APO delegates participate in Korean Association of Orthodontists 46TH Scientific Congress in Jeju Island, Korea

By: Dr. Diana Dorothy Lim

APO President Dr. Laarni Serraon represented APO in the recent KAO scientific meeting in Jeju Island, Korea last October 31-Nov 2, 2013. With her were Dr. Diana Lim, Dr. Dennis Lim, Dr. Bernie Lim, Dr. Patrick Chua, Dr. Pam Bondoc and 3 other post-graduate students of the University of the East. There were approximately 700 registered local delegates with some foreign guests from Taiwan, China, Philippines, Argentina and the United States. The main theme of the meeting is “Fact or Fiction: Evidence-based Orthodontics” with Dr. Greg Huang (University of Washington) as the keynote speaker.

Other special lectures regarding self-ligating brackets were given by two invited speakers Dr. Ki-Beom Kim (Saint Louis University) and Dr. Frank Bogdan (New Jersey, USA). Most of the speakers were Koreans who are now teaching and heading some orthodontic programs abroad. A symposium on “Digital Orthodontics” was held featuring renowned orthodontists from Korea, Japan and the United States discussing the cutting edge digital technologies applied to many clinical orthodontic fields. Additional features such as E-poster presentation, table clinics and a charity art exhibition highlighted the meeting. They extended an invitation for the gala night and a half-day city tour to Dr. Laarni Serraon and Dr. Diana Lim together with their other foreign guests.

We met Dr. Allan Thom, President-elect of the World Federation of Orthodontists in this  event. He warmly invites us to promote and send a delegation to the upcoming IOC in London come 2015. He told us to inform all the post-graduate students to take advantage of their promotional efforts to give free membership up to 2015 and to avail of the discounted students price for the congress. Pre-registration for the said congress for WFO members will be up to December 31, 2013. We just have to register and pay on-line.

This meeting was truly a great opportunity for academic growth and to develop stronger ties with our Korean colleagues in the field of orthodontics. We thank the officers and organizing committee of KAO for their warm hospitality.