. When the credentials committee, and Dr. Lam touched on this at the beginning, when the credentials committee approves the nominees, they go to the board of regents for final review and approval. We notify the nominators first, because some nominators like to be the ones who tell their nominees, not all of them, but some do. We give them that opportunity. And then if they're not selected, we don't carry them over. They have to be renominated. I think Dr. Lam, you might talk about that a little bit. Did I touch on everything? Are there any questions? Good job. One thing that I use that word trajectory for somebody young, because it's kind of like right out of the handbook, because they don't have that much information on them yet. But if you see their path is going up and up, I want them in there. I want to boast about them. I want to tell the committee that they have that kind of trajectory or potential to become a real leader in dentistry as they go forth. So that's important, a real important point to me. It is. It's actually in, I was just reading from the guidelines that we give to the credentials committee, and that is the word that's used in their guidelines. And of course, like any rubric, we're happy to share this. If you contact me, Susan, S-U-Z-A-N at ACD.org, I'm happy to share those guidelines. Right. I always like to allow my nominee to get the letter. And then after I figure out, sometimes I call Susan and say, when did the letters go out? When do you expect to get them? Because I like to have them have the excitement of opening that letter because they have not been told what they're, hopefully they have not been told what they're being nominated for. It is a confidential nomination because although 90 to 92% are selected, there are some that are not. And that puts the nominator and the candidate in a very awkward situation. And normally it's because, not because the candidate is not worthy, it's just not a strong application or nomination packet. And so that's why we are trying to help strengthen these packets. For those military candidates, again, you might look at leadership roles if they're a base dental surgeon or a system-based dental surgeon, which is basically a commander or vice commander of a clinic, a command dental surgeon, whether they're over a command of many dental clinics that a dental officer may be consulting in certain areas, such as forensics or oral pathology. And again, look at different civic or community activities. One of my nominees was a military officer and he was very talented musically and he went to nursing homes with a group and they sang in nursing homes. And so that was one of the things that I thought was very unique about his nomination. If the candidate is selected, they have the year they're selected and the following year, in order to attend the convocation, we know that sometimes they can't make it the first year and may have to delay the second year. And under extreme circumstances like if they're having a baby, if they're military and deployed or they've had a death in their immediate family, we can make some exceptions, but just contact the national office. As we've talked about resources, your nominator can help you write your first nomination. He was successful, he or she were, that nominator was successful in your nomination so they know how to do it and should be able to help you nominate some of your peers because especially the new fellows, you'll know people more than your generation. As I sit on the Oklahoma committee as we're evaluating nominees, I just search for names and I may not know the names and I suggest them and let our more recent fellows comment about yes, they're ready, no, they're not quite ready, they need a little more time. Your section chair should be able to help you. Some sections or regents sees have a nomination committee to help write nominations. Your regent, the national officers will be glad to help out. And another place as Dr. Plades had talked about as far as looking at your state society, you can contact the person in your state society that handles recent awards and you might look at the young dentist of the year or different awards, a legislative award or a citizenship award or a distinguished, hopefully somebody's received a distinguished dental service award and is already a fellow, but it's amazing sometimes you look at people and think they should be fellows already and go, gosh, they've been overlooked for too many years. And again, the national office either Stephen or Susan can help with nominees and the nomination process. We hope this has been helpful to you. If you want to contact information, our lamb okay at aol.com or our pledge dds at gmail.com or office at acd.org. Susan or Bob, do you have anything else to add? I think you've covered, you both have covered it all. I think we wish you the best of luck in putting your nominations together and hopefully these points will help you do it. Getting some advice from whoever nominated you or someone else that has written several of these can be really beneficial as well. Well, thanks, Dr. Lam and Dr. Plage. This has been really helpful and we'll get this sent out to our fellows. Thank you.