KARACHI- Fatima Jinnah Dental College (FJDC) started the pre-celebrations of its auspicious 25 years of excellence as a dental college by arranging a periodontal seminar and workshop. The force behind this endeavour to promote periodontology in Karachi was Dr Baqar, Dr Tasleem, Dr Saqib, Dr Inayat and Dr Babar. The main conference will follow at the end of the year which will have alumni of FJDC attending, and dentists and consultants worldwide will come together to celebrate.
The seminar was held at the preclinical Korangi campus, and featured Dr Ashar Jamelle, Assistant Professor Periodontology FJDC and Dr Zohaib Akram, Senior Registrar from Ziauddin University. The audience consisted of postgraduate students, general dentists and students from the numerous medical colleges of Karachi, all keen and enthusiastic to learn about this relatively neglected subject.
The Chief Guest of the event was Dr Baqar Askari, CEO FJDC. The proceedings started with the recitation of the Holy Quran. FJDC was lauded for its efforts in producing numerous postgraduates and graduates and staying at the forefront in regards to cutting edge dentistry over 25 years. Periodontology was then outlined as a neglected subject and dearth of postgraduates in a population which has seen an alarming rise of periodontal diseases due to the risk factors being prevalent in our society and both speakers stressed on this issue. The fact that obesity, diabetes, genetics, smoking, stress, and poor oral hygiene are factors which are extensively present in our society, make this disease’s incidence markedly high. The first speaker Dr Zohaib Akram, Senior Registrar who has done his Masters in Periodontology from Malaya University. He spoke about various links found in periodontology and systemic diseases. He spoke about various complicated clinical cases he had come across in his practice, and discussed how they can be treated.
The next speaker was Dr Ashar Jamelle. He has been conducting various lectures around Karachi trying to raise awareness regarding periodontal disease, and recently even presented in the International Asia Pacific Conference, representing Pakistan in Malaysia and discussing innovations of Periodontology. He will also be speaking about Periodontology in the FDI conference in Spain in September. He emphasised on prevention of periodontal disease and how to reinforce oral hygiene instructions for success of any treatment. He continued by highlighting the diseases and bacteria which cause it. He later talked about his wide array of surgical and non-surgical cases which captivated the audience. The emphasis on regeneration was a favourite of the listeners and the discussion pertaining to aesthetics regarding periodontology was well received. Tips and secrets on how to enhance practise and how to reach predictable results was also spoken about.
He also spoke about new future technology in periodontology, and his talk was followed by an interactive question answer session. Later, shields were distributed to the speakers by the honourable chief guest and then he concluded the session. His speech outlined how students of Fatima Jinnah have gone on to become beacons, and are leading the way. He reminisced about how the tide turns when once Dr Ashar was a student and now he has moved forward to teach. Then lunch was served.
The workshop was conducted on the same day and was very well attended. The participants were keen to learn new ways of treatment and diagnosis. An in-depth problem-solving session on regeneration was conducted. Participants were shown how to identify the cases and how to correctly diagnose it which can be difficult at times. The participants were then shown regeneration procedures and procedures of furcations, and various flaps on goat heads and how to suture after performing the surgery.
Each participant had their own goat head and performed the procedures independently under strict supervision of the facilitators .The participants were very pleased by all the new acumen and dissemination of knowledge they had received and the insight shared by the facilitators. They will be planning more workshops in the future regarding all other various surgical procedures.
