With our April Miami Dental Festival successfully in the books and our newest dental CE opportunity coming up in October, we thought we would share some tips for safe travel that we learned from April attendees.
Whether you plan to attend the festival later this year or plan to travel for dental CE next year or beyond, these tips can help you make sure that you and your staff stay safe and healthy.
Can you believe that we’ve been living in the “new normal” brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic for more than a year now? The landscape certainly changed for travel and for Dental CE during that time. But that doesn’t mean we can’t continue to offer safe, fun, and helpful dental CE.
Though it can be prevented by taking the proper precautions, none of us want any kind of infection to go back to our dental practices. That’s why we’re working as hard as we can to make Smiles at Sea the safest dental conference around.
By following these tips, you can join in that effort.
1. Bring a mask… and a backup.
With changing regulations in different parts of the country, it’s best to be prepared at all times. And with masks taking up such little space, bringing a few with you will ensure you don’t have to go scrambling if the airlines, hotel, local community, or state rules require one.
When we pack our bags for a flight, we’re used to bringing changes of clothes, our toiletry kit, and everything else on our mental (or physical) checklist. Now, make sure that a few masks are on that list.
Though venues often provide masks if they can, the best way to make sure you have one handy is by keeping one with you at all times. Keeping a backup ensures that even if you misplace one, you’re still good to go and don’t have to take time away to find a new one.
2. Plan your training sessions ahead of time.
With vaccinations moving along, restrictions will be easing. But many locations will still require additional distancing in training rooms. That makes it even more important to train what sessions you will attend and get to the rooms early to get a good seat.
This is a good strategy in any environment but especially important with changing social distancing rules. Reduced capacity means the best CE sessions will fill up even faster than during normal times.
3. Identify outdoor networking activities ahead of time.
During normal times, meeting up in a corner of the room or a hallway is the norm when networking. That will still be the case with conferences like the ones we hold at Smiles at Sea where your safety is our top priority.
But people come in from all over the world and everyone’s comfort level with indoor meetups will be different. Being prepared with a list of a few outdoor activities to offer to people you want to meet if they’re uncomfortable meeting up indoors will ensure you make all the connections you want. In warm environments, like our next Dental Festival 2021 Land Event in October, you could even offer to take a simple walk around the hotel if someone is more comfortable outdoors. Identifying a few local cultural attractions are another option.
4. Plan your sleep.
With airway dentistry growing so much lately, we’re all hyper aware about how important it is to get a good night’s sleep. No matter how much fun we have at our Smiles at Sea events, plan to get a good night’s sleep to ensure your immune system is operating at full capacity.
Are you a night owl? Give yourself permission to sleep in a little bit and plan your CE and networking to start later in the morning and swap those breakfast meetups for after-dinner chats. Are you an early riser? Lock in breakfast meetups for networking instead of after-dinner chats. Are you comfortable switching it up? Check out the schedule ahead of time and only plan breakfast meetups on mornings you won’t be staying out late. Identifying which late-night events you will attend ahead of time allows you to block out the early mornings you need to sleep in.
Every little part matters.
As we all do our part, traveling for dental CE will be safe, without having to sacrifice our fun. And if you’re planning to come to the best dental conference in 2021, the October Dental Festival in Miami, we’ll see you there. Safe travels!
