Well here we all are for AAO 2014, the American Association of Orthodontists Annual Session. This year it's in New Orleans, Louisiana and it's 9 years after hurricane Katrina and the city is very keen to show it's back in business.
In fact, the AAO were meant to be having a conference here not long after the hurricane hit in 2005, so there had to be a slight change of plan. This year they're at the Morial Convention Centre.
Swords Orthodontics are here in force, with Brenda and Michelle joining me for the event. There are full days of lectures for nurses and orthodontic teams as well as the orthodontists themselves, and in fact there are so many lectures that many take place at the same time. You couldn't actually go to all the lectures that are running - that's why we get a copy of the lectures on DVD, and then we can watch them in a training session in the practice.
As well as the lectures, which feature many of the world's most respected orthodontists talking about their own experiences in many years of practice or others presenting their most recent research, there are also workshops, demonstrations, seminars on particular topics and an enormous amount of exhibitions of orthodontic equipment - which gives us an idea on the trends that we'll be meeting in ortho in the next few years.
