The ASO 2019 Foundation Meeting was held at the Crown Melbourne, with 255 orthodontists from Australia and overseas, 49 accompanying persons and some of our valued corporate partners, patrons and benefactors attending.
Dr Simon Littlewood from the University of Leeds UK was the invited speaker as well as the Jan Taylor Travelling Lecturer for the Postgraduate Orthodontic Student Meeting.
Dr Simon Littlewood presented the Donald Spring Lecture entitled ‘Retention Master Class Part I‘ to open the meeting. His lecture consisted of evidence-based material on retention and it was delivered in an entertaining and informative manner. Simon also presented lectures on ‘Evidence-based early Class III Treatment‘ and ‘Orthodontics and Generational Psychology’. His lectures were extremely well-received. He added a touch of humour and banter to keep the audience amused and alert throughout his presentations.
Dr Nour Eldin Taraf presented an excellent lecture on ‘The application of skeletal anchorage in the treatment of maxillary deficiency in growing children’. This lecture married in beautifully with Dr Littlewoods’ Class III treatment lecture.
‘The public perception of orthodontic treatment performed by general dentists and specialist orthodontists‘, delivered by Dr Morgan Wishney was very timely given the current orthodontic climate.
A/Prof Mark Evans, Specialist Endodontist discussed various aspects of ‘Dental trauma management’ and brought us all up to speed with the current protocols for managing trauma in our practice.
The recipient of the Milton R Sims award 2018, Dr Doreen Ng gave her presentation entitled ‘Insta-Straight...Can non-invasive accelerated tooth movement help our “Generation Now” patients?’ And fellow committee member Dr Steve Naoum, the recipient of the Elsdon Storey Research award 2017 presented his paper on ‘Changes in pulp blood flow and pulp sensibility resulting from surgically assisted rapid maxillary expansion: A clinical study’.
The Elsdon Storey Research Award 2018 recipient was Dr Annie Tong and she discussed ‘The molecular basis of Primary Molar Ankylosis’. All presentations demonstrated the extremely high quality of research that we are undertaking in Australia and the importance of the ASOFRE’s role in helping to achieve such high calibre work.
A/Prof Paul Schneider gave us a tour of the research being undertaken at the University of Melbourne. Much of this research is being supported by ASOFRE and it is gratifying to see that we have such talented students involved in serious orthodontic research.
The Foundation dinner was held in the River Room at Crown, which had over two hundred guests in attendance. Following the night’s activities at the dinner, Prof Paul Monsour had the unenviable role of presenting the opening lecture on the Saturday morning. The theme of his presentation was panoramic radiographic interpretation, and this followed later in the day with a further presentation on assessing radiographic radiopacities. Both presentations were of an extremely high standard and in an age when many orthodontists take in-house radiographs, it was both important and timely.
Prof Monsour also gave the post congress course on the Sunday. This was a limited attendance hands-on course entitled ‘Theory, limitations and regulations for the use of CBCT’ which was attended by 34 delegates.
Dr Stavros Prineas, anaesthetist, introduced us to a concept outside of our normal thinking as practitioners with his presentation titled; ‘Foresight training: Understanding performance shaping factors in orthodontics’. The concept of setting up systems to prevent errors from occurring. Again, with fear of sounding repetitive, an excellent presentation.
Dr Peter Miles was the recipient of the P Raymond Begg award 2018. He presented this award-winning paper during the Gerry Dickinson Lecture. Gerry was one of the pillars of the ASOFRE and he devoted a great deal of his professional and personal life to the ASOFRE. Gerry would have been proud of Peter’s presentation. The title of his paper was ‘Conducting research trials in clinical practice’.
Chris Theodosi
Chair, ASOFR
