President’s Corner

This article represents the first President’s Column since the Congress held in Toronto this past May. As yet, final financial figures are not in, but at this point, the Congress did manage to show a surplus as a direct result of the generosity of the corporate sponsors.  These include Dr. Christopher McCulloch, Dentistry Canada Fund, SciCan, Straumann Canada Limited, Health Canada, American College of Dentists, Dentsply International, and the Murray Hunt Lecture.  These individuals and organizations believed in the mission on which IDEALS had embarked and their support came in the form of both financial and moral support.  The Congress Organizing Committee is most grateful for this funding.  Without the support of the above sponsors, the Toronto Congress would not have been possible.

The involvement of the Canadian Dental Association as a co-host was invaluable in utilizing their organizational infrastructure, art work, printing and on site registration.  As well, former president of the Canadian Dental Association, Dr. George Sweetnam was keenly involved during the entire congress conferring introductory and welcoming remarks at the opening afternoon.  It should also be noted that Dr. Sweetnam served as a past chair of CDA’s Ethics Committee, and it was George’s support that brought CDA into IDEALS as the first corporate member.

I wanted to speak to the success of the Congress, but I am always aware of the various measures of success.  In practice, dentists usually equate ‘success’ to income and the acquisition of tangible assets…the bigger the better.  How often do we equate success to applying appropriate evidence based care or conferring minimal harm to a patient population over an extended time-period. With this in mind, I saw successes at the Toronto Congress that are both tangible and intangible.  I also saw modest failure and challenges our organization must meet in order to survive.

The Toronto Congress did not have a major sponsor to cover financial losses,  hence we sought sponsorships and concentrated on prudent financial management.  I am pleased to say, the Toronto Congress was a financial success in that IDEALS remains financially solvent. We were successful in attracting world class keynote speakers who explored a wide variety of challenges confronting the profession on a world-wide basis.   Access to care was a highlight of the Omaha Congress under the heading of ‘justice’, but again access to care was addressed with respect to human rights.  The importance of access to care must not be lost on our profession. We were successful in attracting delegates from areas not previously represented with participants attending from Brazil and India.  We welcomed those delegates and were rewarded not only with a presentation, but a synergy as new contacts were made among public health representatives from very different backgrounds. We were successful in strengthening existing bonds among educators and practitioners from around the world and I am gratified to see these collaborations succeeding and flourishing. We were successful in bringing young enthusiastic members onto the Board who will be replacing old tired member such as the existing President of IDEALS.

I was gratified to see the membership of IDEALS debate and pass the declaration on hostile interrogation and torture.  The World Medical Association had previously adopted and amended such a position with the Declaration of Tokyo.  This declaration serves to direct the actions of physicians when confronted by requests or demands to engage in rendering harm to detainees.  There is clear evidence that medical professionals have been ordered, conscripted or cajoled into veering from their primary ethical duty to ‘do no harm’.  Until this point, our profession had been silent on the issue.  As you may know, this draft declaration was sent to the FDI for its consideration at its annual meeting in Dubai.  We await word on their review of this.

But, we do remain mired with congress registrations and overall membership seeming to stagnate.  Those of us who have been here from the start would like to see membership increase and also to see more delegates attending the congress. There may be a number of factors influencing attendance such as timing, geography, and perhaps the focus of the meeting itself.   I think it is important we, as an organization, consider our direction in the next few years….talk to those who are, or once were, members of IDEALS….let’s find out what we need to do to keep this vibrant society alive and well.

Richard Speers
President
Toronto, Canada