Sally Simpson, President
This month BSDHT held the first of its bi-annual Council meetings for 2012 and I was delighted to welcome several new Council Members to our group. We’re always keen to hear the experiences, ideas and opinions of newcomers to the team because so often they can provide a fresh perspective.
The meeting also saw the Council electing two members to the Executive Team.
I’m delighted that Michaela ONeill has been re-elected to the Executive. She given so much of her time to us over the years during which she has made a significant contribution to the work of the Executive.
We also have a new member in the Executive team - Diane Hunter. Diane has been an active and contributing member of the BSDHT North West Regional Committee for many years and brings to the Council and Executive team a wealth of experience, a passion for her profession, and that all important fresh perspective I mentioned earlier. In addition I’m pleased to report that Deborah Sheather will continue as a co-opted member of the Executive in her role as Conference Co-ordinator.
You can find out more about what’s discussed at Council meetings by reading Points From Council which will be published in DH Contact and on our website. Alternatively your Regional Representative will provide you with an up-date at your nearest Regional Group Spring Meeting. For details of when and where these will take place, click here.
This month saw the second of our Clinical Research Orientation days take place in Birmingham. The event was free of charge to BSDHT members thanks to Oral B who very kindly funded and facilitated the two day programme for us.
The day began with a review of the “In Practice Evaluation” (IPE) members had taken part in prior to the event. This was facilitated by Jean Suvan, a research Dental Hygienist at the Eastman in London. In the course of the day we also heard presentations by two other distinguished speakers - Stephen Hancocks discussed how to best conduct scientific literature searches, and Professor Ken Eaton led workshops on critical appraisal of literature. Finally the group had an opportunity for reflection and discussion on the event as a whole. The feedback has been incredibly positive and we’re delighted members found it so useful.
February is shaping up to be a busy month and finds me attending meetings at the Department of Health with Barry Cockcroft, the CDO for England; at the House of Commons with Sir Paul Beresford, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Dentistry; and at the GDC for an update on the Revalidation plans.
I’ll give you an update on my work with these organisations and on anything else I get up to in next month’s blog..
Sally
31 January 2012
