MDS participation at the Universitas 21 Health Science Group, Mexico 2021

The Universitas 21 (U21) Health Sciences Group (HSG) Annual Meeting took place recently (13-15 September), with the theme of ‘Prevention, Wellbeing and Longevity in a Post-Covid World’.

The meeting was hosted by Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico and presented in a virtual format. Recordings of the sessions via the conference platform can be accessed here.

In addition to the core sessions, the meeting included the International Doctoral Student Forum; the Sustainable Development Goals Group Forum; the Clinical Simulation Workshop and the Interprofessional Education Group Forum, as well as other events and activities.

The MDS had a key presence, particularly in the Dentistry Group activities.  The Group had two sessions, the first session with a presentation on the topic: ‘How dentists perceive and address unique patient communication challenges in general dental practice’ by Ms. Darina Nirmalann. Darina is an Oral Health Therapist in the final year of her PhD candidature at the University of Melbourne. Her presentation was well received and was followed by a lively Q&A session.

In the second session, there were short presentations from Dentistry group members who shared experiences of Dentistry education during the pandemic.  Presentations in this session were from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, the Tecnológico de Monterrey, and the University of Melbourne.

Prof Rodrigo Mariño, Chair of the U21 HSG Dentistry group, presented in one of the plenaries on: ‘The Post-Covid World: Leaving no one behind’ and participated in a panel discussion on Interprofessional Reflections on Covid Changes, with panellist from the Tecnológico de Monterrey, The Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.

Professor Mariño paid tribute Dr Anu Poster and to Ms Darina Nirmalann for their presentations at the Dentistry Group meeting. Additionally, he recognised the participation of doctoral students (Darina Nirmalann, Claudia Atala and Andre Pride) who presented in the Doctoral Forum.

Next year’s U21 Health Sciences Group Annual Meeting will be hosted by the University of Auckland, Auckland, NZ. For more information click here.

Further details of the Dentistry group are available on the U21 HSG website where the group have their own webpage.