Dental Tribune Middle East & Africa Edition

Nikon_D5200_17.8x26.8cm.ai 1 4/4/13 12:56 PM Interview: 'All parties together to have one single Dental Conference' by Dental Tribune Middle East & Africa M uscat, Oman: During the Sau- di Dental Society Internation- al Conference in Riyadh, Den- tal Tribune Middle East & Afri- ca had the pleasure to interview Dr. Jasim Al Saidi, Chairman of the organizing commit- tee for the Oman International Dental Con- ference 2013. Dr. Jasim, how are the preparations go- ing for the Oman Dental Conference taking place on 27th and 28th of February 2013 in Muscat, Oman? Dr. Jassim Al-Saidi: This is the first Oman International Dental Conference, of which I am the chairman, and it is going to be real- ly international as many of our speakers are coming from both abroad and Oman. What are the main focuses of your Confer- ence? Mainly it will be focusing on new develop- ments and studies related to dentistry in all specialties including Implantology, Ortho- dontics, Cosmetics and some major surger- ies as well. You refer to this as the ‘First’ Oman Dental Conference although there have been sev- eral in the past, could you explain your in- tentions? You are correct, this is not the first Confer- ence to be conducted in Oman in fact we have conducted more than 15 Conferences before, however the name of the conference has been changed to the ‘Oman Internation- al Dental Conference 2013’ because the orga- nizing committee itself has been changed for this Conference. Usually it was run by either the Ministry of Health or the Oman Dental Society, but now we are gathering every- body – all parties together to have one sin- gle ‘Oman International Dental Conference.' How many participants do you expect? We are expecting to have around 700-800 at- tendees including dentists and dental relat- ed professionals. Will your event include an exhibition? We will have an exhibition. In the eyes of Oman it is a good sized exhibition, but when compared to other big events such as IDS or SDS it is not that big of an exhibition. We are expecting approximately 30 companies for this event. You mention you will have some interna- tional speakers as well as locals. Will there be any familiar faces? We have a number of notable speakers com- ing to the conference that we are gathering from all over the world. Some of these in- clude Professor David Wray and Professor Donald Fergusson from Dubai, Louis Had- dan from Lebanon, Professor Jean Pierre Bernard from France, Dr. Nahi Jabbour, Pro- fessor Mike Mulcahy, Dr. Mohammed Sar- tawi. With this being said, we are hoping this conference will be the first of its kind and we plan on having this running every two years in the future. Dr. Jassim, you are a dentist yourself. Could you share some of your personal ex- perience? I have been working as a dentist for the last 12 years and I find that it is a very nice but a challenging profession. You have to be pre- pared for a lot of challenges when approach- ing situations. Not everybody can be a den- tist, you have to work hard and bear in mind that at some stage you will have some back pains and headaches due to the positions in which you work! Being a dentist on its own is a specialty. What are your thoughts of the Dental Mar- ket here in the Middle East? I think it is blowing up very, very quick- ly, even in Oman. However, the prob- lem in Oman is that until now we did not have many specialists, we need to not only encourage but support dentists to pur- sue further education and chose a special- ty. My opinion is to support them because not many people can do this by themselves. Many dentists require sponsorships in or- der to go abroad as it is expensive. If den- tists had more opportunities to study abroad for sure they will do so. What can you say about the education in Oman, at the moment? As you mention some of the top Dental Schools from UAE will have their deans lecturing at your event in Febru- ary such as Professor Fergusson and Profes- sor Wray. Is UAE an example for Oman re- garding the development of Dental Schools? Yes, to an extent. We have only one dental school at the moment that was established six years back only with the first group of graduates completing just this year. We are hoping that both the size and quality will in- crease over the coming years in Oman. Dr. Jasim, is there anything else you would like to address to the readers of DTMEA? Dear Dental Professionals. We invite you to visit our conference in the lovely city of Mus- cat, Sultanate of Oman for the Oman Inter- national Dental Conference 2013 on 27th & 28th of February, 2013. We hope that you will be part of this historic event and join us for many years to come in Muscat. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Jasim, we wish you all the best for your conference and in all your fu- ture events. 17Dental tribune Middle East & Africa Edition | March-April 2013 politics