ADEE Secretary General

Hello, my name is Barry Quinn, and I am Clinical Senior Lecturer in Simulation and Team-based Education/Hon Consultant in Restorative Dentistry, with the Faculty of Dentistry, Oral and craniofacial Sciences, King’s College London.

It was a great honour to accept the position of Secretary General of ADEE on the 1^st January 2021, particularly when I reviewed the past incumbents.

This is a difficult and very challenging time for dental education, being a member of ADEE has never been more important as a means of ensuring we remain connected to our international colleagues and share our learning. It is in this mind-set that I reach out to you with a new initiative on the ADEE website, the Secretary Generals’ V/Blog. We envisage this as a regular update to you our members on Executive Committee discussions and meetings so that you can keep informed and indeed drive your association’s direction and activities. 

Before I update on the January meeting of the Executive, I would like to first acknowledge and thank Prof Cristina Manzanares, my predecessor in the role for her dedication, commitment, and passion for the work of ADEE. Over her 5-year term Cristina has given tirelessly to ADEE and indeed she continues to do so in a new role of European Affairs officer. 

This role of European Affairs Officer is one of the new roles introduced into the Executive for 2021. The role recognises the importance of the EU for ADEE but ADEE also recognises that many of our members come from non-EU countries.

A second new role introduced to the Executive is the position of regional attaches, Mid East and Far East. The creation of these roles is reflection of ADEE growing spread beyond Europe and it is only right that these members too have a voice within the formal structure and functions of ADEE. It is a pleasure to welcome Prof Michael Bothelo (Far East) and Dr Jean Michel SEEAD (Mid East) to the Executive. 

All these changes within the Executive are part of a wider review of ADEE membership, structure and of our constitution. This project led for the Executive by Prof Rui Amaral Mendes from Portugal and myself, proposes a new regional structure for ADEE that clusters members in to regional groups. This is to ensure Executive membership, regional meetings and indeed activity focus is representative of our membership. We invite you to visit the dedicate webpage for this and to keep an eye out for local and regional webinar information sessions planned for later in the spring.

Returning to our January meeting as you would expect the impact of COVID 19 on ADEE and our members was a key in our ongoing discussions. 

1. We are aware from members of diverse approaches within the region on how schools can respond to COVID restrictions and continue to deliver quality education to our students. There are also concerns around the decreased level of clinical contact time that is feasible to deliver while complying with COVID restrictions locally. The executive has decided to carry out a survey of our membership on how they are currently managing this difficult situation, the survey will be available online in Mid-February and will issue via email to all institutional leads. The findings will be published in an upcoming edition of the EJDE
2. While the ADEE office and Executive are doing all within their power to deliver face to face content during 2021, we are also taking a realistic approach and preparing considerable elements of our annual meeting to move to a hybrid style meeting. A full update will be issued in Mid-February around the Strasbourg plans, call for abstracts and how you can participate in a safe and effective manner.
3. This was the first formal meeting of the 2021 executive committee having had induction meeting in Nov and Dec 2020. The executive is now composed of six officer positions, two regional attaches and 3 members. Along with myself those currently serving are:
   1. President Prof Ilze Akota Latvia
   2. President Elect Prof Pal Barkvol Norway
   3. Secretary General Dr Barry Quinn
   4. Treasurer Prof Julia Davies Sweden
   5. Editor in Chief Dr Ronald Gorter Netherland
   6. European Affairs Prof Cristina Manzanares Spain
   7. Members, Prof Sybille Vital France, Prof Rui Amaral Mendes Portugal, Dr James Field UK, Prof. Ina Schüler Germany, Dr Upen Patel UK
   8. Regional Attaches Prof Michael Bothelo Hong Kong, Dr Jean Michel Saade Lebanon
4. Online content and increasing collaboration will remain a key feature of ADEE activities in 2021. We wish to thank most sincerely the corporate partners who continue to support our work at this difficult time, in particular we would like to mention thanks to AMGEN, COLGATE, DENTSPLYSIRONA, GSK, SIM2 CARE, HRV AND TWO TEN HEALTH.  We remain open to discussion with all corporate partners and members and will work tirelessly to enable a meaningful online experience for our users. 

We expect to issue this blog approximately 4 times a year. Do not hesitate to contact us with your ideas and suggestions particularly if you would like us to address a particular issue in an upcoming update.

I wish you all a safe and productive new year, knowing that you are doing your best for our future dental colleagues in their education. Please be mindful of your own well being and I wish to thank you all again for offering me this position as Secretary General of the Association of Dental Education in Europe.

Barry Quinn