The year of 2017 has been very active and productive for our collaborative project! We would like to thank very much to you, all the collaborators, for the efforts you carried out inorder to make oral pathology more visible and to increase the quality of teaching and research in this field. Each of you had a significant role in our common effort! Knowing how busy everyone’s days are, we appreciate very much your contribution to our project. Many activities have been initiated between our institutions and are in full progress now. Lets’ keep up this active spirit and continue with the good work on improving our teaching curriculum and increasing the awareness on oral diseases! Many thanks also to the administrative and IT personnel for your great efforts!
Merry Christmas and best wishes for 2018 to all of you!
Best regards, Daniela Elena Costea and Diana Uncuta, project coordinators.
Workshop and Oral Pathology Awareness Day, 2-7 September 2017
Chisinau, State University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Moldova
The kickoff workshop for our project took place at State University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Chisinau, Moldova (pictures bellow). The program has been very intensive, and the discussions were heated at times, but at the end of the workshop we had agreed on the knowledge and skills that a graduate student in dentistry should possess in the field of oral pathology. There is intensive work in progress done by assoc. prof. Tine Søland and dr. Elisabeth Nginamau in order to publish as soon as possible the manuscript stating our intentions in this respect. The workshop ended with a full day of lectures on various topics of oral pathology for both graduate and postgraduate students and staff at State University of Medicine and Pharmacy. Special thanks to the local organizers, who made us feel very welcome and provided the optimal conditions for exchange of ideas and discussions, as well as to the leadership of the university who has been very supportive towards our initiative!
Acquisition of microscopes
Microscopes are essential for our field of work and our project, and unfortunately, their acquisition was not easy! However, despite logistic challenges, we have managed to acquire good quality microscopes both at Department of Pathology at State University of Medicine and Pharmacy ‘Nicolae Testemitanu’, Chisinau, Moldova (picture) and at Yerevan State Medical University, Armenia. The papers are in processing for acquiring the microscope at Belarusian State Medical University. Many thanks to prof. Eugen Melnic, prof. Marina Markaryan, assoc. prof. Tatiana Bich and economy consultant Håvard Aass for the tedious paper work that was required for this!
Staff and students’ mobility
We are very glad that both master and PhD students have started their exchange periods this year! The first exchange, involving both staff and PhD students, took place between University of Tromsø and Belarusian State Medical University, within the project on the topic of resistance to antibiotics lead by assoc. prof Mohammed Al-Haroni. PhD candidate Volha Zabelina from Belarusian State Medical University is currently guest researcher for one year at the laboratory of assoc. prof. Al-Haroni. We thank assoc. prof. Al-Haroni for being such an enthusiast and supporter of our project!
We are also very pleased that three master (dentistry) and bachelor (dental hygienist) students from University of Bergen (Maria Helene Hagen, Olga Golburean and Aud Kristine Deila, pictures bellow) are now in Chisinau, performing interviews and distributing questionnaires to dental students and dentists there. This is part of the large collaborative study aiming to provide information about knowledge, attitudes and practices related to prevention of oral diseases among dentists and dental students in Moldova, Belarus and Armenia. Special thanks to assoc. prof. Ferda Gulcan, the leader of the dental hygienist education at University of Bergen, who is the motor behind this project, as well as to local coordinators assoc. prof. D Uncuta in Chisinau, prof. N Shakavets in Minsk and assoc.prof. G Manrikyan in Yerevan!
On line course in oral pathology
There is intensive work in progress for the development of the on line courses in oral pathology and experimental methods in oral pathology. Special thanks to prof. Anne Christine Johannessen from University of Bergen, who is coordinating this activity, as well as to IT consultant Helge Opedal from IT department at University of Bergen, who is providing excellent IT support for the development of on line courses using open source software! We are looking forward to have the course in use during the year 2018.
Further activities
We are looking forward for the visits and discussions of delegations from Yerevan State Medical University, Armenia, and from State University of Medicine and Pharmacy ‘Nicolae Testemitanu’, Chisinau, Moldova, who will visit Norway 19-24 January 2018, and 6-14 April 2018, respectively. Visits to Institute of Oral Biology at University of Oslo and Department of Pathology at Rikshospitalet are planned in Oslo and assoc. prof. Tine Søland and assoc. pro. Dipak Sapkota will be the hosts there. Visits at Institute for Clinical Dentistry and Dental Hygienists Educational Program, as well as at Department of Pathology, University of Bergen and Haukeland University Hospital are planned afterwards. We are looking forward for discussions on both the community density and prevention of oral diseases project lead by assoc. prof Ferda Gulcan, as well as on the cancer project ‘Defining molecular subtypes of oral, gynecological and uroepithelial cancers by integrative stromal and inflammatory landscape analysis’ lead by prof. Daniela Elena Costea. The delegation from Moldova is also planning to visit University of Tromsø and to attend the workshop on antibiotics resistance that assoc. prof. Al-Haroni is organizing there 4-6 April.
Further student exchanges are planned to take place in 2018 between Belarusian State Medical University and University of Tromsø and University of Bergen, but the dates are not yet settled.
Dates to remember
Please note the tentative dates for the next workshop: 29 May – 2 June 2018, at Yerevan State Medical University, Armenia. We look forward to see as many of you as possible there!