Azin Rafienejad, UP MS Alumni Office
The pandemic has changed the way we live and get in touch with each other. Instead of meeting in person for a reunion we decided to do a series of online lectures with our alumni and current dental students in continuation of our ’EPD15’ campaign (the 15th anniversary of the Dental English Program celebrated in 2020).
One of the amazing things about the internet is that you can schedule a meeting with anyone you want from anywhere in the world, therefore we scheduled lectures with our incredible alumni, Dr Alexandra Davies and Dr Mehrdad Soheili on 29 April and 3 May. Both presentations were highly informative, professional, and entertaining, with plenty of take away messages and room for Q&A.
Dr Davies’ lecture about “Shade taking” gave us an insight on how patients pay a special attention to the colour of their teeth, and so should we, matching an artificial material with a natural tooth structure can be challenging. Colour matching done in a systematic approach ensures accuracy, consistency, predictable results, that are important in dental office. Shade taking has been developed to accurately aid recording colour and shade, but still have limitations regarding fluorescence, opalescence, degree of enamel translucency and its thickness.
Dr Soheili gave us a lecture about “Dentistry after Dental School”, specially tailored to UP MS dental students on what to expect after graduation, highlighting the differences in dental offices in UK and Hungary, how to find a suitable practice, the importance of radiographs, communication with patients and keeping charts/dental records accurate and up to date, and how to never give up.
As Colin Powell said ‘There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure.’ Keeping that in mind for the exam period we will take a break from these extracurricular lectures and continue them from September.
