The speakers will provide delegates with compelling insight into the challenges of complex clinical, ethical and dentolegal issues.
Premier Symposium is one of the largest risk management conferences for dental professionals in the UK, preparing delegates for some of the key issues in dentistry and aiding safer practice. The line-up includes:
‘Too little too late: early diagnosis saves teeth – but maybe not implants’
Professor Iain Chapple, professor and head of periodontology at the School of Dentistry, University of Birmingham
Cases involving periodontal disease and late failures of implants due to ‘peri-implantitis’ are two of the hottest topics in UK dental claims. Whether or not you place or restore implants yourself, periodontal disease and failing implants are two conditions that every clinician must be able to identify and manage appropriately. This presentation will consider the links, similarities and challenges presented by these two related but distinct conditions and suggest ways to manage them.
‘HIV/Aids then and now – 30 years of infection control and the dental team’
David Croser, communications manager, Dental Protection
The much debated case of the Florida dentist David Acer and his patient Kimberly Bergalis (who died in 1991 at the age of 23 from AIDS related conditions) became a watershed moment for infection control, dentistry and the approach to infected healthcare workers and their treatment. Almost a quarter of a century later the infection control landscape has been transformed - as have the career prospects for infected healthcare workers - but the recent Di Mello case (and others) remind us that there are still lessons to be learned in terms of really understanding and managing the risks and public perception of them.
‘Primum est non nocere (Above all, do no harm)’
Martin Kelleher, author and postgraduate dental tutor at King’s College Hospital and Guy’s Dental Hospital
It has been said that everyone is entitled to be stupid sometimes, but some people abuse the privilege. In this stimulating presentation the man who discovered conditions such as “Hyperenamelosis” and “Porcelain Deficiency Syndrome” and shared them with an unsuspecting profession in his own inimitable style, revisits the historical ethical principle of non-maleficence (do no harm). The presentation will consider the ways in which many of the developments in modern dentistry have made it easier to do harm than ever before, and are designed to deliver short term gains at a huge long term biological cost that is not always made clear to patients.
‘The Cracked Tooth’
Richard Porter, consultant in restorative dentistry at St Georges in Tooting
The cracked tooth is becoming an increasingly familiar feature of everyday practice not only in the heavily restored or endodontically treated dentition and/or the older patient, but in younger patients because of a host of lifestyle and other changes. But despite this growing issue, it remains notoriously difficult to diagnose in some situations. This presentation reviews this growing problem from various perspectives including diagnosis, clinical management/techniques, record keeping and the consent process.
The event also features two awards – ‘Dental Student of the Year’ and the ‘Dental Practice of the Year’ – in recognition of the hard work and commitment undertaken to improve risk management and professionalism.