Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition

October 22 - 28, 201212 Feature United Kingdom Edition Follow us on: An impression & model scanner for every lab The D800 scanner, with two 5.0 MP cameras, provides high ac- curacy and captures textures and pencil markings. The fast and robust D700 is for productivity and the D500 for an easy entry into CAD/CAM. Implant Bar & Bridges and more Get a precise and productive tool for designing sophisticated im- plant bars and bridges for both removable and fixed prosthesis. Enjoy also Dentures, New Abutment Designer™, Post & Core, Orthodontic appliances and much more. TRIOS® Inbox & 3Shape Communicate™ Dental System™ includes free connectivity to TRIOS® systems in dental clinics so labs can receive impression scans directly. Smart communication tools enhance cooperation with the dentist. Model Builder, Create lab models directly from TRIOS® and 3rd party intraoral scans. Design implant models and all types of sec- tioned models ready for output on model-making machines. 3Shape Dental System™ A timeless solution that grows stronger rather than growing old Meet us at BDTA - Booth S25 See the whole palate of our innovative products live Scan the QR code to sign up for our newsletter Coming Soon! L ike everyone I tried to buy tickets for the Olympic Games over a year ago, and like so many other people I was unsuccessful. My girlfriend and I were desperate to get involved, so when the opportunity to become a volunteer came up we jumped at the chance. I really did not want to be in- volved in the Olympic Games as a dentist; I wanted the opportu- nity to do something new. I was selected to be a press officer. You may ask why and I know I asked myself the same question, but I was actually in, and last year I travelled to London for training in my new role. It seems that some years ago only com- petitors in the athletics w o u l d have a post-event interview with various media, but this proved so popular that is was rolled out across all the other sporting events. My role was to make sure the press of a certain country had the opportunity to in- terview its own competitors. Even if a country had just one athlete competing and they came last it was still important for that coun- try’s press to cover the story. Three months before the opening ceremony I was e-mailed the event I was covering. It was boxing at ExCel, and everyone thought being a dentist would prove useful. We were presented with our uniforms, which we were allowed to keep, and I took two weeks off, proudly telling my patients that I was to be a volun- teer for the Olympic Games. When we watched the open- ing ceremony on 3 August I just could not wait. My role started on the Saturday, and I am fortunate that I am from London, meaning I could live at my parents’ home and commute to ExCel by tube, while some other volunteers were driving 100 miles a day! When I put on my uniform I felt like a school-kid again and as I caught the train to Bank for ExCel I got the odd stare and snigger, but once I arrived I was surrounded by hundreds of volunteers, and we all had the same smile on our faces. We didn’t know each other but we knew we were going to be part of something big. You could feel the excitement in the air. During the Olympic Games people sitting on the train would smile and ask us about the roles we played, it seems that for those two weeks London became the friendliest place in the UK. One of the most important in- novations for 2012 was the intro- duction of women’s boxing. There are just three weight categories for women while the men have ten. Team GB had three women contestants and seven men. I spoke to journalists from Reuters and the Associated Press and they were very keen to report on the women’s boxing. As the days went by the in- tensity of the crowd’s excitement increased, then exploded when the first women’s bouts started, especially when Katie Taylor, the Irish boxer, fought Briton Nata- sha Jonas. This was one of the Basking in the golden glow Dr Amit Patel, a periodontist from Birmingham, shares his experiences as a volunteer at the London 2012 Olympic Games page 14DTà