President’s Message

ASD was formed to help athletes and our patients prevent traumatic dental injuries. Prevention involves education, developing good habits, wearing properly fitted equipment (including custom mouthguards), playing within the rules of the sport, and being respectful of others.

It is important that if you are going to wear a custom mouthguard it needs to be worn properly. All too often we see professional hockey and basketball players chewing on their mouthguards as they hang out of their mouths. Young athletes look up to these professionals as heroes and role models. It is very disappointing to see mouthguards worn improperly. If a player insists on chewing on their mouthguard then perhaps it would be better if they didn’t wear one at all because we don’t want to send the wrong message to our youth.

Recently, some ASD members (Dr. Mark Roettger, Dr. Steve Mills, and myself) along with some members of the International Association of Dental Traumatology developed a document on the prevention of traumatic dental injuries. I want to thank Dr. Liran Levin (IADT President) for asking ASD to partner with IADT on this initiative. This document will be published in the IADT Journal.

Since some dental injuries can’t be avoided ASD also provides training on how to treat dental injuries. ASD follows the guidelines developed by IADT. Although an overwhelming number of our members are part of a medical team that supports athletic teams, you don’t need to be an ASD Certified Team Dentist to be associated with ASD. It would be best if you always were prepared to treat a dental injury since you never know when you might have a patient phone you at your office to say that they just fell and damaged their teeth. This winter has been extremely icy where I live outside of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. There have been a lot of patients who have slipped on the ice and injured themselves. I have had to reposition and splint teeth for two patients in the past few weeks. My training through ASD prepared me to treat these injuries.

One of the best places to learn more about the prevention and treatment of dental injuries is at the Annual ASD Symposium. This year’s symposium is being held at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas from June 13-15. I welcome everyone to join us for some great education, fun times, to see old friends, and to make new friends! 

Exciting days are ahead for ASD as we continue to grow our membership. Last fall ASD introduced a new promotion to attract new members. ASD will provide a complimentary one-year membership to dentists and other healthcare professionals who have never been a member in the past. Please continue to encourage your friends and colleagues to take advantage of this promotion.

Thank you for your continued support of the ASD and interest in Sports Dentistry!

Remember – we are all doing this for the Athletes!

Hans M. Stasiuk, DMD, FASD
ASD President