Share your successes, dentists urged

BDA chair launches ‘We Are Dentistry’ campaign at annual conference

23 June, 2017 / infocus

BDA chair Mick Armstrong. Courtesy of the British Dental Association 2017

The chair of the British Dental Association (BDA) has called on the dental profession to share their stories and show the difference they are making in their communities.

Speaking during his keynote address at the recent British Dental Conference and Exhibition, Mick Armstrong launched the “We are Dentistry” campaign by calling on members of the profession to take pride in their achievements and set out their “remarkable contribution to UK healthcare”.

He said: “This last year has demonstrated that as a profession we must define ourselves clearly. When others would cast us as tax collectors, border guards, mechanics or shopkeepers, it falls to us, the clinicians, to show what matters, and that our patients come first.

We are a profession succeeding in spite of everything

Mick Armstrong

“We are a profession succeeding in spite of everything, in the absence of strategy or priority from government, beset by failed contracts, red tape and overregulation.

“Ours is a story of over 40,000 men and women doing exceptional things every day, in patient care and in cutting-edge research, from community clinics to Harley Street; highly trained professionals juggling multiple roles.

“So we are posing colleagues a simple question: What is a dentist? The answer is so much more than a practising certificate, a number on the GDC register, or an allotment of UDAs on a government database. Your answers will help us celebrate the teachers, the entrepreneurs and the innovators, the researchers, the leaders and the problem-solvers who make up this profession.”