You don’t even have to be a dentist to agree on these three points about professional development:
1. Learning in “the real world” is a lot different than learning in a classroom.
2. In-person networking is valuable and can lead to new opportunities.
3. Everyone can feel professionally “stuck” or isolated from time to time.
Usually the way to become “unstuck” is through the first two points—continuing education and in-person networking. By nature, humans are social beings, and we seek fellowship. If you feel removed from your professional, peer-to-peer community, it might be time to consider Spear Study Club.
Spear Study Clubs help specialists and general practitioners excel in an all-inclusive format that integrates evidence-based clinical instruction and online learning. The curriculum is designed to spark discussion, encourage collaboration, and build a trusted interdisciplinary network within your community. Each club meets up to eight times per year, studying real-life cases provided by Spear faculty. This learning environment allows dentists to quickly grow their skills, increase their clinical reach, and gain insight from like-minded peers about how to achieve more consistently predictable patient outcomes.
How Is Spear Study Club Different than Traditional Study Clubs?
Traditional study clubs may include70 members or more and often rely on lecture-style content with prepackaged supplementary lessons. In contrast, Spear Study Clubs offer intimate group settings with eight to 10 members and integrated curriculum with topics for the entire team and office. In a traditional study club, attendees may have one or two clinical points that they would integrate at home, while Spear Study Club aims to solidify technical skills in a highly collaborative environment with real-world cases.
“I have tried some local study clubs before but the Spear Study Club experience is so different,” said Dr. Sabrina Mancini, a periodontist based in Montréal.
“It’s much more organized and the material is at a consistently high level,” she said. “The cases we are looking at are advanced, thought-provoking and challenging, but at the same time they’re touching on things that we see in our practices every day. To me, that is a big difference. With (Spear Study Club), it’s not just about reviewing literature or listening to a lecture. It’s much more hands-on and practical, and you get ideas from it you can bring back to your practice and use right away.”
Dr. Mancini added that being a member of a Spear Study Club has broadened her team’s perspectives. She finds that individual practitioners can easily get too attached to their own way of looking at things. She has also seen the benefit that Spear Study Club has had on her practice’s bottom line, specifically through the increase in quality referrals from the restorative dentists in her group.
“A big part of that is because I am also seeing an increase in trust,” she explained. “They know more about what I do, and I am learning more about their expectations, too. Having gone through this learning experience together, we are speaking the same language.”
Study Club members are supported by Spear’s learning ecosystem, which is designed to support club members and empower their practice teams. Member benefits include access to on-campus and online learning tools, and the club can attend a two-day seminar at the Spear Campus in Scottsdale, Arizona.
It’s easy to locate a Spear Study Club in your area on Spear’s website, but if one doesn’t exist locally, there’s also the opportunity to become a Spear Study Club Leader in your own community. Learn more at www.speareducation.com/study-club.