Dear Colleagues, 

I hope that all of you are doing well and enjoying the beautiful Washington summer that we have been having. The WSAPD has continued to work hard on your behalf, and we have several important updates for our membership. 

Firstly, the WSAPD Annual Meeting is fast approaching on Saturday October 7, 2023. The event will again be hosted at Cedarbrook Lodge in SeaTac. Our speaker is Cameron Randal, PhD, faculty at the University of Washington. Dr. Randall will be providing a two–part course on Understanding and Managing General Anxiety and Dental Care–Related Anxiety in Children and Adolescents and Maximizing Well–Being to Thrive as a Pediatric Dentist: Insights from Psychological Science. We encourage all of you to join us for a day of learning and fellowship. Please contact our Executive Director Stephanie Cook should you have questions or simply register here WSAPD Annual Meeting Registration 

We want to thank all of you who joined us at the Washington State Reception at the AAPD Annual Meeting in Orlando that took place on Saturday, May 27th. This was another successful event hosted by WSAPD that brought together UW and NYU–Yakima Alumni, in addition to pediatric dentists practicing throughout Washington State. It is a great way to bring people together and we look forward to this reception every year. We were honored to be joined by Dr. Linda Edgar, a general dentist from Federal Way, Washington, and the current ADA President–Elect. We look forward to hosting again at AAPD 2024 in Toronto, Ontario. 

In addition to planning our 2024 Mid–Winter and Annual Meetings, we have also started to work on a new structure for our annual PALS course in the spring. We know that membership has relied on the WSAPD course for years. Therefore, we are working hard to continue to make this course available to members. We will provide information as soon it becomes available. 

Lastly, there is still time available for WSAPD Board Nominations. If any of you are looking to become more involved on behalf of our profession, please reach out to learn more about joining one of our committees or joining the WSAPD Board for a four–year volunteer term. 

As always, I appreciate the opportunity to work with the WSAPD board on behalf of our membership and our profession and look forward to seeing you all at our upcoming events.

Sincerly,

Aarika D. Anderson Elter, DMD
President WSAPD 2022-2023