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President’s Report
2007-2008
This past year has been a remarkable one for the
Dental Society here at Barts and The London. We have
achieved so much change in such a short space of
time, which has in my opinion excelled us to the
position of the best dental school in the country.
The sole function of our dental society is to make
the experience for the undergraduates here as
fulfilling as possible, while still achieving both
academic and clinical excellence.
The
educational aspect of student life has had the
biggest shake up I’ve seen, since being a student
here. Starting from the top, on the 1st
August 2007 the school appointed Professor F Fortune
as the new Dean of Dentistry. The course itself has
also had a face lift. The Human Health and Disease
in-course assessments in Year 1 have finally had the
negative marking abolished, which, I’m sure you’ll
agree, used torment us all. In the second year those
empty weeks have started to get filled up, with
students now beginning their Prosthedontics course
in the second year, rather than in the third after
their Part 2 examinations. 2008 saw the eagerly
anticipated opening of two brand new outreach
centres. For the exceptionally large third year, the
Barkantine Centre gave each of the students a chance
to finally gain some serious clinical time, rather
than the long waits they faced at The Royal London.
The Southend Academic Dental Clinic gave the fourth
years a serious lesson in time management by having
to stick to appointment times and increase clinical
efficiency. A lesson which our students usually
didn’t learn until their Vocational Training. The
figures for Southend alone yielded an extra 14,000
patient contacts for the 4th years. Both
of these centres were received with great praise
from students as they yielded a whole new cohort of
patients on which clinical requirements could be
satisfied. The final year showed that although they
had passed through the school without the benefit of
all these new developments, our school was already
producing high quality BDS graduates, with a 100%
pass rate from all the students that entered finals.
Socially the society has been flourishing! With some
excellent planning and promotion, the year had a
flying start with our traditional ‘Meet The
Dentists’ night. We decided to mix it up a little
and have a ‘Kinky Karibbean’ theme. This was well
received as the event had the highest attendance in
its history. One week later, we held our 2nd
Trade Fair ever. The event was a resounding success
with 11 companies present and over 250 students and
staff attending. The annual X-mas party was held at
two floor venue of ‘Nineteentwenty’ in Barbican. The
venue was packed to the rafters with both students
and staff dancing away until the early hours! The
second term was rammed full of back to back events.
We organised a lecture by guest speaker Professor J
Toumba from the University of Leeds, on ‘Fluorides
for the prevention of dental caries in clinical
practice’. I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many
people in a lecture before! It reached capacity and
some students even sat on the floor! There was a
second trade fair which was just as successful as
the first. A memorial night with the theme
‘Footballers and WAGS’ was organised in memory of
Mr. Simit Patel, an undergraduate student who sadly
had passed away the previous year. The proceeds of
which are due to finance a bench in his name outside
his halls of residence in Mile End student village.
We also held a virgin event, ‘Spring Fling’ as the
end of spring term party. It was held at ‘Agenda
Bar’ in Tower Hill. The first Dentsoc football
tournament was organised on the pitches as Mile End
leisure centre. However, by far, the social event of
the dental calendar is the Annual Dental Dinner.
This year we arranged it at the enchanting
surroundings of the ‘Inner Temple’ just by the River
Thames. For the first time on record the event sold
out, with a 200 staff and students attending the
champagne reception, 4-course dinner and dance
after. The other black tie occasion of the year was
the graduation ball which this year was organised by
a well led graduation committee at The Landmark
Hotel. On the national scene, Barts and The London
maintained its record for having the largest number
of delegates at the British Dental Students
Association Conference again this year, with over 60
delegates travelling up to Birmingham for the
weekend. The Annual Dental Beer Race was as
successful as ever, and the event generated well
over £2000 for RAG. The social calendar wrapped up
with a well organised staff student sports day in
Victoria Park. Sports on offer included football,
cricket, rounders, volleyball. Much to our surprise
the staff came out as overall winners!
This is just a brief summary of what has happened
over the last year. In addition I would like to
thank the committee of 2007-2008 for all their hard
work and the professional manner in which they went
about all their responsibilities, and I feel that we
achieved all the goals for which we were elected to
do. Also, an extra special thank you to Mr. Saeid
Haghri, for bringing the Dental Society into the
electronic age by setting up this website. I can
confirm that the society is flourishing and seems to
be growing with each coming year. I would like to
end by wishing Mr. Jason Wong, the President Elect,
and his committee all the best for the forthcoming
year.
Nikesh Patel
Dental Student President 2007 - 2008
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