ERO Communications III

President’s Welcome

Dear colleagues,

time for the last issue in 2011 of ERO Communications has come. After the Plenary session in Mexico City the Working groups have continued their work as defined. The hot topic “FDI”, discussed extensively in Mexico, has raised fundamental questions that have received prompt and concrete answers. ERO has asked for more transparency in FDI actions and for more influence on FDI strategies. This opportunity as been taken and the results are evident.

The new ERO Working model presented during the last Plenary session has been well accepted and found its application in the different working groups. Cooperation is one of the utmost approaches in our ERO reality shall our efforts contribute to reach the goal of a better dentistry in terms of quality and patient-adequate dental therapy. Furthermore, shall the principle of a liberal dental profession be the guideline for the integrated ERO-countries. The brochure, prepared by Secretary general, Anna Lella, and supported by the Polish Dental Chamber, contains what should be our daily message for our members in the NDA’s. The Organization’s project is an integrative part of FDI’s NCD strategy. The relationship between periodontal disease and cardiovascular health is probably more relevant for our regional area than other oral pathologies. Europe in a wider range, as defined by our membership-countries, is undergoing a rapid and unexpected change, socially and demographically, and almost forgotten dental therapies are becoming a new challenge in a kind of dentistry with plenty of innovations and new technologies. Therefore, once more ERO has a chance to show that the oldest Regional organization of FDI is not condemned to be considered old-fashioned, but must take advantage of the experience gathered in the dental profession in almost one century and a half.

Together with the entire ERO staff, Vice-president, Philippe Rusca, Secretary general, Anna Lella, Treasurer, Michael Frank, Councillor, Bedros Yavru-Sakuk and Secretary of office, Monika Lang I wish each and everybody all the best for the upcoming Season, to conclude 2011 with the desired success and to start a New Year full of enthusiasm, health and prosperity.

Trends

In difficult times professions are facing an increase of commercial and intellectual activity. Third party interests are called in many countries to compensate the lack of public finances and the call for “organized” dentistry on a large scale is becoming more consistent. Would this threaten the liberal dental profession and the liberal choice of a patient’s doctor?

Many young dentists do not have the chance to be integrated into the working process in some countries, while in others dental professionals are lacking. Is the first due to a wrong calculation of workforce need and untouchable privileges of the universities, while the latter might foretell that dentistry is unattractive from an economic as well as from an intellectual point of view?

To maintain today’s level of quality of life, or even increasing it, needs changes in dental and medical practice. Prevention and a collaborative approach between dentists and medical specialists will be the key to it. Dentists, compared to physicians, do benefit from a recall-system their patients are acquainted with since decades and from new scientific understandings which distinguishes them as “the experts” in prevention by definition. ERO has understood the trends and its working-groups are investigating on most interesting tasks with a forward-thinking approach.