Weekly update from Head of Division: Professor Anne-Marie Glenny

 

 

It’s a busy time for everyone catching up with colleagues and students after the summer, finishing packing for our move to Coupland III on the 25th/26th September, finalising plans to welcome new students.  Obviously,our delayed move hasn’t been ideal but I hope we’ll sail through induction week next week and will be settled in our new offices before we know it. As mentioned last week, if you have any concerns/questions about the move, please contact either Di Simmons or me.

 

We’ve had an exchange student with us from Seoul this week. Thanks to Neil Patel for organising the agenda for Suin Choi and to all the staff and students who have given up their time to show her around the Dental Hospital, University and Manchester. I met with her Wednesday evening and she seemed to be enjoying her time with us – quite a brave move to come as an exchange student on your own but one that Suin Choi seemed to take in her stride.

 

This week we are hosting the second residential for our students on the MSc in Restorative and Aesthetic Dentistry.  Welcome to all the students who travel from across the world to participate in these events. I hope you enjoy your time in Manchester and wish you safe journeys home next week. Many thanks to Professor Hugh Devlin for his input into this residential, and to all other staff who have been involved in the planning and delivery.

 

As you should all be aware, the Dental Hospital has a CQC inspection coming up shortly. In preparation for this we have been looking at how best to clean and catalogue the heritage items that are on display on the ground floor of the Dental Hospital.  This meant I got the opportunity to have a ‘nosey’ in the museum room in the Dental Hospital with a Heritage Officer from the University.  We’ve got some really interesting (some gruesome) pieces that, in the long-term, we hope to get properly catalogued and displayed.  

 

Keeping with the CQC, obviously this is hugely important to us.  Please can I reiterate that relevant staff and students need to be:

 

–          Bare below the elbows

–          Wearing visible name badges/ID

–          Wearing appropriate uniform and not their own clothes

 

 

Several of our staff have been attending the GIN conference this week, held at The Principal Hotel, Manchester.  The conference is held by the Guideline International Network (different kind of gin!) and has international leaders in guideline development discussing the methods of developing and implementing clinical guidelines. Professor Tanya Walsh presented at the conference, talking about the work of the Scottish Dental Clinical Effectiveness Programme (SDCEP) and Cochrane.  I hear the presentation went really well and she was ‘mobbed’ by people wanting to ask questions following it.  Well done Tanya!

 

Remember, if you want anything highlighting in the weekly update, please let me know.

 

I hope you all have a great weekend.  

 

Anne-Marie

 

(Anne-Marie Glenny, Professor of Health Sciences)

 

 

 

 

Dates for the diary

 

–​Move to Coupland III 25th September to 27thSeptember

–​CQC visit:

 

It may be that the team choose to visit some of our other sites as well, but this is not yet confirmed.

University Open Days – 29th September and Saturday 13th October

Grant retreat, Chancellor’s Hotel and Conference Centre – 15th – 16th October

 

 

Weekly update from Head of Division: Professor Anne-Marie Glenny

 

 

I hope everyone has had a wonderful summer. I know, for some, August has still been really busy workwise, but hopefully everyone has had an opportunity to recharge before the start of term.  

 

The summer brought some sad news for us in that Professor Paul Coulthard announced he will be leaving Manchester to take up a new role as Dean and Director of the Dental School at the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL).  Exciting for Paul, but a big loss for us.  

 

As you will be aware, our date for moving back into Coupland III has, unfortunately, been delayed. This really is due to unforeseen circumstances and everything is being done to ensure all work is completed as soon as possible. I appreciate it’s really frustrating to find out we’re going to be ‘living out of boxes’ for the next couple of weeks; if you have any queries/concerns, please feel free to contact Di Simmons or me. Thanks for everyone’s patience with this, particularly given that we have Induction week between now and the move.

 

As we gear up to welcome our new students, we’re also holding two further Open Days for prospective students. If anyone would like to talk a bit about their career, their role or specialty, their participation in one or other of the events would be greatly appreciated. Similarly, if you’re willing to spare some time to ‘meet and greet’ that would also be very welcome. The dates of the Open Days are Saturday 29th Sept and Saturday 13th Oct. Just get in touch if you’re interested in being involved.

 

The Dental Hospital has a CQC inspection coming up shortly, the dates of which have now been confirmed (please see below). Please can everyone ensure relevant staff and students are:

 

–          Bare below the elbows

–          Wearing visible name badges/ID

–          Wearing appropriate uniform and not their own clothes

 

 

The School of Medical Sciences is hosting a second grant retreat 15th and 16th October. The retreat is intended to be a facilitating event and, as such, will try to accommodate all stages of the grant writing process.  However, more in-depth support will be possible if your ideas are already well-formulated. I understand the first retreat was very successful. If you’re considering putting in a grant application I recommend registering for the retreat (deadline 23rd September REGISTRATION – HERE)

Have a great weekend (Tough Mudder for me – sure sign of a midlife crisis!)

 

Anne-Marie

 

 

(Anne-Marie Glenny, Professor of Health Sciences)

 

 

 

 

Dates for the diary

 

 

 

UDHM – Oxford Road, Dental Services, 2nd – 4th October

UDHM – Oxford Road, Outpatients, 2nd – 4th October

UDHM – Oxford Road, Emergency Department, 2nd – 4th October

UDHM – Trafford, Outpatients, 9th – 11th October

UDHM – Trafford, Surgery, 9th – 11th October

It may be that the team choose to visit some of our other sites as well, but this is not yet confirmed.

 

 

 

 

Weekly update from Head of Division: Professor Anne-Marie Glenny

 

 

An even briefer update this week.  So many people are away on leave but I wanted to say a huge thank you to all those who input into our undergraduate programmes.  You may already have seen the recent NSS scores. Dentistry received an overall satisfaction score of 93%, up 5% from last year. Something to be proud of. The survey highlights areas for improvement, and we’ll be exploring these in future months to ensure we continue to improve the learning experience of our students. For now, however, a very big thank you to all those involved.

 

I’ve received a second update on the important work being undertaken in Uganda by George (PhD student), Sara, Sophia (Year 1 & Year 2 BDS) and Nia  (Year 2 BSc) (please see below). I know we have a number of students overseas at present doing voluntary work or on student exchange programmes. I hope they all find their trips rewarding and enjoyable. Dean Hutter, from Boston University, commented this week on what fantastic ambassadors for Manchester our visiting students are. Always good to receive such great feedback! I look forward to hearing all about their travels in the coming weeks.

 

That’s all for this week. I’m going abseiling and gorge walking with the kids this weekend, assuming there’s still water in the gorge (we might just be scrambling over dry rocks for two hours!)

 

Have a great weekend.

 

Anne-Marie

 

 

(Anne-Marie Glenny, Professor of Health Sciences)

 

 

 

 

Dates for the diary

Move to Coupland III w/c 10th September 2018

​

 

Update from Uganda

 

For the 2nd week of our project we completed another (our 2nd) outreach in a small town outside Gulu in the North of Uganda. During our 2nd outreach, we visited a nearby primary school where we spoke to a total of 750 children ages 6 to 15. During our talk, and as previously, we delivered our Oral Health Education program with the interactive toothbrushing element while we played an oral health advice game with the children and we collected some data on dental hygiene. At the end of our school visit, we delivered additional health talks in the nearby health centre where a total of 200 adults and older adults attended. 

 

Apart from the outreach, the BDS and BSc students spent time at the Regional Referral Hospital where they shadowed and assisted local staff.

 

Work-aside, we also did a 2-day game and water safari on the Nile and Murchison Falls area of North East Uganda an hour away from the border with the DR of Congo. With only 1 week to go before our return, there is another planned outreach and some additional shadowing days at the local hospital.

 

 

 

George Kitsaras

Doctoral researcher

 

Weekly update from Head of Division: Professor Anne-Marie Glenny

 

 

A very brief update this week as I’ve been at IADR since Tuesday, with a number of our staff and students. A big congratulations to all our UG and PG students who have presented at an international conference for their first time.  I understand some got tricky questions but it sounds as though they handled them well.  I hope it hasn’t put you off presenting at future events!  It was good to see Richard Hogan manning the Colgate stand, alongside Professor Roger Ellwood.  Margaret Stockberger and Wendy Gregson also did a fantastic job on our University of Manchester stand. Margaret has been a great help over recent months (since coming out of retirement to help cover staff shortages) – we’ll really miss her and hope she’ll still call in to see us.

 

It was good catching up with people at the Clinical Away Day on Monday. The day was run by Professor Helen Worthington and Dr Reza Roudsari.  We had three parallel workshops looking at restructuring of the UG CATs, clinical skills, and technical skills. Thanks to Dr Philip Riley, Mark Shupac and Sarah Faulkner for organizing these sessions.

 

Next week David Ajao joins us as a Research Associate. This is a MFT post to help develop research applications and coordinate existing MFT research projects. Professor Tanya Walsh will be introducing him to members of staff over the next week or so.  

 

The British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry (BASCD) invites entries to the Keith Woods Essay Competition.  This competition is open to any undergraduate dental, undergraduate dental therapy, undergraduate dental hygiene or undergraduate dental nursing student registered at a Dental School in the United Kingdom.  A prize of £200.00 and Certificate will be awarded to the winner of the competition. The deadline for the competition is 3rd September 2018. The title for this year’s essay is: “Sugar, sugar everywhere, can we really save our children’s teeth?” For further information please go to http://www.bascd.org/news

 

 

 

 

I’m away on annual leave next week in Cornwall.  I won’t be writing an update from there – too busy eating pasties!

 

Have a great weekend/week.

 

Anne-Marie

 

(Anne-Marie Glenny, Professor of Health Sciences)

 

 

 

Dates for the diary

 

Visitors from Wuhan 29th-30th July 2018

Move to Coupland III 10th September 2018

 

 

 

Weekly update from Head of Division: Professor Anne-Marie Glenny

 

 

This week saw our PG Annual Day Out. Huge thanks go to Margaret Stockberger for organizing a fantastic trip to Chatsworth House, and rallying an impressive 40 PG students and staff. I hear it was a glorious day, perfect for walking and taking in the wonderful surroundings. They also had a tour of the house and a lovely lunch. It sounds like a great day was had by all.  There will be some photos posted on both our Facebook page and noticeboards.

 

Further PGT news. The School of Medical Sciences held a PGT Showcase on Thursday this week. Mohammed Billal Arshad (Fixed and Removable Prosthodontics) won the prize for best oral presentation. He also won the prize for best case presentation at the Dentistry PGT event a few weeks ago, so we are very proud of him. The other participants in the showcase were Sara Bushehri, (oral presentation) and Naomi Prado, Ahmad Alali, Mohd Zamri Hussin, Suet Yeo Soo, Aufa Bahar and Nor Shafina Nazari  (all presented posters).

 

Dr Reza Roudsari has produced the first edition of Dental Gazette. Dental Gazette is the new monthly newsletter of the Dentistry Undergraduate Programme Committee and is archived in the communal Dentistry Blackboard. It’s full of fantastic photos and key information on UG issues. You can view the July edition by clicking on the following link:

 

https://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/reza/dentalgazettejuly2018.pdf

 

 

George Kitsaras, a 2nd year PhD student with Iain Pretty at the Dental Health Unit, has been in touch with an update of a dental volunteering project in Uganda that he started and is currently leading. He, and three of our undergraduate students (Sara Member and Sophia Signorini(Year 1 & Year 2 BDS) and Nia Harris (Year 2 BSc)) have travelled to Uganda for a total of 3 weeks with the aim of delivering an oral health education programme during outreaches in hard to reach rural areas & schools. They also hope to provide shadowing opportunities in the local dental hospital and collect dental hygiene data. The long-term plan is to establish connections to further develop this dental volunteering programme, enabling more clinical activities in the years to come. George is providing a brief weekly update of their activities, which I’ve posted below.   This is another fantastic example of one of the many social responsibility activities that our staff and students are involved in. George, Sara, Sophia and Nia – I hope you have a wonderful trip and look forward to hearing about it in more detail on your return.

 

Next week we have two visitors from Sao Paulo: Professor Paulo Cesar and Professor Roberto Braga. They were both instrumental in signing the MoU with Sao Paulo and are developing further collaboration via the FAPESP call (an independent public foundation with the mission to foster research and the scientific and technological development of the State of São Paulo).  They’ll be joining us for lunch at Chancellors after the Clinical Away Day on Monday if you want to say hello.

 

Two publications of interest this week. The first is the HTA monograph for the NIHR funded iQUAD trial. iQUAD is a randomised controlled trial comparing oral hygiene advice and periodontal instrumentation for the prevention and management of periodontal disease in dentate adults attending dental primary care. The trial was led by Professor Jan Clarkson (University of Dundee and University of Manchester), in collaboration with other researchers from Universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle, Kings College, London and NHS Education for Scotland. I suspect the findings will prompt lots of discussion! The report can be accessed from:

https://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/hta/hta22380/#/abstract

Professor Helen Worthington was co-author on a second article this week that has hit the news.  The paper challenges the role of omega 3 supplements for reducing the risk of heart disease, stroke or death. The lead author on the study is Dr Lee Hooper who used to be a member of staff at the Dental School and continues to collaborate with us. You can read a summary of the paper at:

https://www.cochrane.org/news/new-cochrane-health-evidence-challenges-belief-omega-3-supplements-reduce-risk-heart-disease

 

Congratulations to Dr Wafa Kashbour who was awarded Fellow of the Higher Education Academy this week.  She also had a paper published in the Journal of Dentistry entitled “Provision of information to patients on dental implant treatment; clinicians’ perspectives on the current approaches and future strategies” (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdent.2018.07.002).  A good week for Wafa!

 

As mentioned last week, the International Association for Dental Research (IADR) conference is being held next week.  I suspect it’s going to be fairly quiet around the Dental School as many staff are attending the conference.  Immediately after the conference we are being visited by the Dean of the Dental School from Wuhan University  (Professor Zhuan Bian) and Deputy Dean (Professor ZhiChen). They will be accompanied by three other professors and Dr Fang Hua (a recent PhD student). They’re visiting to sign an MoU with us, focusing on future research collaboration and potential postgraduate teaching/research. Professors Helen Worthington, Paul Coulthard and Tanya Walsh will be hosting them following their successful trip to China earlier this year.

 

I’m sure some of you will have started to hear rumours regarding our due date for moving back in Coupland III.  The 10th of September is the proposed date for us to move. I know it’s close to the start of term, but hopefully with a bit of forward planning we should be able to make the transition with as little hassle as possible. Arrangements are currently being made for crates to be brought into the JR Moore building by the end of August to help with the move. Please can you let Simon know how many crates you’ll need by Wednesday 25th July at the latest (he has emailed you regarding this). For those of you attending the Clinical Away Day on Monday I will give you a brief update on the renovations, kindly provided by Professor Julian Satterthwaite.

 

Speaking of the Clinical Away Day – I look forward to seeing you at Chancellors on Monday.  As much as anything, this is a good opportunity for us to meet up.  It also provides us time to reflect on teaching and research within the Dental School and how they can support each other.

 

Have a great weekend

 

Anne-Marie

 

 

(Anne-Marie Glenny, Professor of Health Sciences)

 

 

 

 

Dates for the diary

 

Clinical Away Day – Monday 23rd July 2018

IADR –25th-28th July 2018

Visitors from Wuhan – 29th-30th July 2018

Move to Coupland III – 10th September 2018

 

 

Weekly update from George Kitsaras, Uganda

 

On Tuesday, we made our way to the North of Gulu, near the border with South Sudan where we visited a primary school and the local health centre. In total we approached to 480 children ages 7 to 15 and we delivered an oral health education package with an interactive toothbrushing element (as you can see from the photos), we also gathered some data on oral health behaviours and we played a game where the students developed their own oral health advice in the local language.

 

After we returned back from the schools, we spoke to an additional 200 people waiting for medical checks at the nearby local health centre. This time the crowd was mainly adults and older adults.

 

During the 1st outreach, we were accompanied by a dentist from the local referral hospital.

 

On Thursday, students will start their shadowing at the local referral hospital across all 3 wings (general, restorative and private).