A message from Past President, Dr Maria Lessani
It has been my honour to have served the British Endodontic Society (BES) as President for 2022-3 term. I am really pleased that the goals set out at the beginning of the year have been achieved as well kickstarting more projects than I ever expected! The achievements could not have been possible without the support and hard work of council. I have started my journey in council with colleagues and walk away with friends. It has been a pleasure to have been part of this great team and do so much in this period. I am sure they will miss my numerous virtual meetings!
The membership numbers have increased and the record breaking number of candidates that stood for council positions are true examples of the strength of our Society at this stage in its 60 year history. The celebrations were kicked off recently by the vision of our incoming President, Dr Alyn Morgan who managed to get 20 presidents to celebrate the occasion on the eve of his inauguration. I wish him all the best for his exciting packed celebratory year ahead and I am sure his wide range of leadership expertise will benefit the society immensely.
Looking back at my term, the year started with the official launch of the Early Careers Group (ECG) at the Spring Scientific Meeting with a meet and greet session to allow individuals to express their interest to attend a first ever ECG study day which was planned for July 2022. This study day proved to be a very successful educational day with good the feedback expressed by the attendees and demand for it to become a regular fixture between our other two annual events. I am very grateful to Dr Daniel Vaz de Souza, Dr Dipti Mehta and Dr Satnam Singh Virdee with their endless help and support on the ECG as well as Dr Kunal Patel in its initiation.
The Endodontic Teachers Group led by Prof Alison Qualtrough, held a meeting Manchester in which highlighted the challenges facing foundation dentists. I ignited a collaboration of the BES Endodontic Teachers group and Dental Foundation Trainee Deans. I hope this ignition is powerful enough to continue to find solutions and make progress for all stakeholders for the immediate future, I am pleased to lead for another year on this very important BES project as part of my role as immediate past president.
The BES members and other international endodontic societies were hosted for a drinks reception at the European Society of Endodontology (ESE) congress in Budapest in September, with the hard work of our ESE Rep, Dr Guiseppe Di Filippo. This was followed by the BES picking up the International Federation of Endodontic Associations (IFEA) flag at the congress in Santiago, Chile by Dr Will McLean, our President Elect and Congress Chair, to host the next Word Endodontic Congress in Glasgow 2024. I am grateful to Mrs Suzanne McLean who worked hard and hosted the Glasgow stand in the trade show which received immense support for future attendees.
The Good Endodontic Practice Guide was completed after years of hard work and steadfastness by the lead, Dr Phil Tomson. The document received fantastic feedback once launched with free access as an electronic copy on our website and more recently as a hard copy for members and Foundation Dentists. This is a tremendous achievement by the Society.
The regional meeting in Cardiff was overwhelming with the wonderful range of speakers and fantastic representation of members and non-members from all over the UK. It was encouraging to see the demand for face-to-face meetings and networking. The formal dinner at Cardiff castle was sold out and a nice reminder that we had missed our friends and colleagues. The new website booking proved to cause challenges for our administrative team and it continued to be improved on with support of Dr Sanj Bhanderi.
The representation of the BES at various trade shows by giving lectures was also supported by council members and Dr Josette Camilleri led a commonwealth games information leaflet competition, sponsored by the BES and the University of Birmingham, which tapped in to the talents of many budding younger colleagues.
The BES has started publishing a bi-monthly column in the Dentistry magazine with support of council members as authors in order to reinforce our presence in the wider dental community. The society is becoming more widely known with the work carried out on the social media platforms led by the hard work of Dr Risha Patel. The work carried out in this area has been immense and opened a large field of adventures for us. We have had fantastic support from Annabel and Satnam. They have liaised with the service providers Mr Ian Newbold, whom I am grateful to for pestering me, even for what you read now!
Our motto of promote, educate and advance Endodontics is at the heart of all our activities including the ones in the last few months. I am pleased that Dr Simon Stone is leading the project on patient information leaflets and Dr Petros Mylonas is helping me on the Dental Trauma Working group.
I will continue to work on the ECG, Dental Trauma working group and the Teachers and FD collaboration projects in the year ahead. I would like to thank Alyn for giving me the opportunity to continue to work on these projects, Sanj for setting the bar high as my predecessor and the wonderful Annabel for putting up with me.
Thank you to our wonderful members for all your support and feedback, it will always be cherished in my heart.
Maria
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