DentMan Conference goes global

In its 9th successive year, the student led ‘DentMan’ conference took place in February, attended by over 200 staff, students and oral healthcare professionals from both the University of Manchester and the University of Ghana.

Professor Raj Ariyaratnam, the founder and patron of DentMan began by explaining the purpose and scope of the conference.

“Our University of Manchester was founded on the principle of civic engagement in the early part of 19th century, and it is now further expanded and has strengthened its community commitment by introducing social responsibility as a core value in addition to research and teaching. We are strategically looking at the question of “What we are good for?”

“With this vision in mind our students in dentistry are encouraged to explore our pioneering humanising dentistry concept and given enough freedom and space for them to engage with the community through structured outreach programmes and to further reach out the local and global society through their volunteering programmes.”

He further explained “Humanising Dentistry Healthcare programme have successfully interwoven service-learning into the dental curriculum and positively interlocked the student learning experience with combating oral health inequalities in Manchester and beyond.

“We encouraged students to take initiatives and leadership in oral health care-related volunteering.They led and performed exceedingly well locally with hard-to-reach communities, schools and homeless people, refugees and ethnic migrants with language barriers, the LGBT+ community. They have engaged globally with thousands of people in need under the supervision of local dentists in fifteen low- and middle-income countries for the last 9 years. The DentMan conference is a platform for them to celebrate and share their volunteering experiences with others and to inspire future generation of volunteers.” Professor Ariyaratnam, continued.

Topics covered throughout the day included widening participation workshops with local schools through projects such as Manchester Outreach Dentists and Manchester Paediatric Students Society as well as with vulnerable groups through first Language projects, and global volunteering and the University’s Stellify Awards. A particular highlight was a talk by Dr. Dromor Quartey, an oral medicine specialist working in Accra, Ghana who shared her volunteering experience with DentMan community.

Dental students organised and chaired the sessions brilliantly and the participation of students and staff from the University of Ghana gave the event a global dimension.

You can find out more about the DentMan initiative via their Facebook page.