The Dean of the Dental Faculty and Convenor of Education had the great honour of presenting at the 42nd Asia Pacific Dental Conference, which was held virtually and in Colombo, Sri Lanka over 5415 miles away.
This was a great example of our friends from all over the world coming together to improve the care of our patients wherever they might be. The College has forged close links over the last year with several societies in that region and I must recognise the Commonwealth Dental Association, The Indian Dental Association, The Sri Lankan Dental Association, The Nepal Dental Association, The College of Dental Surgeons of Hong Kong and the IMU in Malaysia.
As I again reflected on the marvels of digital communication being able to shrink the planet, I also realised the benefit that this mode of discourse has had on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from people flying many miles for a hour or two of presentation but, and there is always a but, we don’t have the same level of interaction that face to face meetings offer and it seems to me that that aspect of conferences is almost the main reason for attending. I am sure most of you will have a favourite recollection of meeting new friends at a conference and wonder when that will be something we can safely do again. The so called ‘Indian Variant’ of Covid-19 is devastating the town where I went to school, Bolton, and I wonder how many of my old classmates are directly affected by this new danger to life and if this is yet another hurdle in the race to normality.
We cannot sit still, and the Dental Faculty has been working hard moving towards a new future. It is always a difficult task to make changes and get people to accept a new way of working and when we do change there is always a risk that it may all not go well.
One area where we have made great strides for positive change is in communications and through this format and with Surgeons News, we have the platform to keep you informed with what we are hoping will be a more relevant college to you all. I can announce there has been funding granted for a new website for the College which is something I think we all know was well overdue.
I would be remiss to not mention again our 1st World Dental Conference which is to be held online on the 2nd ,3rd and 4th September this year and current members are only being charged £50.00 for dentists and £35.00 for DCP’s which is fabulous value for 15 hours of verifiable CPD. Even if you are reading this as a non-member or have a friend who would like to register, then they will only pay £60.00 as a dentist and £35 .00 as a DCP and for that they also get one year’s free affiliation to College.
Lastly, I am pleased to say I finally have been allowed to go to the College and I attended the very successful joint hybrid conference with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons so at least some things are returning to normal.
As ever if you want to say anything or ask anything about the Faculty or have any suggestions for how we can improve, then please get in touch with me directly and I will try to help.
- Professor Philip Taylor, Dean