This past week, 4 MUSC students, including myself, traveled to Chicago, IL for ASDA’s National Leadership Conference! Although the 3:30 am wake up call was less than ideal, we made it to the Windy City before 7am leaving a whole day to explore the city! Christmas decorations were just starting to be put up, so we walked down Michigan Avenue to see “The Bean” and to get a view from the 95th floor of the John Hancock Building.

Friday was the official start to the conference and the fun didn't stop until Sunday afternoon. Each day started with a general session where we heard empowering stories about what it means to serve a community and gained valuable knowledge about the opioid epidemic that is currently hitting our nation. Everyone attended 5 breakout sessions each day, which were focused on improving our ASDA chapter as well as personal leadership growth.

I learned so much over this long weekend and could go on and on about what I took away but I’m going to list some of the top notes I wrote down from the speakers.

• Nobody notices normal.

• Our #1 job as leaders is to see people not for what they are but for what they can be.

• You will become the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.

• Enjoy the struggle and get past “I’ll be happy when…”

• Don’t overeducate your patients. Their decision they make is 85% emotional and 15% facts. Confused people don't say “yes” to treatment.

• Average overhead for a general dentistry practice is 70-75% and the goal is to get this down to 59%.

I’m so thankful to have had the opportunity to represent MUSC at this trip and can’t wait to get to work on implementing so many new and fun ideas into our chapter!