European Dental Students’ Association
Dublin Dental School and Hospital, Lincoln Place, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland
Web: www.edsa.globaldent.com – Email: newedsa@yahoo.com
FDI Congress, 2nd – 5th of September 2009, Singapore Report of the EDSA representatives The FDI is a federation of National Dental Associations and its main roles are: to bring together the world of dentistry, to represent the dental profession of the world, to stimulate and facilitate the exchange of information across all borders with the aim of optimal oral health for all people. This year, the Annual Congress took place in Singapore - a city full of life, rich in diversity and business, known as the crossroads of the world and is made up of not just one island but a main island with 63 surrounding islets. Overflowing with energy, this little island embodies the finest of both Eastern and Western worlds. The cooperation between FDI and EDSA started almost 2 years ago and representatives of both associations were sent to each other meetings and discussions about the development of common projects were held, but during the meeting in Singapore EDSA was officially declared a supporting member of FDI. EDSA representatives participated day by day to different sessions, gathering information about the FDI forums and projects, as follows: Live. Learn. Laugh Symposium This symposium discusses the unique global public-private partnership between Unilever and the FDI, the World Dental Federation, to improve oral health. Both organisations commissioned an independent review of the five years of the partnership and main findings were presented. The symposium was open with an expert exposition of public-private partnerships in health followed by presentation of the key review results. An important aspect of the review are case studies of selected country projects that were followed by a presentation sharing the breadth of activity in the partnership by National Dental Associations and Unilever across more than 37 countries worldwide. We managed to establish a meeting with Rabee AbuKishek, Unilever Director - Africa, Middle East,Turkey in order to develop the EDSA Voluntary Work Project together with them. Some potential countries were discussed as Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt, Morocco and Cote D'ivoire, but more details are going to be established soon.
European Dental Students’ Association
Dublin Dental School and Hospital, Lincoln Place, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland
Web: www.edsa.globaldent.com – Email: newedsa@yahoo.com
FDI – European Regional Organization GA We participated at the meeting and we got the chance to observe how their GA is running and also the current projects they are working on at the moment. One good strategy for promoting the association is visiting dental schools and countries that are not yet members of FDI and trying to convince them to join the team. FDI – ERO is organizing the “ European day of oral cancer” – this year was held in Paris, 12th of June in cooperation with WHO. EDSA is closely working with them and the FDI – ERO President Elect, Gerhard Seeberger, is going to attend the 8th EDSA Congress from Bucharest, Romania – coordinating one workshop and presenting a scientific lecture. The upcoming ERO-FDI Plenary Sessions are in Spring 2010 in Armenia and in September 2010 in Brazil. FDI General Assembly On Friday, 4th of September, the FDI GA was held and representatives for each association member from all the 83 countries attending the Congress gathered and the meeting started. Reports of the Working Groups were presented: Prevention, Education, Relation between dentists and universities. An important topic was discussed regarding the “ Profile of the dentist of the future” and a survey is going to be distributed to all the dentists and the results are going to be presented next year in Brazil. The members of the GA also voted for the new members of FDI and elected new representatives for the next period. The new President Elect of FDI is Dr. Orlando Monteiro da Silva from Portugal. Ass. Prof. Nikolai Sharkov from Bulgaria, EDSA Honorary Lifetime Member, was elected for the Communication & Member Support Committee. And Dr. Ward van Dijk from Netherlands, EDSA President 1991-94 and Legend Focus in the latest EDSA Magazine, was elected for the Dental Practice Committee. International Speaker Development Programme (ISDP) / IADS forum The FDI World Dental Federation and Nobel Biocare have established a partnership - the International Speaker Development Programme (ISDP) to contribute to improving oral health through the establishment of a global network of young professional opinion leaders. Six young oral health professionals, one from each of the UN regions, have been selected to undergo a year long blended learning and training programme. During the forum everybody agreed that a number of only 6 participants it is not enough in order to cover all the regions, so the suggestion to increase the number to 30-35 participants was accepted and this
European Dental Students’ Association
Dublin Dental School and Hospital, Lincoln Place, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland
Web: www.edsa.globaldent.com – Email: newedsa@yahoo.com
year edition was canceled, and new details are going to be available soon regarding the future contest. EDSA Partnership: The Dental Guide manual was presented to some future partners and meetings were held with representatives from different companies: Kavo, EMS, Nobel Biocare, Dentsply, Planmeca, Hereaus, Unilever. The representative of Straumann was really interested organizing in cooperation with EDSA different scientific trainings, but more details are going to be discussed in the closest period. A meeting was arranged with the representatives of the Blackwell-Wiley Publishing House and the new edition of the EDSA Magazine was discussed. Suggestions about adding a survey addressed to all the readers regarding the content of the magazine in the next issue were received. We were informed that more and more companies are interested in collaborating for the next issues of the EDSA Magazine and the possibility of enlarging the cooperation between EDSA and Wiley – Blackwell with other publications like the Dental Guide Manual for the next year was also discussed. Visiting the dental clinics: A tour in one of the dental clinics from Singapore was organized by a local dental student. In Singapore most of the clinics have between 5 to 12 dental chairs and are located in the hospital buildings. Still, a lack of dentists was mentioned by our colleague in the region. Please find attached a picture of the clinic.
The upcoming FDI Annual Congresses: Salvador da Bahia, Brazil 2-5 September 2010 Mexico City, Mexico 14-17 September 2011