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Return to the Spring 2023 Newsletter AAOM Membership and Members HighlightsResearch and friendship through AAOM
Dental specialist, PhD, DDS, MSc (clinical dentistry) Doctor in charge of general anesthesia dental care Quality physician Helsinki University Hospital, Head and Neck Center, Oral and Maxillofacial Diseases
We (Dr. Sajish Kuriakose from the USA, Dr. Alexander Luke from UAE, and Dr. Jaana Helenius-Hietala from Finland) all attended the AAOM annual meeting in 2022 in Memphis and, through the conference app, got the idea to form a discussion group. We did not know each other before. Dr. Simy Matthew from UAE joined us later. After the AAOM meeting, we started regular weekly online meetings via Zoom. We decided to discuss dental management in organ transplant patients. We shared research papers, compared various protocols, and noted that there is no clear, universal guideline on this topic. That led to the decision that we wanted to start a questionnaire study regarding the dental treatment of organ transplant patients, and our ultimate aim is to form a dental guideline for this specific, immunocompromised patient group. We built up the questionnaire step by step during our weekly meetings (every Wednesday). Dr. Nathaniel Treister and Dr. Michael Siegel kindly provided several suggestions to improve the survey. Secretary Kathleen Hagen from NSU helped us to formulate the REDCap electronic online survey. Finally, the survey was ready, and we all applied for IRB’s from our respective Institutions. Less than a year after our initial meeting, we got research approvals for the survey! Our research started in February 2023 and is currently still going on. We were happy to present a pilot study of the preliminary results during this year’s annual AAOM meeting in Savannah. Our international collaboration has been wonderful, and we all look forward to our weekly online meetings despite our busy schedules. In addition to discussing our research, we have become good friends. Without AAOM, this would not have happened!
QR Code for the survey
During Zoom meeting May 17, 2023
Drs. Alex Luke and Jaana Helenius-Hietala, Poster presentation Savannah, Georgia
From left to right: Meeting in Florida: Drs. Jaana Helenius-Hietala, Sajish Kuriakose, and Kathleen Hagen |
