Office Staff Attends ADA Annual Session

Each attendee was issued a magnetic ID card to use to log in their continuing education credits. It was also useful when ordering products from the manufacturers.

The final purpose of a meeting of this sort is to showcase the newest innovations and equipment available to today's dentist. Exhibitors from all over the world come to this event to demonstrate (and sell) their products, devices, and techniques. There are literally millions of dollars of equipment on display. Picture 28 aisles over 100 yards long lined with displays of anything from lasers to toothbrushes, digital x-rays to gloves, web site design to tooth colored fillings. Just ordering the latest laser, digital x-ray system and CAD/CAM dental crown device will set you back over $200,000. (Doctor, we do take credit cards.) It took over five hours to just walk the aisles and nearly two days to visit displays of interest. Just try to remember where you left off in a hall four times larger than the Seagate Center.

There were 40,000 registrants to this meeting; 22,000 of them dentists. It took a fleet of busses running constantly all day along 10 routes to ferry everyone from their hotels to the Orange County Convention Center.

The ADA Marketplace. Every dental manufacturer in the world attended. You can't imagine the size and complexity of some of the displays from just these pictures.

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