To kick things off for the second day of the 2024 FDI World Dental Congress, we caught up with Dr Kelvin Chye, vice-president of the Singapore Dental Association (SDA) who represented the SDA in the National Liaison Officers Forum.
To the members of the congress, Dr Chye shared about Singapore’s key oral health policies including the overarching ‘National Dental Strategy’ which guides the delivery of dental services across the public sector, comprising financing, workforce and capacity considerations.
2024 FDI Young Dentist Forum
After the success of the inaugural FDI Young Dentist Forum at 2023 FDI World Dental Congress in Sydney, the programme in 2024 was expanded to two sessions over 13 and 14 Sep for its second edition in Istanbul.
The forum aims to bring together young dentists from across the globe to explore today’s hottest topics in dentistry and to discover professional development opportunities within the profession.
As part of this year’s forum, FDI invited its member national dental associations to nominate young dentists for its ‘Young Speakers Competition’ where the two winning dentists from the pool won a sponsored trip to the upcoming FDI WDC and to present in the subsequent Young Dentists Forum.
Dr David Palombo and Dr Jan Stibal were chosen as the overall winners who had the honour of sharing at the Young Dentist Forum in 2024.
In his presentation titled ‘Hard and soft tissues deficiencies around dental implants: How to treat and when to start over’, Dr Palombo spoke of his profound interest for the use of microsurgical techniques in the treatment of periodontal and peri-implant diseases.
As an EFP Board Certified Specialist in periodontology and implants, he brought attendants through the objectives of implant therapy, diagnosis of tissue deficiencies, decision making processes, and the utility of implants, where his guiding principle was to determine if the bone in the right place to place the implant platform in the optimal prosthetic position.
Dr Palombo shared a variety of patient cases as he identified how traditionally difficult implant cases can be resolved by identifying the optimal properties of the existing bone structure and tissue health.
Dr Jan Stibal then took the stage as he presented on interdisciplinary therapy in adolescents and young adults with developmental dental disorders and multiple tooth agenesis. His research focus is on the prosthetic phase of treatment for complex cases, treated in collaboration with orthodontists and implantologists.
Dr Stibal compared both the positives and negatives of both implants and auto-transplants, where implants were suitable for a broad range of indications but was did not have any necessity for tissue augmentation. On the other hand, while auto-transplants was technically sensitive, it provided the benefits of dentogingival connection and function of periodontal ligaments.
He urged listeners to consider auto-transplantation as an alternative to implant placements in younger patients especially when orthodontic therapy is planned, as it represents a solution that grows with the patient.
Moreover, Dr Stibal highlighted that deciduous teeth have a strong tendency to resorption during orthodontic movement. He was optimistic about the potential of reconstruction as from 10 persistent deciduous teeth, all were used in the reconstruction of the patient cases he shared highlighting the need to utilise the maximum number of persistent deciduous teeth in reconstruction.
After the presentations from the two competition winners, a networking session was held where the forum further provided a prime opportunity for early-career dentists and dental students to expand their professional networks and gain firsthand knowledge of FDI’s impactful work.
Gala night
Day two came to a close during the annual gala dinner held at Divan Kuruçeşme by the historic Bosphorus strait in the heart of Istanbul. The diversity and unity of FDI as an international body was on full display as delegates from each corner of the globe had the opportunity to dine and connect with professionals from all walks of life.
I had to chance to meet fellow professionals from the publishing side of dentistry in Dr Tony Dib, director of Dental News in the Middle East. Based in Lebanon, he shared about the significance of the cedar tree in his country’s history and culture. I also privilege of speaking with Torsten Oemus and Lars Hoffmann, CEO and CMO of Dental Tribune International respectively about the trends and challenges in publishing.
Related: Day 1 of FDI WDC 2024: Flags, AI, and Turkish delights!
