education

I am often asked by friends living outside Fort Worth, “How should I choose my orthodontist?” With as many dental specialties as there are and with insurance constantly changing, I am not surprised by this frequent request. The search can be overwhelming.

First, make sure the person that you are considering is actually an orthodontist and not simply a primary care dentist that does braces. Orthodontics is not just about beautiful smiles. It is a complex science that involves moving bone, bite alignment and longevity of function. Orthodontists are dentists who have completed a 4-year graduate program in dentistry to receive their DDS or DMD. They choose to continue their education for an additional 2-3 years by enrolling in a competitive residency at an accredited program specializing in orthodontics. To determine if the professional that you are considering for treatment is a specialist, look him or her up on the American Association of Orthodontists website. This site lists only specialists who have graduated from an accredited orthodontic program and belong to the AAO.

A board-certified orthodontist is an orthodontist who has voluntarily taken their specialty a step further. They have endured hundreds of additional hours of preparation to demonstrate the judgment, skills, and knowledge required for providing the highest level of patient care. They have achieved board certification through the American Board of Orthodontics, the only orthodontic specialty board recognized by the American Dental Association and in affiliation with the American Association of Orthodontists. Achieving board certification is the last step in a long and intensive educational experience to ultimately provide excellent patient care. To determine if the orthodontist that you are considering for treatment is board certified, look him or her up on the American Board of Orthodontics website. This site lists only orthodontists who have taken this extra step to become board certified.

The next place I would seek a referral would be from other SPECIALISTS in the area, especially oral surgeons. Although there are a lot of primary care dentists who might be helpful in your search, many of them are attempting orthodontics themselves. Oral surgeons and other specialists work with ALL orthodontists in their area. Thus, they are able to see and compare results and form an objective opinion. A primary care dentist may only work with a couple of orthodontists, but an oral surgeon typically works with dozens.

Another good source of information today is the internet. However, take the information you find there with a grain of salt. Practice websites and social media sites do not always accurately portray the quality of work the orthodontist provides. A bad orthodontist might have found an excellent website designer. On the other hand, an excellent orthodontist just might not be as technically savvy in today’s internet world. You should search for reviews on the orthodontists you are considering, but again realize that not all reviews are accurate. Happy patients usually don’t go out of their way to write reviews, but unhappy ones can’t wait to get their fingers to a computer. Some doctors invest in systems to aid in acquiring positive reviews, while others let reviews happen organically. No doctor can make every patient happy all the time. (I would actually warn you to stay away from those who contort themselves trying.) One or two poor reviews should not scare you off, assuming they are accompanied by several positive ones.

Last but not least, pay a personal visit to the office you are considering. What is your initial impression as you park, approach the building, and are greeted at the front desk? Is the office up to date and clean? Is the staff helpful and in a good mood? Keep in mind that you will be visiting this office about once a month until your treatment is complete. Upon visiting, ask yourself if the office feels like home and if the staff feels like an extension of your family.

I am a board-certified orthodontist. I feel extremely blessed to be part of this elite group of specialists practicing orthodontics today. And though I am confident that I am an excellent orthodontist, I am also confident that I am not necessarily the best choice for everyone based on individual personality and needs. There are MANY great orthodontists in your area. There certainly are in Fort Worth!

Find the orthodontist that is best for YOU. Talk to your friends, search the internet, visit offices, interview oral surgeons, and always ask your potential doctor if they are a specialist. Finding YOUR orthodontist is not always easy, but it is definitely worth your time, your mental peace, and your SMILE to do your homework. Afterall, doesn’t your smile deserve the BEST?

May brings back a host of memories of completing the school semester and taking finals. As I drive through the TCU campus, I almost shudder recalling the years of taking finals and the stress accompanying them. As I watch my own daughter, a graduating high school senior, prepare for her final exams, the stress she is under permeates our home. (not at all fun for our family of six)

My encouragement to all of our patients who are pursuing education is to Finish Strong. You will survive finals and make it to the summer. The question remaining is, "Will you provide your best effort?” There are a host of reasons to Finish Strong: achieving the grade you desire, genuine interest in the subject matter, the hope of making your teacher proud, and fulfilling the expectations your parents have requested. Most of the meaningful accomplishments in my life came through hard work and determination. I was a good student, but not a great one. I was one of those guys who had to work HARD. (How I envied some of my buddies who seemed to never crack books and still fly by with A’s and B’s.) Though honestly, I do not know anyone who made it through their school years without a few bumps along the way. I can almost guarantee you will experience disappointment. I know I did. Thus, please do not let a professor, teacher, instructor, or grade define you.

I had one of my favorite professors in college tell me, "The only reason you are pursuing dentistry is because you want to be a doctor." I was devastated. I thought he knew me better and the goals I had in my life. At that point, I had a choice. Would his opinion "define me," or would I allow this to simply be a "defining moment". I chose the latter. This became a moment in which I determined to prove his words a lie. I searched my heart and validated my reasons behind my career choice, and I worked harder to become who I knew God had called me to be. This bump became a defining moment for me in a very positive way.

Thank goodness I chose to pursue my heart’s calling and not let one person or his opinion of me take me out. As your orthodontist, I desire to provide you with the best smile imaginable and encourage you to pursue your dreams. I know you can Finish Strong with hard work and a little sacrifice. For me, the sacrifices I made are worth it everyday. I have the privilege of being your orthodontist, getting to know your heart, and seeing you achieve your goals. Choose for those bumps in life (those crummy grades, those not so understanding teachers, those circumstantial friends, and those personal mistakes along the way) to simply become teachable moments. Remember, they do not define you. You are bigger and your dreams are reachable. Finish Strong, friends! Finish strong, seniors. The best truly is yet to come!

(PS. - Graduating seniors, make sure you send us an announcement or stop by our office this month. We have a special gift for YOU!)

May brings back a host of memories of completing the school semester and taking finals.  As I drive through the TCU campus, I almost shudder recalling the years of taking finals and the stress accompanying them.  As I watch my own daughter prepare for her high school finals, the stress she is under permeates our home.  (not at all fun for our family of six)

My encouragement to all of our patients who are pursuing education is to Finish Strong.  You will survive finals and make it to the summer.  The question remaining is, "Will you provide your best effort?”  There are a host of reasons to Finish Strong: achieving the grade you desire, genuine interest in the subject matter, the hope of making your teacher proud, and fulfilling the expectations your parents have requested. Most of the meaningful accomplishments in my life came through hard work and determination.  I was a good student, but not a great one.  I was one of those guys who had to work HARD.  (How I envied some of my buddies who seemed to never crack books and still fly by with A’s and B’s.) Though honestly, I do not know anyone who made it through their school years without a few bumps along the way.  I can almost guarantee you will experience disappointment.  I know I did.  Thus, please do not let a professor, teacher, instructor, or grade define you.

I had one of my favorite professors in college tell me, "The only reason you are pursuing dentistry is because you want to be a doctor."  I was devastated.  I thought he knew me better and the goals I had in my life. At that point, I had a choice.  Would his opinion "define me," or would I allow this to simply be a "defining moment". I chose the latter. This became a moment in which I determined to prove his words a lie.  I searched my heart and validated my reasons behind my career choice, and I work harder to become who I knew God had called me to be.  This bump became a defining moment for me in a very positive way.

Thank goodness I chose to pursue my heart’s calling and not let one person or his opinion of me take me out.  As your orthodontist, I desire to provide you with the best smile imaginable and encourage you to pursue your dreams.  I know you can Finish Strong with hard work and a little sacrifice.  For me, the sacrifices I made are worth it everyday. I have the privilege of being your orthodontist, getting to know your heart, and seeing you achieve your goals. Choose for those bumps in life (those crummy grades, those not so understanding teachers, those circumstantial friends, and those personal mistakes along the way) to simply become teachable moments.  Remember, they do not define you.  You are bigger and your dreams are reachable.  Finish Strong, friends!

It is hard to believe that we are actually celebrating our 5^th year with Live Thankfully. What started with just a few Thanksgiving turkeys has grown into a movement across our city.  I am constantly asked how Live Thankfully came to be and what our vision is when it comes to LT in the future.  Honestly, when I reflect over the past 5 years, I don’t know how we got here or how in the world LT continues to keep growing with such momentum.  I just know that God continues to bless our efforts, cover our many mistakes, and graciously bring us folks to guide us and serve alongside us.

John often refers to Live Thankfully as our "accidental nonprofit" (or my very expensive hobby). Never in a million years did I think we would have started and been running a  charitable organization.  Don’t let this blog or social media posts fool you. The nonprofit world falls way short of glamorous. Startup nonprofits require a ton of work, cause a significant amount of stress, cost a lot of money, and are never ending. Yet our reasons for continuing to press on are anything but accidental – they are completely intentional.

You see, Live Thankfully is not just about serving meals, we are about preparing young hearts for service.  (Turkeys and cans are simply the conduits!)

What began as a way of marketing Kelley Orthodontics has turned into a four-part service project involving the entire community.  In the past, before LT, Kelley Orthodontics gave turkeys to John’s referring dentists around the holidays. In 2012, we decided to redirect our efforts and reach out to families in our neighboring schools who were struggling to put a Thanksgiving meal on the table.   That year, with the support of our dental community, we gave 60 meals to families in need.  Five years later, we are giving approximately 600 meals to families adopted through 20+ Fort Worth schools, Gill Children Services (an organization John faithfully serves with professionally), and 2 local churches.

Leadership training takes place in all of our Live Thankfully schools throughout the academic year. The process begins with education and changing the way kids think about service and giving.  LT volunteers spend numerous hours in our partnering schools, mentoring student leaders, and teaching them how to conduct successful food drives.  We teach kids that they have the power to create positive change in their communities.

Not every child can be a superstar academically, but every child can serve.  The evidence of a good leader is service.

Food drives are conducted the month of November in our partnering schools and business offices. LT volunteers pick up these heavy boxes of food weekly, transfer them to our storage unit where students of that campus organize them for our packaging party.  Our food drives collect enough food to fill 2500 bags of groceries and donate another 5000 plus food items to local area food banks.

Packaging Party: Live Thankfully hosts a party in which volunteers from the community come together to package the groceries collected from our LT local food drives. This party takes place on the Sunday evening prior to Thanksgiving.

I am constantly blown away by who shows up to sort and bag the food.  There is no discrimination of age, religion, socioeconomics, physical abilities, or race.  This, to me, is the most beautiful part of Live Thankfully. A person simply volunteering their time may be serving next to another who is actually receiving a meal. Since those receiving meals serve alongside those who give, students recognize the needs around them, compassion increases, relationships strengthen, and our community solidifies.

Thanksgiving Dinner Distribution: Thanksgiving dinners, purchased through Live Thankfully, are given to families selected by our partnering schools’ counselors. Each family receives a full meal along with 2 bags of groceries from our packaging party.  These families are chosen based on financial, emotional, and physical needs.  Our counselors are diligent to follow up with these families throughout the school year.  We offer resources and collaborate with other nonprofits to help these families get back on their feet.

Every participating school has teachers and administrators present to give the meals to their adopted families.  We desire to tears down walls of distrust and builds bridges of trust between those in need and those who are able to help.  This starts in the micro-communities of the schools with the teachers, administrators, and fellow students meeting the needs of their own school families.

So what do I envision for the future? I truly am open to anything.  We simply pray that the Lord will organically grow Live Thankfully as He desires: that He would bring the financial support, the manpower, the resources we need to continue being the hands and feet of service in our local schools and community.

We are considering saying “yes” to more schools next year. And saying, “yes” to having more than one site for our packaging party and meal pick-up.  This would allow others in the community to realistically join us in service, thus maintaining dignity and pride in those we bless with meals.

I have a vision of providing some type of paid stipend or job for the single moms who receive our meals (a sort of income generating activity).

We provide a smaller scale leadership opportunity on our school campuses during the spring called Created for Compassion. But I would love to see LT offer another large community involved service project in late May or early summer.

I envision a Live Thankfully summer day camp. Young leaders, both kids “of plenty” and kids at risk for failing or dropping out of school, would come together for a week or two. We would pour into them and challenge them in areas of service. They would problem solve and work together for the betterment of their schools and community.

So, I am a visionary. (It’s amazing what you learn about yourself when you take on something new.) I have been so blessed to find and hire an incredible Executive Director who comes alongside me, keeps me on track, makes sure we are staying within our mission, and doing what we were called to do WELL, before moving forward.

I have no idea where Live Thankfully will be tomorrow. I just know that I have fallen completely in love with the teachers, administrators, and kids of our public schools. I see the chains they wear because of governmental red tape and ridiculous testing requirements. I see children who have so much potential, so much character, so much to offer our society, being crushed in spirit because they don't fit into a box.  Live Thankfully gives our schools a diffent kind of box - one that is moldable and pliable. The schools can change and manipulate it based on the needs of their students and the conditions of their individual schools.

I have been told numerous times by our teachers that they have witnessed transformation in the students that are actively involved with LT.  For some, Live Thankfully is the only place they feel successful in school. Through Live Thankfully, they experience the joy of hands on learning and the excitement of discovery. They  come to believe that they are so much more than a test score, and that academics don't always get in the way of a good education. These kids are coming alive and so are their campuses during Live Thankfully season!

So this is what keeps me going. This is why we can’t stop, why we can’t throw in the towel when I desperately (at times) want to go back to simply giving turkeys to dentists. Running a fulltime nonprofit is HARD.  It is HARD HARD HARD.  But  nothing worth fighting for doesn’t come with difficulties, with trials, with sweat and tears. Right? These kids are worth fighting for, our schools are worth fighting for, and our community is indeed worth fighting for. Spend just a few hours in our Fort Worth schools, look past the system and see the faces.  You too will be hooked!

In one sentence: Live Thankfully is a life style. Won’t you live thankfully too? livethankfully.org

(click image below for 5 year annivesary video)

Guest blogger: Alison Kelley (aka: Dr. Kelley's bride) pictured below with Executive Director, Sarah Nader