A word from this session’s President, Alun Scott

I am truly honoured to have been invited to be President of the Glasgow Odontological Society for the 2022-23 season. It is a wonderful society, with a rich history. The Society has evolved over its near six score years to become a vibrant organisation, with a diverse membership. The Society has enjoyed growth in member numbers, drawing from all spheres of dentistry, including general dental practice, specialist practice and academic practice.

As we are all fully aware, the Covid-19 pandemic has had an immense impact on our practices and our lives. The Society has been less affected than many, but we have had to adjust to a new set of circumstances over the last two years with both Will and Josephine presiding over online meetings and presentations. We had hoped to be back face to face last year but then Omicron came along and caused more disruption.

I would like to thank Josephine for her year as president. Even if the meetings were remote the dinner certainly wasn’t and was greatly enjoyed by all who attended.

A core value of the Society is to provide high quality educational content of relevance to the membership. As such, one of my roles as President has been to invite speakers to address the Society at our six educational sessions for 2022-23. I hope the variation in topics this year will be of interest to the membership. The programme will range from dental education, cancer, paediatric dentistry and even some materials science, if you can stay awake for that!

While Covid-19 may continue to affect our programme, we plan to be back live in the dental school this year. Hopefully, the opportunity to meet up with colleagues will not be taken away from us this year. We can only hope for a better winter ahead.

To celebrate our return to face to face and coming back to the dental school I have selected Glasgow Dental Alumni some of whom are local, others have been away and come back and other have made their mark elsewhere in the UK. We have a theme of “I belong to Glasgow”, and I hope to persuade each of the speakers to give us an insight into what Glasgow did for them and perhaps who their influences were when here. Full details of all our speakers and topics are available on the meetings pages.

There are six meetings over the season held on Tuesday evenings. Registration starts at 6.30pm in GDEC with the lecture starting at 7.00pm. We are in negotiations with the Anatomy Department around the Christmas meeting and will let you know if our Christmas meeting will be held in it’s traditional venue. The remaining meetings will be held in the lecture theatres of the Dental Hospital and School. The website makes the booking process straight forward and the delivery of CPD certificates seamless.

The annual dinner will be held in the stunning surroundings offered by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in April this year. This evening never fails to entertain and impress the palate.

The committee and I look forward to welcoming you to the first face to face meeting since 2020 on Tuesday 18 October 2022. I do hope you can come along to join us and please encourage colleagues to do the same.

Alun Scott

If you require any further information about the Society, please contact our new secretary, Lizzie
Todd, at support@glasgowodonto.org.