DentaltownUK May 2018 - 5

mike gow

editorial

Healthcare needs a trip to Mars
I attended the Henry Schein Digital
Symposium on 27th and 28th April along
with around 450 delegates. Speakers included
Rune Fisker, Sinead McEnhill, Colin Campbell,
Adam Nulty and Josef Kunkela, as well as
technicians Petr Hajny, Vicken Hatsakordzian,
and many more.
'Medical Futurist' Dr Bertalan Meskó gave
a Keynote presentation that was entertaining,
educational and truly inspiring. Dr Meskó is
a self-confessed "geek physician" with a PhD
in genomics and is an acclaimed author. In
his Sci-fi inspired presentation, he stated that
'healthcare needs a trip to Mars'. He explained
this by detailing how medical advancements
would be needed to sustain human colonies
on Mars, but that such advancements would
push modern medicine into new and exciting
territory here on Earth. He highlighted that
within healthcare and dentistry technology
should be embraced to be utilised by (rather
than to replace) trained healthcare professionals.
Dr Meskó summarises the 8 greatest
innovations for dental health as 1) Smart
toothbrushes 2) Augmented Reality 3) Virtual
Reality 4) Teledentistry 5) CAD Dentistry and
3D printing 6) Intra oral cameras 7) Dental
regeneration 8) CRISPR. Find out more about
Dr Meskó's thoughts on these at The Medical
Futurist.
It certainly struck a note with me when he
mentioned that the way we work with patients
has already and will continue to change with
regard s to technology and online access to
information. He cited advanced technologies
that are already in use in modern medicine and
also ones on the brink of breaking through.
Patients increasingly have access to technologies
for self-assessment and he advised that healthcare
professionals embrace these. He also explained
that research is advancing at a rapid rate with
the existing 30 million PubMed articles growing

by around 3 million each year. While people
must be cautious with regards to the accuracy
of the information that they access online, we
must accept that they will use it to research their
own symptoms and treatment options prior to
visiting us. It is our responsibility to encourage
patients to gain access to the correct information
to enable fully informed consent however we
must ensure that a) we ourselves keep up to
date with what the patients are reading online
and b) that we can then appropriately advise
on the validity.
It was a real pleasure to interview speaker
Dr. Alif Moosajee at the Symposium and talk
with him about his use of digital dentistry,
especially for guided implant cases. Dr Moosajee
is the owner of Leicester-based dental Practice
'Oakdale Dental' and author if the book 'The
Smiling Dentist'.
The book (for which profits go to Bridge
to Aid Charity) is aimed at members of the
public and gives 'secrets from a top dentist on
how to keep your smile looking younger and
healthier for longer'. ■

Click to watch the interview

by Mike Gow BDS (Gla) MFDS RCPS (Gla) MSc Hyp (Lon) PGCert (Edin), Editor, DentaltownUK magazine
dentaltownuk.com \\ MAY 2018

http://www.hsddigitalsymposium.co.uk http://medicalfuturist.com http://medicalfuturist.com/the-amazing-future-of-dentistry-and-oral-health/ http://http:// https://www.oakdaledental.co.uk https://www.smilingdentist.co.uk https://www.smilingdentist.co.uk https://bridge2aid.org https://youtu.be/lHcaJPsHm7w http://www.dentaltownuk.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of DentaltownUK May 2018