Programming
The Programming. Member-led.
The programmed year we are building — Master Classes, peer roundtables, mentorship, and the podcast. Taught by practitioners who run real practices, not by paid speakers.
The programmed year we are building — Master Classes, peer roundtables, mentorship, and the podcast. Taught by practitioners who run real practices, not by paid speakers.
The conversations that move a profession forward only happen when the people in the room are still in the chair.
MDLA programming is taught entirely by member dentists. The faculty are not retired lecturers. They are not paid speakers. They are practitioners actively running practices, treating patients, and making the calls the rest of the field is also trying to make. When members teach members, the conversations are different — sharper, less polite, more useful.
Thirty-to-forty-five minute sessions on the work of running a practice and treating patients. Taught live, with handouts. Q&A built in.
Planned cadence: roughly one session per month, beginning once the founding cohort is seated.
Periodontics, endodontics, orthodontic communication and diagnosis for the GP, atraumatic extractions, reading a CBCT, sealing decay with SDF.
Practice acquisition, partner disputes, selling a practice with dignity, hiring the right associate, structuring a DSO transition.
Billing and insurance, scheduling, patient retention and communication, front-desk efficiency, the first thirty seconds at check-in.
Cosmetic dentistry case planning, implant dentistry, complex restorative work, materials, photography, working with a lab.
Smaller-format member discussions on the conversations CE doesn’t cover. Closed door, off the record, twelve members in a room.
Planned cadence: quarterly, by topic, by region.
What a real number looks like. How to read a financial. Whom to trust. How to walk away when the math doesn’t work.
What to do when the relationship breaks. Buy-sell agreements, valuation disagreements, the cost of letting it go to court.
Compensation models that hold. What to look for. How to fire well. The associate who becomes a partner, and the one who doesn’t.
Building a practice that respects deen. Running a clinic during Ramadan. Raising children while running a chair. The conversations no other forum has space for.
A long-form vehicle for member voices. Members tell their journey, share their lessons, and leave a record other practitioners can return to.
Planned cadence: two episodes per month, once the series launches.
The format is a conversation, not an interview. One member, ninety minutes, no script. The host carries a few prepared questions; the rest comes from where the conversation goes.
The episodes are not promotional. Members talk about the parts of practice that don’t make it onto a CV — the partnership that didn’t work, the case that taught the lesson, the year that almost broke them, the patient who stayed. The point is to give the next member something to listen to on a long drive that makes them feel less alone.
Episodes will be released open to the public. The members who appear will be MDLA members or invited guests. The first season records once the founding cohort is seated.
A way for members to give back without burning out. Light-touch, low-overhead, structured around what each member can actually sustain.
Cadence: at the member’s discretion.
A twenty-minute Zoom. A shared lesson on a topic the member has lived through. A quarterly check-in with one mentee. Whatever the member can hold without it becoming a burden.
Mentees are matched into the program through a sponsoring member — not by open intake. The alliance pairs based on specialty, geography, and what the mentee is trying to figure out. Pairings are time-bound, not permanent.
Programming is for members. The way to access it is to join.
Or read how membership works →