Annual Dental Alumni Association weekend takes place in London

The 2023 Dental Alumni Association weekend took place this year in early March.

Over two days, encompassing the Annual Dinner (Friday March 3) and Clinical Day (Saturday March 4), the prestigious two-day programme provides an important opportunity for former and present members of staff and students to meet, as well as show-case high calibre presentations in clinical dentistry from both internal and external speakers.

Alumni Dinner - March 3 2023

The Tower Hotel was the venue for this year’s Alumni Dinner. With some spectacular views of London Bridge, the drinks reception and meal included a performance by KCL Bhangra.

Dental Alumni Association President Professor Francis Hughes was unable to attend the evening as he was recovering from ill health but his hard work with the organisation of the evening, along with the fabulous Agnes Kwong from the Alumni office, certainly paid off. There were tables of alumni from King’s ’82, Guy’s ’91, ’97 and ’98. A table of fourth year students kindly assisted with raffle ticket sales and mingled amongst the guests convivially.

Vincent Barrett (Past President) and Charlie Spedding (President Elect) stepped in to introduce the evening and introduce the Executive Dean, Prof. Michael Escudier.

The prestigious alumni awards were awarded by Prof Stephen Challacombe:

• Alumnus of the Year, 2023, awarded posthumously to Professor John Radford and received by his brother Dr David Radford and John’s son, Thomas Radford. They gave speeches of thanks acknowledging what a great man Prof John Radford had been and thanking the Alumni Association for the recognition of this. Those from the class of ’91 were particularly delighted to be able to witness this as they had been students of John’s in Phantom head in ’88 and feel indebted to him.
• Distinguished Service Award 2023 was awarded to Dr Lyndon Cabot. This was the second time he received this prestigious award.

Clinical Day - March 4

Clinical day was held in the Tower Lecture Theatre in Guy’s Tower, with Professor Francis Hughes hosting.

The lecture programme was opened by Professor Jonathan Shepherd, an alumnus of KCSMD and winner of the 2021 alumnus of the year award, who delivered the Rod Cawson Lecture on 'Violence prevention: evidence informed alternatives to ‘a tooth for a tooth’. As a clinical academic who qualified from KCSMS fifty years ago, Professor Shepherd has had a distinguished career in profiling trauma, influencing policy and delivering primary, secondary and tertiary prevention.

This was followed by fascinating presentations from Nima Kassenpour on delivering care to people in Sierra Leone, and from Khaleda Zaheer who has been working with Rohingyan refugees in Bangladesh.

A mini symposium was delivered from staff and alumni on making dentistry more sustainable. It was really encouraging to hear of the entrepreneurial actions of our alumni Davinder Raju and Simon Chard.

The final lecture was delivered by Dr Saoirse O’Toole on Monitoring Intraoral change using digital scanners (Walter Herbert Lecture). An enlightening lecture that we look forward to hearing more about in future.

The presidency was handed over to Charlie Spedding at the end of the Annual General Meeting.

Following the Deans lunch, there was an opportunity to join tours of the clinical and simulation teaching facilities which included hands-on demonstrations. The alumni were very impressed by the technology which was demonstrated superbly by Dr Melanie Nasseripour.

The organisers would like to thank all who participated and attended this successful event, and look to welcome all back for the 2024 event to be held on Friday 1st and Saturday 2nd March.