CDA Essentials 2015 • Volume 2 • Issue 2

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28 | Volume 2 Issue 2
Issues and People
Take Dr. Odiatu’s insights on dentists and their sleep-deprived patients,
for example. He describes a big response to a workshop he recently
delivered in Detroit, where dentists told him sleep isn’t usually
considered during patient intake interviews. “But fractured sleep
affects your energy midway through the afternoon, makes you
ravenous for carbohydrates, makes for poorer wound healing,
and makes you unable to process feelings and emotions from
things that happened 10 years ago,” he says. “So it’s a question
worth asking.”
Say yes first, worry about the details
later
Dr. Odiatu didn’t set out to become a regular on the dental
conference circuit. He describes the growth of his career
in professional speaking as “a little pebble that became a
snowball, then a huge mountain!” His first speaking engagement
was an after-dinner talk at a dental fraternity, where he and Kary
spoke about the importance of fitness in a dentist’s life. The talk went well,
then more speaking invitations started to trickle in, and eventually the requests for 1-hour
talks grew to include half-day programs. “I learned to say yes first and worry about the details later,” he
acknowledges.
At the start he and Kary travelled to speaking engagements together. Their talks, combining music,
humour and inspirational quotes, were designed to motivate dentists to lead healthy
lives and—more immediately—keep them entertained for a few hours. Now, with 3 children at home,
Kary limits the number of events she attends while Dr. Odiatu travels to about 30 conferences each year
to deliver his healthy living programs.
Learn together, stay together
In his experience attending dental conferences around the world, Dr. Odiatu has observed the benefits
of educating the whole dental team, as a learning unit, rather than individual dentists. He explains, “For
the past 25 years, I’ve heard dentists say, ‘Every time I take a course and try to share what I’ve learned,
the team doesn’t buy in.’ And then when I ask if they brought anyone along, they say, ‘No, it’s too
expensive.’” But when Dr. Odiatu sees a team of dentists, hygienists,
managers, and assistants, all learning together at a conference,
he recognizes the traits of a cohesive team. “You learn
together, you stay together. People learning as a team—
that’s how it should be.”
To find out if Dr. Odiatu will be appearing at an event
near you, contact him at . To
read more about Dr. Uche and Kary Odiatu, visit
a
Dr. Odiatu and his wife, Kary, co-authors of The Miracle of
Health: Simple Solutions, Extraordinary Results.
Look for a 5-minute
YouTube video of
Dr. Odiatu talking about
“Keeping Your Edge
at Any Age”