UDHA

As a first-year student of WSU Dental Hygiene program, I was required, along with my fellow students, to attend the UDHA convention last Friday at Thanskgiving Point. In preparation for us going, the senior-students gave a presentation to pump us up about going, becoming a member when we graduate, but did not really explain a whole lot about it.
We get there, and there is a really WEIRD lady talking to us about how our heart is our son, and we need to release the emotions inside, become rooted like a tree, breathe deeply. A lot of mumbo-jumbo...no offense to those who liked it, I'm not a big lovely/feely kind of a person in that way.
Then we have a second presenter. He was coming to talk to us about ADHA (which by the way, I still don't know what that stands for, although it might have been mentioned---I do know it is the national organization for DH). He spent an hour telling us how poorly the dental hygiene association has been run in years previous and that it is going to change. He didn't tell us how it was going to change, he just pointed out what they had done wrong, and then simply stated that it would, eventually, change. After the longest hour of my life, he said he was going to show us WHY they were changing. My interests were sparked "yay! something new in your speech!" We spent the next hour watching videos of disgruntled DH's around the nation telling us why they thought it was a waste of time to join the association. That it helped them personally, none at all, actually. Then, I THOUGHT he was going to tell us why exactly it would be beneficial to be a member when we graduated (we were a class specifically designed for students, so he wanted to boost our morale, right??!?!) but NO! He spent the next hour telling us how we should recruit other people to come.
He did at one point say it was good to join because of benefits you can get, like discounts on loupes(although you can get better student discounts), small discounts in health insurance, and that at one point in the distant past this organization helped make it possible for DH's to administer anesthetic. That is all I gleaned from his pro-joining speech. And I was listening.
To top it all of, he was a terrible speaker, he had terrible skills: no dynamics, no enthusiasm, complete monotone voice, no gestures, he didn't relate anything to us, he used big words and no catch phrases. He was a dud, pretty much.
It was the longest convention of my life (although I did get some pretty sweet free toothbrushes) and I left completely against ever joining ADHA. Luckily, our ethics professor heard about it today, and in TWO MINUTES told us how she used to be a member, and also a member with a position of authority...she told us how she was one of the ones who pushed for DH's to be able to administer anesthetic, and what that means to us. She told us the importance of having an association to back us up in case of malpractice, in case we need an insurance break, in case we need to pass something new in the future because medicine is ever changing. She also said a few more things. In that TWO MINUTES I was more convinced to become a member than I have ever been. Certainly it reversed my absolutely negative attitude toward ADHA. Oh yeah, and its American Dental Hygiene Association. So there you go. I learned something today. Now I can become an activist, and NEXT time, there better be a better speaker, because that serious reflects poorly. Lamesauce.