Congratulations to Dr Jo Batt who has been successful in being awarded the BSP Research Grant from The British Society of Periodontology and Implant Dentistry. She is pictured here proudly displaying her certificate!

Congratulations to one of our final year students, Nasir Zeeshan Bashir, who has won the British Undergraduate Dental Research Prize.  His  presentation was entitled ‘Artificial neural networks to develop and validate multivariate predictive models for periodontitis: NHANES machine learning analysis’. 

Dr Hill received feedback from another Head of School  was “a really great presentation and fielding of questions.  Very impressive!”

Attached is a picture of the virtual presentation, with a certificate in the post!

BWAMS society runs virtual conference for 596 participants! BWAMS Dentistry Officer, Golasa, writes:

Hello everyone- I am Golasa Sheikh Akbari and I am currently a third year BDS Student at the University of Birmingham. Towards the end of 2020 I began to set up a dentistry widening access initiative- here is a little more on my conference.

On Saturday 20th February 2021, Birmingham Widening Access to Medical Sciences (BWAMS) society hosted their first Dr.eam Dentistry Conference for year 10-13 students interested in a career in Dentistry. This virtual event was held via a Zoom Webinar, with over 1000 registrants, 596 attendees on the day and a range of speakers who gave a variety of inspiring talks and panel Q&A’s.

The Dr.eam Dentistry conference was the first dentistry focused conference to be held via BWAMS. Historically, other Dr.eam conferences have been held focusing on medicine and healthcare careers in general; providing an opportunity for state school students to gain an insight into these careers. Dr.eam Dentistry, a free national conference, was an addition to these Dr.eam events this year. Dr.eam Dentistry was in the form of a one day conference, focusing specifically on dentistry. The conference covered a variety of topics including: applications, entrance exams, interviews, life as a dentist, life as a dental student, insight into clinical work and specialties.

This year I am the BWAMS Dentistry officer and with this role I was determined to plan a core dentistry focused event, as I had highlighted that there was a gap in the Dr.eam events. I began planning this event in November 2020, and decided to follow suit of the Dr.eam Junior and Senior to hold the conference online this year and open to all year 10-13 students across the UK.

This Virtual Conference was on a much larger scale as previous in person events, which were open to 50 local attendees. The online nature of this conference opened up the opportunity to attend nationally for our potential outreach to students, particularly those from Widening Participation backgrounds. This also enabled us to have a much greater range of speakers from across the country which enabled us to have an even better conference.

The conference was a free one-day event, hosted on Zoom Webinar and ran from 9am to 5pm. The day comprised of a range of talks and panel Q&As from various amazing dentists, dental students and dental specialists from across the UK. They shared inspiring stories and delivered informative sessions for attending students. For a full list of talks and speakers please refer to the programme below.

We were overwhelmed by the attendance and engagement from attendees. We answered 2073 questions and we received some heart-warming feedback from the attendees; showing that Dr.eam Dentistry was very impactful as 99.8% of attendees would recommend the event to others.

Here are a few comments left by students after the conference:

“I would really like to thank you for giving me such a wholesome experience into dentistry and its course in general . I love how realistic it was and have decided that becoming a dentist is what I and wish to become my future profession. It was very inspiring and hopefully it really opened the other attendees’ eyes to how wonderful dentistry is.”

“I wasn’t too sure if i wanted to go into dentistry but after today I definitely have my heart set on it now. The information was very helpful and will definitely give me a head start as I’m only year 10. The last speaker especially was very informative and I felt as if he really explained the process of becoming a dentist.”

“It was extremely informative and detailed. I came in knowing little to nothing about dentistry but the conference informed me and educated me on everything I needed to know. It was well organised and overall very useful!”

“This event was very informative, due to the current pandemic my school hasn’t been able to explain anything about personal statements or the specifics needed to Dentistry , so I am very appreciative of the time and effort every speaker has give. Thank you for this opportunity :)”

With this conference I was able to conduct some research and write a paper which was published as a poster. I was also selected to give an oral presentation at the International Virtual Medical Conference 2021. This work enabled me to assess the effectiveness of Dr.eam Dentistry which was found to be very effective with excellent feedback as well as reaching so many widening participation students. I concluded the future of these conferences is virtual but they can be supplemented with additional in person events. 

Finally, I would like to thank everyone who was involved in Dr.eam Dentistry. Thank you to all the students for giving up their time to make this event happen, thank you to all our speakers for giving up their time to share their insight and knowledge. A special thank you to Dr. Clare Ray and Tom Syder for their continued support and the Dr.eam Conference Team who worked so hard to bring this conference to success. 

To find out more about BWAMS and the work we do to widen access into Medicine and healthcare degrees, take a look at your website (www.bwams.co.uk) or follow us on our social media platforms (Instagram: @bwamsbirmingham, @dreambwams; Twitter: @bwamsbirmingham).

The future prospects of BWAMS and Widening Participation is bright and will hopefully go from strength to strength.

Rachel Manson (BDS 5) writes on behalf of Dental Pulse:

This year, on the 8^th March 2021, we celebrated International Women’s Day in recognition of women’s achievements and contributions both within dentistry and across a variety of different fields.   

In keeping with the United Nation’s sustainable development goal of gender parity, we chose to celebrate with the theme #EachforEqual. The picture is our students and staff adopting the “Each for Equal” pose. Thank you to everyone who got involved! 

At lunchtime today I wandered down past the square by the lecture theatres and found Jasper, one of our postgraduate students, cheering everyone up by playing the piano. It felt like spring had sprung with sun outside and jolly tunes ringing down the corridor. Thanks Jasper!

Iain Chapple later told me that the piano was bought and donated by the late Prof Anderson for the Student Society. It used to be in the Alex MacGregor Lecture Theatre and was used a lot for the Talent Shows. When we moved to the new hospital it was placed outside the lecture theatres, after tuning, where it lives now. It is used by students and staff. Prof Burke, recently retired, was famous for playing Christmas Carols for the staff carol service each year. Does anyone fancy the role this Christmas?

Welcome and congratulations to the 2021/22 Birmingham University Dental Students Society (BUDSS) committee! This year the the elections were held all online with the manifestoes uploaded on Instagram. The successful candidates have had their handover from the 2021/22 committee and now the hard work begins. First up, a socially distanced meeting.

Here’s a list of the new committee – make sure you say hello and get involved with the events and activities they will no doubt be planning!

President – Ria Gupta BDS 4
Vice-President – Ellen Murgatroyd BDS3
Treasurer – Erin Hamilton BDS3
Secretary – Rashi Gupta BDS4
Wellbeing and inclusivity rep – Chisom Udeh BDS4
Social Sec – Cailen Ghadiali BDS3
Events Sec – Freya Johnson BDS3
Public relations rep – Zoe Cranstone BDS2
Social Media Rep – Morgan Gruber BDS2
DHT Liason – Bethany McLean SoDHT2
DHT Officer – Ffion Griffiths SoDHT2
Sponsorship Rep – Rea Patel
Academic Liason Rep – Kat Russel BDS4
Sports Officer – Cameron Bagry BDS2
Sports Rep – Ellie Williamson BDS3

Staff and students at BDH are being treated today with ice cream from Thomas Ice’s. There are two vans outside the hospital for everyone in the sunshine. It’s also officially the last day of term for the students, so here’s wishing them a happy holiday.

Last week the University of Birmingham organised and hosted the British Society for Oral and Dental Research Conference at the Medical School, this first live conference to be held in over a year due to Covid.

It was wonderful to be together again, with many familiar faces. Josette Camilleri (President of the LOC) did a wonderful job of insisting we came together face to face, but with a hybrid style and the ability to join virtually also.

The level of presentations were very high, with lots of praise for the research. Birmingham had success at the Septodont Poster Prize with Zehra Yonel winning with her entry. Nathanael Leung and Diana Abdullah were awarded with two prizes in the ORDT award.

We had many Birmingham entries from our postgraduate students for posters and oral presentations.

Sarah Kuehne writes:

Earlier on in the month we were finally able to celebrate the amazing achievements and the dedication and hard work of our colleagues Rachel (Sammons) and Dick (Shelton). The dinner was to mark their (more or less) recent retirements and with a turnout of almost 20 people, we all had a wonderful evening at Asha’s.

The food was amazing, and everyone enjoyed being together and catching up.

Rachel and Dick, we wish you a wonderful, long and healthy – well-deserved retirement.

From Sarah, the whole Biomaterials Team and the everyone in the School of Dentistry and beyond.

Phil Tomson writes:

Birmingham featured strongly at the recent BES national meeting in Stratford-Upon-Avon with staff and alumni winning several of the societies prizes.

Satnam Virdee won the Aspiring Endodontic Researcher award following delivery of his presentation titled – “The influence of irrigant activation, concentration and contact time on sodium hypochlorite penetration into root dentine: an ex vivo experiment”. He managed to beat off strong competition to be the first winner of this prestigious award.

Nick Adams received his Inspirational Part-time Lecturer Award which was previously announced.

Roshni Ruparelia (Grad 2020) won the The Prize for Foundation Dentists.

Mohamed Garrib (Grad 2020) received his Pitt-Ford Undergraduate Prize in Endodontology for the most outstanding Case Report in his cohort as an undergraduate.

Petros Mylonas (Grad 2012)  won the Inspirational Full-time Lecturer Award.

All should be congratulated on their fantastic achievements!!!!

This week the University and School of Dentistry welcomes Mr Kevin Fairbrother as one of our Senior Clinical Tutors in Restorative Dentistry, having previously worked for many years in the hospital with the NHS. Welcome!

Kevin outside his new office on third floor looking very excited to start with the school!