Edward Cotter, honorary secretary at the Faculty of Dentistry, RCSI reflects on another successful Annual Scientific Meeting:

The theme for this year’s ASM was ‘Risk: identification, management and consequences in dental practice’. Throughout the two days, 23 lectures were delivered by 18 different speakers. The attendance was very good for all the sessions from start to finish.

On the first day we had presentations from the medical defence organisations, including Dr Raj Rattan from Dental Protection and Dr Aubrey Craig from MDDUS. They gave an excellent background into the concept of the risk profiles in dentistry and also those methods and skill sets which can help to prevent risk.

During the second morning session, the clinical aspects of risk were addressed under the headings of paediatric dentistry with Dr Rosemarie Daly, orthodontics with Professor Donald Burden and periodontics with Dr Tiernan O’Brien. The morning sessions had good question times afterwards.

In the afternoon, specific risk management features in daily practice were addressed under the headings of infection prevention, with Dr Jane Renehan, record keeping with Dr Aubrey Craig, recognising problems early with Dr Nuala Carney and the concept of a practice team with Dr Garry Heavey. In the afternoon session, Dr Pauline Adair discussed the potential of getting the most of the dentist/patient interaction, and Dr Richard Corry talked about human factors and the potential for error and error avoidance. Once again, the panel discussion was excellent.

The Saturday morning programme continued in the excellent vein once more with Dr Aubrey Craig addressing the conference for the third time, on what happens when a letter of complaint arrives. This was followed up by a clear explanation from Dr Eamon Croke of the process at Dental Council if a complaint is made against a practitioner. The morning session was completed by Dr Ide Delargy who described the help that is available for practitioners who are struggling in their lives. 

The second part of the Saturday morning became more clinical again, addressing the topic of medication related osteonecrosis of the jaws, and the topic of the new oral anticoagulants – both lectures delivered by Dr Jamie Toole. There was also a discussion about endodontic risks by Dr Pat Cleary and aesthetic zone risks by Dr Sean McCarthy.

The final session was an excellent way to round off the days’ lectures with presentations on dental implants and risk from Dr Tiernan O’Brien, prosthodontics and risk from Dr Gerry Cleary, oral white patches from Dr Seamus Napier and then a very broad and philosophical discussion on ‘Resilience: what we can do and how to develop it?’ from Dr Oliver Boylan. 

Once again, the auditorium had a great attendance and the discussion was excellent. Dr Marley then closed the meeting with a few words of thanks. All in all, the 20ı7 ASM lived up to expectations and gave a thorough, interesting and entertaining overview of risk in general practice.

 

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Delegate feedback

“Thank you once again to RCSI for producing a high class conference with International speakers.”

“I always enjoy this meeting and this year was no different. A range of very useful and thought provoking lectures. Many thanks.”

“Thank you for an excellent, well organised event.”

“Thank you once again to RCSI for producing a high-class conference with international speakers.”