Our most recent Spear Faculty Club Summit was our biggest event to date. We had over 650 dentists in attendance who were Faculty Club members, visiting faculty, study club leaders and study club members.

At last year's summit, we had less than 20 Faculty Club led study clubs; this year we have over 115 that are engaging local communities to help their colleagues learn and to increase the quality of care for their patients.

The theme of my opening remarks at last year's summit focused on community – this year, it was all about value. The type of value I was referring to was one's judgment of what is important in life. At this particular summit, I was fortunate enough to be inspired by dentists that have judged that their learning journey within dentistry is important in their lives.

Dr. Spear frequently talks about how the average dentist spends less than $1,000 per year on continuing education, including travel. The dentists who make up the Spear community are not average; they are exceptional. They take time away from family, friends and their practices to be better dentists that provide the ultimate care to their patients.

I also threw out a few small statistics. The first one is .005 percent, which is the percentage of these dentists versus everyone in the dental profession in North America. The second percentage I'd like to share is .0009 percent – this is the percentage of these dentists versus everyone in the dental profession in the world.

These dentists are a very small part of the dental profession, but they are changing the face of modern dentistry and making a huge impact on the world.