A note from our President…

February has passed by in the blink of an eye! The BSP Management Team have been busier than ever replying to clinical enquiries. The Admin Team have been working on collecting subscriptions and updating our membership records. Council members have been ticking jobs off their to-do lists in readiness for the next Council meeting and liaising with other specialist groups to plan events for the year ahead.

I will be attending The British Dental Conference & Dentistry Show 2023 in Birmingham in May and look forward to meeting many of our members at the event. Dr Rajan Nansi and Dr Devan Raindi will be presenting lectures in the Specialty Interest Theatre. In addition, Devan has accepted an invitation from the British Association of Dental Nurses to speak in the Dental Nurses' Forum. It promises to be a fantastic event and the link to register can be found in the Show article below.

We intend to join with other National Societies on 12th May to celebrate Gum Health Day. The EFP has advised that this year’s slogan is “Healthy gums look good on you! Protect them!”  Our EFP Representative, Prof Francesco D’Aiuto, is working on this initiative and we hope to bring you more news about this year’s campaign very soon.

Continuing the success of our “By Students, For Students" webinars, we have again invited the BSP Undergraduate Representatives in each UK Dental and Hygiene Therapy School to submit a proposal to host a webinar this year. We are keen to continue this practice of peer learning in which students interact with each other to develop their understanding and knowledge of periodontology. You can find out more about our Undergraduate Group on the website: https://www.bsperio.org.uk/early-career-group/bsp-undergraduate-group

Finally, I am excited that bookings will open soon for the Conference being held 11-13 October 2023. This year, the Conference starts on Wednesday morning with a new collaboration between BSP and The British Society of Dental Research (BSODR). The BSODR actively engage and support early career researchers (ECR). The term ECRs relates to any early career academic, whether clinical or non-clinical, who has an interest in the full range of oral and dental research and can range from undergraduates to PhD students, and everything in between.

My aim in organising this joint meeting on the first morning is to help support ECRs in developing their careers and in delivering future research to benefit our patients. The Conference theme, “Teams - working together for success,” encompasses the important work done by researchers, as they tackle some of the healthcare challenges we face and help us to achieve better health outcomes for patients across the UK and around the world.

I very much hope that you can join me for this three-day event and I look forward to welcoming you to Birmingham.