Andrew Kalli (Year 3) writes about his recent conference experience at the European Dental Students Association.
Yeditepe University Istanbul, Turkey hosted the 55th European Dental Students’ Association meeting this April. Birmingham delegates present were Andrew Kalli (BDS3) and Elen Rowlands (BDS1). The dental school was additionally represented as our very own Professor Damien Walmsley attended as the president of the Association for Dental Education in Europe. Additionally, recent Birmingham graduate Kerren Dhir was also present.
The newly matured EDSA constitution gave this meeting a great political focus. The impact of EU legislation and directives in dentistry was a key topic of debate. To respond to the students’ questions and concerns, Dr Wolfgang Doneus, president of the Council of European Dentists was invited. Issues raised focused on mobility of dentists between countries and obtaining a consistent high standard of dental education.
As an association representing some 65,000 dental students in Europe, working groups began drafting key policy documents to advocate our interests as students. One document which will be open to review soon is the EDSA Education Policy. This document outlines our expectations as dental students and what we can reasonably request from our schools. Further details about this are included in the full conference report emailed to all student email inboxes and further information will be circulated with the final draft of the document.
An overarching theme of the conference was microdentistry. There were clinical lectures utilising magnification in practice and workshops in endodontics. Zeiss, sponsors of the conference, also gave demonstration of some of their products.
The August 2015 meeting will be hosted in Szeged, Hungary and registration for attendance will open soon. It would be great to have increased involvement of Birmingham students so it is really worthwhile liking the EDSA Facebook page to stay up to date:
https://www.facebook.com/edsaweb
BrumDentists 