New President of the British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry (BASCD)
28 September 2020
Maria Morgan, Senior Lecturer in dental public health at Cardiff University’s School of Dentistry and Hon Specialist in Public Health at Public Health Wales became President of the British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry (BASCD) at a virtual AGM on Thursday the 24th September, 2020.
Maria who originally trained in nutrition, has worked in dental public health in Wales since 1997, leading the work of the Welsh Oral Health Information Unit based in Cardiff - overseeing the national epidemiology programme, monitoring Designed to Smile and Gwen Am Byth, is the first non-clinical public health specialist to be President of this prestigious society.
Maria said “I feel really honoured to be the first non-clinical President of BASCD, a society which I hold in high regard and one that has meant a great deal to my own personal development. If you consider the formal definition of public health notably the “science and art” part, I want my tenure to champion the fact that we are a multi-disciplinary society helping to solve multifaceted problems.”
Maria is also registered as a specialist with the UKPHR and a fellow of the Faculty of Public Health and during her presidency she hopes that there will be closer collaboration between the three organisations.
BASCD strives to promote positive oral health, prevent oral disease and address inequalities. Members include dental public health consultants, members of the Community Dental Services teams, and non-clinical personnel from related fields (nutrition, psychology, sociology, statistics etc.)
Maria said “2020 has been an interesting year to say the least. We have all had to cope with personal and professional curve balls. I was so disappointed that I was unable to welcome you to Cardiff in April for my presidential conference; I do hope that we can convene in my home city next year.”
In the meantime, a webinar series entitled Evidence, Policy and Practice, the realities of COVID-19 and dentistry is to be held over 3 evenings on 2, 3, 4 December 2020. For more information please visit: http://www.bascd.org/conferences-and-events/ .