Annual Session 2014

On Thursday, February 26, I found myself in Disneyland accompanied by Mickey Mouse and 450 other dental students from 52 dental schools across the U.S. at the ASDA Annual Session. How did I get there? Good question. Well, it all started at On the Rox at the D1/D2 happy hour mixer. Somewhere in the process of eating a plate of their free happy hour bacon, Kristin started talking about ASDA and SGC (I think I still have the flow chart on a napkin), and before I knew it I was off to Anaheim with five dental students and a predent.

Luckily, VCU is an auto-enroll dental school, so just being an ASDA member allowed me to attend. The meeting was whirlwind of breakout sessions on hot topics in dentistry, caucus meetings, networking opportunities with other dental students, and a dental expo which supplied me with approximately a lifetime’s worth of floss. The main focus of the annual session, however, is legislation. During the House of Delegates meetings, attendees discuss and vote on association policy. This is the event where the national elections take place and legislation gets discussed, amended, and potentially passed—imagine the dental school edition of C-SPAN. If you’re interested in getting more involved in ASDA at VCU, look out for the spring edition of the Probe, and come out to the lunch and learn on March 31 to learn more about what everyone learned at Annual Session!