President’s Corner

Final planning is nearing completion for the 7th International Dental Ethics and Law Congress scheduled for Toronto from May 24 – 26, 2007. As you can see from the website, the schedule of events has been published, venue and catering secured, and keynote speakers confirmed. I also point your attention to the pre-conference organized by the American Society for Dental Ethics which will begin one day earlier. I have had a number of outside individuals comment on the apparent depth of the Congress based on the keynote speakers and the subject material. I must applaud the tenacity of both Jos Welie and Wolter Brands in assembling the programme. The scientific review committee will now be tasked with calling for abstracts and reviewing submissions for as many as thirty six peer reviewed papers. If past experience is anything to draw on, we should expect to hear some well organized and provocative papers. I encourage you to submit an abstract. The congress will only be a source of new ideas and insights if each and every one of us is willing to share his or her ideas and insights.

Even though we are still busy planning and organizing the 2007 Congress, Klaas-Jan Bakker has already commenced negotiations with the Turkish Dental Association whereby the 8th Congress in 2009 may be nested into the week long TDA Congress. That initiative continues as we forge ahead with 2007. On a different note, I should let you know that last August, the first ‘regional meeting’ involving IDEALS took place. It was organized by Suzette Porter in conjunction with the Queensland Branch of the Australian Dental Association. From what we heard, the alliance and the joint session were both successful.

Since I became a part of IDEALS at its inception, I have been impressed by the quality of individuals we have attracted and the interest being generated even though we are small in number. During my tenure, I would like to see IDEALS achieve two goals. The first is some degree of fiscal stability. After all, we basically started six years ago with nothing and continue to hold residual funds for such mundane things as hosting our website and communicating with members.

The second goal may be more controversial. I believe our Society has an obligation to utilize its mandate and members’ talents to address areas in which the dental profession has remained silent for too long. Earlier this year, as President and with the support of the Board, I contacted the Federation Dentaire International to alert them to the potential for oral health care professionals being used as instruments of hostile interrogation and torture. My letter is enclosed elsewhere in this Bulletin. In the most recently revised version of the Declaration of Tokyo, the World Medical Association has defined a clear position that may serve to protect both physicians and potential victims. The WMA has also set benchmark standards for the protection of human research subjects with the Declaration of Helsinki. Although there is a discernable erosion of human subject protections on a global basis, these two documents serve to define major ethical and human rights protections. To date, our profession has remained silent on these major issues. It may be that the dental profession cannot improve on the initiatives of the WMA or, with appropriate reflection, we may feel our own ‘dentistry specific’ position is warranted.

It has been written that a small percentage of the population seeks problems to solve, a larger percent addresses those problems and the remainder are the problem. I would rather be among those defining the problems that need a solution.

In closing, I encourage you to read all of the contributions included in this new Bulletin. And when you have done so, pick up your own pen or start typing. This first Bulletin of 2006 has been significantly delayed, but only because there was too little material to publish. The IDEALS Bulletin is first and foremost your Bulletin, it is a mechanism to share your ideas, thoughts and experiences with other IDEALS members. The IDEALS Board and the Editorial Committee invite and encourage you to submit case studies, summaries of court cases or new policies, descriptions of educational programmes, book reviews, preliminary research results, etc. Or you are not the typing type, get somebody else to do it. If a paper by one of your students is exceptionally good, send it in (provided of course the student agrees). If your colleague during a golf outing relates a curious incident, encourage him or her to write it up. In short, read and write.

Richard Speers
President
Toronto, Canada