Special Care and Oral Health Seminar for Dentists and Dental Therapists

The Australian Society of Special Care in Dentistry (ASSCID) is joining forces with the Dental Therapists Association (DTA) of NSW to present Putting our hands together, a day of lectures with a symposia style discussion at the end of each session in the beautiful Hunter Valley, north of Sydney, on 21 September, 2007.

Topics to be covered will include the psychology of patient management, public health and multidisciplinary approaches, alternative therapies and train-the-trainer programs, making it a diverse and practical Special Care program.

"Bachelor of Oral Health (BOH) as part of the dental team" will be presented by Associate Professor Peter Dennison, the Director of the Bachelor of Oral Health program at University of Sydney. Every Friday, BOH students tend to patients in the Special Care Dentistry Unit of Westmead Centre for Oral Health trying to tackle one of the biggest problems in oral health - preventing oral disease in people with Special Needs.

The psychology of Special Care patient management will be presented by Dr Meg Hyam (BDS, BPsyc). Dr Sally Hibbert, a paediatric dental consultant at the Children's Hospital, Westmead will detail common oral health problems in people with Special Needs. Dr Hibbert is also in private practice in Newcastle and will give an insight into her knowledge in both areas.

Multidisciplinary team approaches incorporating oral health, dietetics and speech pathology will be discussed. Senior speech pathologist at Westmead Centre for Oral Health, Rachel Hampshire, will explain the nature of the tongue tie clinic; oral motor function therapy clinic and paediatric ward rounds. Ms Hampshire also works in private practice in Sydney. Sarah McKay is the dietitian at Westmead Centre for Oral Health and will discuss her role in oral motor function therapy, and as part of the oral health team.

Innnovative models of care will be presented in the afternoon session. Director of Nothern Sydney Central Coast Are Health Service, Meredith Kay will outline new programs in this region. Two trainthe- trainer programs, Smiles for Life and Residential Oral Care will be presented by oral health educators Elizabeth Hillman and Siva Premkumar. An update on models of care in the Newcastle region by Sharyn James and Dr Peter King will follow. Finally, but timely at the end of a day, a session on alternative therapies in Special Care will keep interest up to the last discussion.

We look forward to dentists and dental therapists putting their hands together on 21 September!