Bill Klaproth (Host): This is an AAOMS On The Go podcast. I'm Bill Klaproth, and I'm pleased to welcome with me today Dr. Jim Hupp, who is here to talk about his role as Editor of AAOMS Today magazine, and how the bi monthly publication benefits AAOMS members. Dr. Hupp, thanks for being here.

James Hupp, DMD, MD, JD, MBA: Well, thank you for having me on your podcast.

Host: Absolutely. It is great to talk with you. So, Dr. Hupp, for those who may not be aware of its history, can you start by giving us a brief on AAOMS Today?

James Hupp, DMD, MD, JD, MBA: Oh, certainly. Uh, the publication started a fair number of years back. Actually uh, I was born in 52 and it started in 1959. It was at that point, the American Society of Oral Surgeons newsletter. And the format was like a newsletter, you know, something that didn't have a lot of graphics. It wasn't particularly stylish.

It was just basically a newsy kind of thing. I actually had the opportunity to be at headquarters and look through some of the old issues, and they're fascinating. And I'll talk a little later about maybe how I can share that with the listeners. So that went from 59 to 74, just as titled the newsletter.

Then they changed the title. It was in 1975, they changed it to the Forum, F-O-R-U-M. They ran that for a couple of years, and this was while I was still in dental school. But then in 1977, theassociation changed its name to the American Association of Oral and Maxilofacial Surgeons, as it is now known.

That happened my first year of residency actually. And so it became the AAOMS Forum.

Now a secondary publication. popped up in 1985. It was called the AAOMS Digest, which actually was sent out to members along with the forum. So it was kind of a separate publication, but still coming from the association.

And it was called the AAOMS Digest. And when I looked through these, from a historic standpoint, they were more of the political side of the association, not as newslettery and came from the executive director at that point. Then in 1996 the title AAOMS Today that's when it first appeared.

And the format changed from what was really still kind of a newslettery kind of format to what at that point came across as a tabloid kind of thing, a long, tall kind of thing that was sent out to members. Had a little bit more in the way of graphics, mainly in black and white. And so that went for several years.

And then the format was changed to something that was a little closer to being magazine like, but it was still a little more tabloid, kind of a mixture of the two. It's still called AAOMS Today. They brought in you know, much more colored illustrations, more illustrations. It was much more professionally graphically set up.

And then in the late 2010s, I guess you call them the current format, which is strictly a magazine format, was brought out. And that's the current format we see now, which I think is really attractive. It's gotten actually several national awards from associations that give out awards to these kind of publications. And so that's brings us up to the current time.

Host: That's a great recap. Thank you for that, Dr. Hupp. Starting out as a newsletter, then moving to the Forum, then the AAOMS Forum, and then there were two publications, one of them being the AAOMS Digest and finally AAOMS Today. And certainly it's gone through a couple of changes to what we see today. So interesting to hear the evolution of AAOMS Today.

So in your opinion, Dr. Hupp, what makes AAOMS Today such a valuable benefit to the members?

James Hupp, DMD, MD, JD, MBA: You know, I was previously Editor In Chief of the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, which all members receive and hopefully read. And it's full of basic and clinical science, research and the results of those research that people can apply into the surgical specialty.

So they're peer reviewed publication, peer reviewed articles that are submitted and peer reviewed, and then those that are past muster are then printed. The AAOMS Today is a different sort of publication again, no longer a true newsletter. It's more of a news magazine. And, because of the term news, it's up to date information that I think members can use to manage their practice and, careers gives stories about how to get involved in the association and its advocacy efforts, how to contribute to the association and to society.

It has messaging from the association leadership. It has information from our specialty board and what I consider a lot of very interesting news items as well as my editorial, and uh, pretty elaborate section of classified ads, and of course, advertising. Because of all that, I think it's the kind of publication and I hear this pretty often, that readers read cover to cover, as opposed to the JOMS, which, depending on how your practice profile is, you may or may not read all articles. You may just read those that are of interest. Whereas I think the AAOMS Today, I think most surgeons would find most of the information in there of use and information presented in a very palatable way.

Host: Mm hmm. I would imagine it is so popular, as you said, because it gives info on how to manage your practice, how to make your practice more successful, how to manage your career, so really useful information inside of it. So since you've become editor of the publication and you've got a long history, is there anything in particular that has surprised you about the magazine when you became editor or that has challenged you in the role?

James Hupp, DMD, MD, JD, MBA: Well, they're both surprises and challenges. Probably the biggest surprise, you know, again, I, compare it to my time as the editor of the JOMS. That was a role where the editorial board was made up of other surgeons in our specialty, and they were the individuals who, they didn't develop content, but they helped review content, decide what content was worthy of publication.

Staff played a role, but it was a very behind the scenes supportive role as opposed to, surprised to find with AAOMS Today, that staff plays a leading role. I'm, for the most part, the only oral maxillofacial surgeon that has a really meaningful role in the creation of the publication.

And therefore, that was a surprise to me. I guess it was, maybe I should have thought about that, previously that that's the way it was going to be. But when I got into my first couple of editorial board meetings and got to see the staff take the role of helping decide what kind of stories would be merit and in the timeline and, those kinds of things that was a big surprise.

It was actually a pleasant surprise because I didn't know what I was actually getting into when I took over that role. I knew what the publication was, but I didn't know exactly what the Editor In Chief did of that publication. Now, the challenge, and it was the same challenge with the JOMS, probably the biggest challenge is the expectation that you write editorials.

Editorials are something which can be just an informative, but they also are really opinion pieces. In both publications editor's job is not to represent the association or necessarily even the association's leadership preferences. It's really to basically share one person's opinion.

And, and that's something which I try to remind the readers that it's just my opinion because it is something that the association doesn't heavily vet. They don't in a the true sense, approve this topic that I'm writing on or, suggest here's the topic we want you to write on. It purely comes out of my own head.

But that's a challenge because you have to come up with things you do think would be of value to the readership. And that's not always obvious. It's not like you're reporting the news like a normal reporter. They would just take the news and polish it up into a readability kind of format. It's coming up with ideas or things that readers might want to either learn about, or it is a controversial topic that is something that they want to kind of maybe start to think about in a different way.

And that's a challenge to come up with those ideas and I've done the JOMS job, I did that for 11 years, and now I've been in a couple years of this role. It's still a challenge to come up with ideas that are not going to sound too simplistic or not be worth reading.

Host: Yeah, you said you do find this challenging. Are you finding satisfaction in writing the editorial? What kind of feedback have you gotten?

James Hupp, DMD, MD, JD, MBA: Well, the editorials I try to come up with things that I would, you know, it's like everything in publications that I try to lead. I try to think from the reader's perspective, is this something I would want to read about? I don't want to get down too much into the weeds where it's only something that Jim Hupp thinks about.

Is it something that I've heard other surgeons, kind of talking about in the background or I've read things that, make me think that there's some people that have differing thoughts and I try to take those ideas and then try to bubble them up into something that would portray the situation or the issue in a way that gives it fair airing.

I did have the fun of going through law school, and that law school training prepared me, I think, to help write editorials in a way where I can have to think about what is somebody that maybe doesn't share my opinion, what are they going to use to say, well, your opinion's wrong?

And that's what basically what lawyers are trained to do is of what the other side is going to come back at you with and address it up front. Don't wait till, somebody writes you a letter to the editor and says, Hey, why didn't you talk about this? Or why didn't you think about this?

 Some of the fun of it, I would say, is anticipating the counter arguments and helping to address those from the get go. Not that it answers everybody's questions or satisfies everybody, but it's the fun part. Now the funnest part is when I finish one and I'm done with that and I don't need to do another one for a couple of months.

So, so, so, it's, a satisfaction kind of fun. Because, the anticipation part of it is not particularly fun because, again, of the challenge part that I already covered.

Host: Right. So after becoming editor and spending some time getting to know AAOMS Today, what are some of the changes that you've made as editor?

James Hupp, DMD, MD, JD, MBA: Just a few. I, you know, I haven't been the editor for that long of this publication, but I've learned to lean on the staff, you know, that the staff some of the people in lead and staff leadership positions across the association, representing the various components of our society.

And they come up with, here's some of the stories we should do. And I've really encouraged them to run with those. Again, I wasn't in the room, so to speak, when the previous editor, uh, managed those meetings. So I don't know if this was kind of his style or not. But, it's certainly my style to, in this case, it's, I'm not delegating. It's not something I would do instead of them. They have the knowledge and the talents that are needed to address their particular area of expertise within the association. And I love it when they come up with, here's some ideas or here's what I think should be covered in the next issue.

And so I've really encouraged staff involvement. Again, this is something which again, you know, I think the staff has helped support, and that is having more stories that are about members. I always seek in publications, as I think I already mentioned, would I, as a reader, want to read?

And I like reading about other people's lives, whether it be their hobbies or things that they do for society and those types of things. So we've, you know, in the recent years, we've had stories about individuals who carved wood to turn them into beautiful birds and we've had stories about people that are mountain climbers and recently had stories about individuals who serve as the oral maxillofacial surgeon for professional sports teams.

And those are the kind of stories that I enjoy reading because I like reading about other people and about what they do. And it also I think can trigger thoughts in individuals and especially who are, you know, we all think we want to focus on our careers, but there's life beyond just the career and how to maybe use that precious other time in creative ways and they can see that other surgeons are doing these things and maybe not necessarily strictly adopt what those others are doing, but see that you can take time either during or after your career to do some other interesting things. And that's where I think we're doing more and more stories of that type. The other thing I've introduced, which kind of came out by accident, I'm not sure I did this prospectively, but it turned out that some of my editorials, and this was, I was notorious for this with the JOMS, can get pretty long.

Part of it is because of that I'm trying to anticipate what others might think and try to anticipate their comments and address them in the first part, but I found that we have much more strict page limits with the AAOMS Today. And I couldn't say everything I wanted to say in the amount of words that I was allowed to write.

And so I was happy that we could then just say, well, that's part one.

Host: Ha ha.

James Hupp, DMD, MD, JD, MBA: And then I can continue on with the thoughts and not have it be a brand new editorial, but be just a continuation. And, and I did, that. Maybe, I'm not sure it's to the extreme yet.

I haven't heard anybody say quit doing it. But I think that's a pretty dramatic difference where the other ones used to be a pretty much one to two page, cut and dry kind of thing, start to finish. And mine are a little bit, I'm not sure you could call them editorials anymore when they're that long.

They're more essays. But if nothing else, it, allows me also, which I, again, I found out by accident, to then get some feedback on, you know, maybe the one, first or second part, get some feedback and then share the feedback I'm getting with the readers. And that's maybe a different concept.

 That would be like the New York Times editorial page, and then they publish the letters to the editor. I, I'm not going to strictly publish what everybody wrote to me, but I, try to take the essence of some of the comments and share those with the readers. And again, it's just a different spin on, and how to manage my responsibility as a Editorial writer.

And then the final thing, which I'm not sure, again, I, think this is pretty new. 'cause I've read past editorials of previous editors that I've tried to uh, not, again, I, don't do it intentionally, but I, delved into what I've consider some editorials on controversial topics.

And again, I'm not, you know, I didn't set up to create controversy, but the controversy already exists and I kind of weighed into that as another approach which also led to the, to the longer editorials. So those are, I guess, some of the changes that I've instituted.

Host: Yeah, it's very interesting. You talked about more stories about members, and it is fascinating to hear what people do when they're not being OMSs and being able to stretch out into a two part article and then taking on some controversial topics. I know that you're very involved with your staff and you get together to develop story content. What can you share with us? Any possible feature stories in the future that we should be aware of?

James Hupp, DMD, MD, JD, MBA: We're actually in the process and we've published this. I'm not sure I got, we're always kind of, we talk about things now that aren't going to come out for a few months. I'm always kind of, where are we in that production of an issue. But we've actually asked readers for ideas because we've gotten such great feedback from some of the earlier issues where we were talking with surgeons that have interesting hobbies and, avocations.

But some of the things that we're already seeking out are Individuals who are oral maxillofacial surgeons who not just fly an airplane because that not uncommon but do something interesting with that flying capability, you know, do charitable runs or do they do something else?

Maybe they drop skiers on the top of hills from a helicopter, you know, those kinds of things. So we're actually seeking those kinds of stories. We're still looking for people that have interesting hobbies or interesting collections. Something that I, I'm particularly interested in is, is people that had other careers outside of healthcare before they went to dental school and became a surgeon.

I had one of my good residents when I was in residency was previously a public school teacher in the Chicago school system. And then he decided, hey, well, I'm ready to do something else. And he went into dental school and got into surgery. So, and became just an outstanding surgeon.

So, know there's others did have careers before dentistry and oral maxillofacial surgery, and we're hoping to find more of those. And then the coming year, you know, we're really uh, interested in having individuals who have done surgery on, and have some let's say challenging patients that had challenging problems and try to get not just, here's what I did and here's how I did it kind of stuff, but then also, was there something else that happened either before or after the surgery? Was the patient's life changed or, hopefully they're all grateful, but maybe get some expression of gratefulness and try to build a story around the person's issues before they had the surgery and then the outcome and how it maybe changed their life.

And so we're going to be looking for surgeons that have those kind of situations that we can both get the surgeon's perspective, but also the patient's perspective.

Host: Mm hmm.

James Hupp, DMD, MD, JD, MBA: So those are some of the future stories, as well as those that our readers share with us.

Host: Yeah, those patient journey stories are always interesting. Well, Dr. Hupp, this has really been interesting and fascinating. Thank you so much for your time. As we wrap up, is there anything else you want to add about AAOMS Today?

James Hupp, DMD, MD, JD, MBA: Well, I'm really proud of the involvement of the staff. The association is lucky and fortuitous, because they're all hired by somebody at AAOMS, so they're doing good hiring of really talented people dedicated to our specialty and dedicated to the membership, so I do really appreciate that.

I appreciate our readership. Again, I, love the comments and I hope people will feedback comments, both positive and constructive criticism. Always welcome. I love feedback and, either directly email me or share it through some other mechanism. I appreciate the support of the leadership of the association who as I already mentioned, I don't represent their views.

I don't ask them for their ideas. They actually do have a way to share their information directly with the readers. So, so I don't need to be a spokesperson for them, but even when I got into some controversial areas, which I'm sure that they got feedback from members wondering, what are you letting Hupp do? Not telling me, Hey, quit talking about that. Or, shy away from that topic. And I really appreciate that that's the attitude of our leadership. It's really an enlightened view of the role that publications of this nature have in an association.

And I just, my hat's off to them for having that attitude and practice.

Host: Yeah, that's wonderful. Dr. Hupp, thank you. This has really been interesting. I appreciate your time. Thanks again. And once again, that's Dr. Jim Hupp, and for more information and to read issues of AAOMS Today, members can visit aaoms.org/aaomstoday. Once again, that's aaoms.org/aaomstoday. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social media, and don't forget to subscribe. Thanks for listening.