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The last quarter of the year is always incredibly busy for Alison and me. We often have new staff members starting in our departments, and it is also the season of the Northern Universities Consortium introductory courses. Alison and I have given the photography and the twin block introductory courses to all registrars from Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham and Newcastle for the past 30 years. Since COVID-19, the courses have been held over Zoom, and for the past few years the invitation has been extended to all the London registrars, as well as to those from Cork. This time round, for the twin block course, we were also joined by Swedish postgraduates, and by a group of orthodontists from North Kurdistan.
I hope that the information provided on both of our courses is well received, and that the recipients are able to put all the information received into practical use when they return to the clinics the following Monday morning. Certainly, the feedback is extremely complimentary; however, I do wonder if this is to ensure that they receive their CPD certificates in a timely manner. We certainly take on board all the constructive criticism given in the hope that we can continually improve the courses. I hope that we can go back to ‘face to face’ training next year, because it is far more enjoyable both for the presenters and the delegates if they can practice the practical skills learned within minutes of receiving the information. I ran a small ‘face to face’ photography course in the department 2 weeks ago with my colleague, Catherine Brierley, and it went down extremely well.
Another source of high-quality remote education available to all orthodontic trainees is the Angle-net Season V, which is a collaboration between the Angle Society of Europe and the Edward H Angle Society of America to broadcast high-quality lectures via Zoom monthly with about six speakers per season. I've had the opportunity to moderate one of the speakers in the past, and it is truly a lively affair. The lectures can be viewed in real time on a Monday evening once a month, and the 60-minute lecture is followed by usually a vibrant Q&A session for a further 30 minutes. Some of the top speakers on the circuit are featured, and they can be enjoyed from the comfort of your own study at no cost. So far, 6000 people have registered to view these lectures, and the aim is to increase the audience to over 10,000.
The Network of Erasmus-based European Programmes (NEBEOP) runs a parallel series of educational webinars, again with world class speakers, available to postgraduate teaching schools affiliated with NEBEOP. When I last checked, the Royal London was the first programme to join this group, and Sheffield followed several years ago. I hope other UK programmes are considering joining. In the past, the BOS was very supportive because it used to cover the initial costs of provisional membership to encourage programmes to join.
The other reason we have been so busy recently is that I have had the privilege of helping to organize and chair both the 12th Soho Symposium and a Power to Reason Symposium in Antwerp, as well as speaking at a similar meeting in Munich earlier in the year. These symposia are organized by American Orthodontics and both follow similar formats with only four ‘top flight’ international speakers at each event who address a small audience in an intimate setting, for the whole day with just four 1-hour lectures and a 30-minute Q&A session to follow each presentation. I try to encourage maximum audience involvement and, from the feedback received, the audiences enjoy the day enormously.
I heard recently that there has been a U-turn by the powers that be, in that the new intake of registrars will be allowed to take masters degrees to supplement their MOrth qualification on completion of their training. Thank goodness that common sense has prevailed!
And on top of that, Smile Direct, despite having been once valued at £7bn, has declared itself bankrupt, leaving £900 m worth of debts. Remarkably, their lifetime smiler guarantee is no longer valid! It now recommends that if people want to carry on with their treatment, they should get in touch with a local dentist. So, I guess they have finally conceded that it might be useful after all, to have a dentist somewhere in the mix!
Reasons to be cheerful … for sure!
Happy New Year