DENTAL PROFESSIONALS CONFERENCE (VIRTUAL) 2020 BY ANDREA JOHNSON Leave a comment
How much fun can a conference be when you are sat at home in your slippers with a coffee in hand? Well the organisers and participants of the 2020 Dental Professionals Conference (DPC) were going to find out.
This year was the 3rd year of the OTA’s reformatted conference. Building on the success of the team event, this year’s conference was planned to be held in the Marriott Hotel in Liverpool’s Queen Square. However, as everyone has found out, 2020 had other plans for us all. When Covid-19 struck and we became aware of the fact that this may be with us for some time, difficult questions and decisions had to be taken regarding the traditional face to face conference for this year.
It was decided to take the conference online. This was to ensure that the conference could still go ahead, that it was safe for the delegates and so that even though we may be miles and miles apart, we could still meet up and see each other.
The conference was able to open its doors to every member of the profession no matter where they were in the world and we had attendees from as far afield as Jordan, Italy, Germany & Iraq.
To make any of this work we needed some fantastic speakers. Working in close partnership with our wonderful conference co-partners, BIDST, BADT, SBDN, BSDHT & OTS they did not let us down. We had some incredible speakers and the attendance throughout the day was fantastic.
Our day started with a warm welcome to all from OTA President Bill Ip in which he not only thanked all the attendees for joining us but also gave his thanks on behalf of the OTA to all the other associations and groups who had come on board with us to make it such a successful event.
Bill introduced our first speaker of the day, Emanuele Paoletto who joined us live from Italy. Emanuele gave us a very interesting presentation on the subject of Orthodontic Skeletal Anchorage in the Digital World. He was followed by Melonie Prebble on Strengthening Teams and Delivering Patient Care and then Amanda Borthwick speaking on the subject of Cleft Lip and Palate before we broke for lunch.
This was a good opportunity to stretch our legs and backs whilst also watching some great adverts from our show sponsors Eurodontic, Planmecca and Orthocare who have always been such fantastic supporters of the OTA and our work. Without them where would we be? The conference just would not be the same without them regardless of the format.
After such a good morning the afternoon had a lot to live up to and it did not disappoint, we kicked off the sessions again with the brilliant Stephen Taylor who went through Full Immediate Loading from the Technician Perspective and was closely followed by Helen Minnery who’s lecture worked in perfect harmony with Steve’s, they complemented each other perfectly giving both sides to the same subject area. Closely on their heels was Kirsty Galt with a super interesting Max Fac case study which really had the audience engaged.
After such a good run of speakers you would wonder how we could follow that up but, follow it up we did and we did it with style as the amazing Joss Harding who gave such an enthusiastic and interesting presentation on Oral Care for the Cancer Patient, then to finish off we had Deputy Chief Dental Officer for England Jason Wong who gave us an update on where we are now as an industry and bravely stuck around after to take questions.
This was the formal end to the lecture programme; the quality of the speakers and their topics was incredibly high and quite frankly the day just flew by. Every lecture had a unique and quirky slide mixed in with their presentations for delegates to lookout for and record, this was to ensure that participants were engaged for the purposes of CPD but with the questions and chatter after each lecture that was never in doubt.
Sitting through all the lectures was a real treat in respect to being able to see and learn from all the different perspectives and knowledge of all the dental team members.
Although the formal lectures had come to an end we kept a slot free at the end of the day for the OTA to update everyone on their activities over the year and to take questions but also, and arguable more importantly, to give us all some very much needed social space.
One of the most loved aspects to any OTA/DPC conference are the social events in the evenings where we get to sit, relax, chat with old friends, make brand new friends and connections. Although we could not replicate this online properly online, we did have some chat space so we could just sit and talk, and it was blumming lovely.
The day came to an end with the OTA’s AGM, this was for members only and it was there that I officially stepped down as Chair of the OTA. I have always loved, and I always will love, every single member of the OTA; we are a big messed up family and we are always there for each other and that is the very essence of the OTA.
It was also very hard for me to step away and to say goodbye to such an amazing team of people on the council. They are a truly amazing, hardworking bunch of fantastic people and it has been an absolute privilege to have been their Chair. I wish the new council the very best of luck and I very much look forwards to seeing the new and innovative ways they choose to take the association forwards to be even bigger, better and stronger in the months and years to come.
