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Dental Tribune South African Edition

5Local NewsDental Tribune South African Edition - October 2013 Chris Jenkins The Wright-Millners Dental Training Facility (DTF) at their Johannesburg offices provides lecturers and students with a state of the art and fully equipped learning facility to further their dental skills and knowledge. Opened on the 19th of May 2011, many doctors, companies, technicians and university students have made use of the facility. There are a number of different areas each with their own function and are all linked to a live video and audio feed. For example, if a surgery is in process in the dental surgery it can be viewed and listened to throughout the facility. The areas include: the boardroom, the showroom, the sterilisation area, the dental surgery and the techniques area. In addition, there is also the digital imaging suit. Each area has its own equipment specific to its function. As stated above the facility has top of the range equipment provided by Wright-Millners. Equipment within the facility includes: the Carestream corner with a 3D panoramic unit, RVG digital sensor and a 1500 intra oral camera, 18 Zeiss Microscopes in the techniques area, NSK electric micro motors with red and blue ring hand pieces also in the techniques area, a B class autoclave and a Statim cassette for infection control, a mobile Zeiss microscope and an A-dec 500 dental chair. The DTF hosts numerous courses each year and is open 7 days a week. Courses vary from endodontics to aesthetic and restorative dentistry as well as courses for dental assistants. It has basic amenities available and can also be used for launches and other events. A typical course consists of about 14-18 delegates, however, depending Wright-Millners Dental Training Facility Live Surgery in Session.Fully operational surgery featuring the stylish A-dec 500. on the course and what it entails the facility can accommodate up to 60 people. For more information about the Dental Training Facility please visit their website: www.millners.co.za or speak to Tanith Oram: Tanith@Wright-Millners.co.za. DT Professor Errol Stein SASO prides itself in regularly bringing the very best lecturers and academics on the international circuit to present courses to its members in South Africa. Over the past 49 years the list of international speakers coming to share their knowledge and expertise reads like a veritable catalogue of “who’s who” in the world of orthodontics. Foremost among those are: Cecil Steiner, Reed Holdaway, Bill Crockatt, Howard Lang, Bob Goshgarian, Hal Perry, Don Woodside, Bill Proffit, Eugene Roberts, Bob Ricketts, Bjorn Zachrisson, Charles Burstone, Hans Pancherz .....the list is practically endless! The guest-speaker at the Annual Congress of the South African Society of Orthodontics held at Mount Grace Country Resort during August of this year was Dr Gerry Samson who hails from Marietta (near Atlanta, Georgia USA) where he has a flourishing orthodontic practice. An outstanding teacher, he is in constant demand as a speaker on the international lecture programme. His university teaching duties include associate professorships at St Louis University, Case Western University and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and he is an adjunct professor at the University of Texas, San Antonio. He also is a guest lecturer at seven other universities in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and China. SASO was fore-warned that Gerry’s lectures would be authoritative, clinically relevant, and exceptionally entertaining. Given his high level of expertise, it was anticipated that his biomechanics lectures would perhaps prove to be the most valuable and most beneficial. Delegates were in no way disappointed as Dr. Samson’s presentations on biomechanics did what would seem to be almost impossible - they made clinical biomechanics “come alive” in an interesting, innovative, and highly informative manner. Samson’s lectures were punctuated by antics, theatrics, occasionally edgy humor, audience participation, and a dollop or two of 1960's rock ‘n’ roll music effectively used to turn the glassy-eyed into energized learners. In discussing his unique presentation style, Gerry explained: “Most people find a lecture on the subject of biomechanics very difficult to absorb, let alone tolerate. Their response is to either fall asleep or fidget. But as difficult as biomechanics is to learn, it's also perhaps the most important thing of all for an orthodontist to know. The way I overcome the barriers to learning this - or any subject, for that matter - is by teaching in the most entertaining and informative fashion possible. The hardest thing about teaching biomechanics is getting people to actually visualize how all these forces act and react,” he said. To achieve this end, Samson used computer-generated graphics during the course of his lectures together with comically painted plywood replicas of molars and incisors. “These teeth are almost like puppets that I move this way and SASO show-cases famed international speaker at Mount Grace Congress during August 2013 Dr Gerald Samson, keynote speaker (right) with Drs Mark Weirtheimer (left) and Steven Flax (center). that to illustrate Newton's Third Law of Equilibrium, which is at the heart of biomechanics,” he explained. And if that wasn't enough to rivet the audience, the wild-haired Samson periodically unleashed 9-second-long snippets of Golden Oldies hits from his high school days. "The music comes up without warning and, when it does, I start bopping around the stage like a rock musician. I do this to give people’s brains a sort of seventh-inning stretch. It's a very effective way to immediately refresh and refocus people's attention before moving on to another part of the presentation.” Over two-and-a-half days Gerry held his audience of some 85 delegates totally captivated by his infectious humour, warmth and friendliness, as well his exceptional ability to unravel the mysteries of complicated engineering principles in order to transform these into easily understood clinical pearls. DT