RSU Organised Conference Dedicated to 100 Years of Dental Education
The international conference 100 Years of Dental Education in Latvia took place in the Great Hall of Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU) on Friday, 7 October. The conference brought practicing dentists, dental hygienists, maxillofacial surgeons, and other specialists together, as well as students of these fields.
The conference, which gathered experts from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Norway, and the USA, looked at the history of dental education and discussed its future, highlighting international trends and challenges.
The opening of the conference was attended by around 750 participants. RSU Rector, Professor Aigars Pētersons, the Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Ilmārs Dūrītis, and the Minister of Education and Science Anita Muižniece spoke at the opening.
The conference agenda was divided into three sessions. In the first session, Mārtiņš Vesperis and Maija Pozemkovska, experts from the Pauls Stradiņš Museum of the History of Medicine gave a historical overview of the development of dental education in Latvia, while Associate Professor Andris Ābeltiņš, the Dean of the RSU Faculty of Dentistry, outlined current and future trends. Pål Barkvol from the European Dental Education Association and Professor Ilze Akota spoke about the European perspective on the education of oral health professionals.
The second session of the conference focused on the importance of international cooperation. Lithuanian and Finnish experts explored the benefits of membership in the International Dental Research Association, which has RSU Professor Ilze Akota on the board. Representatives from the University of Tartu, the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, and Vilnius University presented their views on the training of future dentists in their countries. Meanwhile, a representative from the University at Buffalo, with which RSU is developing cooperation in both continuing dental education and biomaterials research, offered a perspective on dental education in the USA. Ilze Šalma, Assistant Professor at the RSU Institute of Stomatology, presented the Baltic Biomaterials Centre of Excellence, a promising international cooperation platform.
Dentistry is one of the fields where education does not stop at graduation. Professor Anda Brinkmane spoke about implementing continuing education programmes in the final session of the conference. To round off the conference, the long-standing Director of the Institute of Stomatology, Professor Ilga Urtāne, presented the institute’s development plans and the audience was introduced to the scientific achievements of the departments of the RSU Faculty of Dentistry.
For more information, please visit the RSU website.
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