Rob McAlpine WSPD President, Jacob Lee AAPD Secretary-Treasurer, Don Schmitt Western District Trustee, Scott Smith AAPD President, Megan Miller WSAPD President, Bri Butler WSAPD Public Policy Advocate, Christie Lee WSAPD Immediate Past-President, Aarika Anderson-Elter WSAPD Past-President, Emily Pham WSAPD President-Elect

Winter greetings from your WSAPD Board! Somehow we've made it through the big dark and warmer weather is on the horizon.

We kicked off 2025 strong with our Lecture for FQHC Dentists in January. We revived this WSAPD hosted lecture in 2023 and this year expanded to a full day of CE. It continues to receive rave reviews and appreciation from attendees. Many thanks to Past-President Aarika Anderson-Elter who worked with the Arcora Foundation to secure sponsorship for our event. With our Arcora sponsorship and donated time from our speakers, we are able to put on this event at a nominal cost to attendees and no cost to our members.  This lecture serves our mission to improve the quality of pediatric oral healthcare in Washington State and enhances the referral relationships we have with our community health clinics. 

This year Cristina León-Piñeda joined Aarika and I as we expanded our curriculum. Christina's experience as a former residency program director and FQHC dentist helped us make our lecture even more relevant to attendees. 

We're currently exploring the feasibility of providing the lecture East of the mountains in 2026. As the 2023 AAPD Research and Policy Center Report illustrated, rural areas have a critical shortage of dentists and children's oral health is suffering. Equipping FQHC general dentists to care for pediatric dental patients and improving referral relationships with pediatric dentists is essential. 

The Washington Dental Commission (the commission formerly known as DQAC) application for the Pediatric Sedation Endorsement was published to their website in December 2024 with an effective date for compliance of January 1, 2025. With requests from WSDA and WSAPD, the effective date has been revised to February 28, 2025. If you have not yet applied and you perform enteral moderate sedation or intranasal sedation for patients under 13 years of age you will need a Pediatric Sedation Endorsement. Special thanks to Julia Richman for advocating for an extension of this deadline and clearing up initial confusion about application fees! No application fee is required. 

2025 has lots of high quality Pediatric Dentistry focused CE to offer right here in Washington State! Click the images to link directly to registration. 

The deadline for discounted early registration for WSSO and CSPD meetings is fast approaching. You are strongly encouraged to register today!

You'll also want to add the June 21, 2025 Law/Lewis Lecture at Woodmark Hotel to your summer plans. A panel of oral surgeons has been assembled to review pediatric orofacial trauma, infection management, supernumerary teeth, 3rd molars, and medical management including bleeding management. You'll hear from Drs. Austin Gaal, Zahid Lalani, Melanie Lang, and Kevin Lee. This lecture is guaranteed to be applicable to all pediatric dentists. 

For everyone attending the AAPD Annual Session in May be sure to join us for the Washington State pediatric dentist reception. Join us on Saturday, May 24th from 5-7pm in Directors Row J at the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel. As usual there will be nourishment and camaraderie! 

For those of you who were not able to join us at Cedarbrook in October you missed an entertaining pediatric oral pathology lecture from Dr. Ashley Clark. She managed to keep us all engaged and supplied us with plenty of tips and tricks to use with our patients. 

At our annual meeting we also celebrated the end of an era. John Gibbons has fervently advocated for the oral health of the children of Washington State and for pediatric dentists to have the resources to provide exceptional care. While he has done this his entire career, he has specifically served as the WSAPD Public Policy Advocate for the last 11 years and we have all benefited from the dedication and passion John has brought to the role. We are sad to see him transition out of this position but we are delight to have Bri Butler jump in and continue the hard work with our state legislature, state organizations, and regulatory bodies. We're lucky to have Bri continuing the tradition of strong advocacy for WSAPD! 

We're excited to announce Cara Riley, DMD as our speaker for our Annual Meeting on October 4, 2025. A dental anesthesiologist, Dr. Riley is an Associate Professor at University of Colorado and affiliated with Colorado Children's Hospital. 

With consideration of the new increased sedation CE requirements we will be extending the CE offered at the annual meeting this year to 7 hours. For our members who perform sedation with nitrous alone this will meet your 5 year requirement. For those providing moderate sedation with the Pediatric Sedation Endorsement this course will satisfy half of your 3 year requirement of 14 hours of sedation CE. 

Dr. Riley is a Diplomate and Past-President of the American Dental Board of Anesthesiology and volunteers as a consultant for the Colorado Board of Dentistry regarding Anesthesia and Sedation practices. 

Be sure to save the date and plan to join us at Cedarbrook in October for this essential course! 

I know every month you all work to educate our patient families, restore smiles, and give high fives but it's still nice to see a little bump in awareness as we celebrate National Children's Dental Health Month. I hope you find some creative and enjoyable ways to celebrate with your patients and community.

Speaking of creativity, we are seeking members interested in helping us keep WSAPD innovating and going strong. We have an amazing leadership team and if you feel passionately about pediatric dentistry, supporting your fellow pediatric dentists, and are amazing we would love to have you join us. The application link can be found below.

Looking forward to seeing y'all at all our 2025 events and, as always, please feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns you have. Thank you for your hard work to care for the oral health of the littlest Washingtonians! 

Megan Miller

WSAPD President 2024-2025