Gaining Hands-On Experience

Author: Casey Gale       

tablecliniclargeSometimes conference themes are so aspirational that there’s no direct correlation between the message and the event programming. Not so with the 10th World Congress for Oral Implantology & AAID Global Conference, held last Nov. 11–13, at the Leela Ambience Convention Hotel in New Delhi, India.

The congress delivered on its “Global Fusion: Bridging the Barriers for Implant Excellence” theme with live Masters Table Clinics — interactive demonstrations — held throughout the program. These clinics helped bridge a knowledge-transfer gap common in conferences: Information is presented in one direction, by presenters to a passive audience. Experiential-learning opportunities, on the other hand, have proven to be a more engaging way for attendees to gain expertise.

Though live dentistry presentations sound as though they could easily go awry, Naveen Rizvi, regional director of India & Indian Ocean, Pacific World — known locally as ICE – Integrated Conference & Event Management — said the sessions went off without a hitch.

How It Worked
Experts in implantology from around the world — including Germany, India, France, Lebanon, U.K., Singapore, and the United States – held 13 separate table clinic sessions on everything from ridge expansion to maxillary sinus grafting at the congress. Each session included a 40-minute presentation and an hour-and-a-half live demonstration, followed by a hands-on session for up to an hour that allowed participant doctors to practice the new techniques they learned on specially made models.

The sessions limited the number of attendees “for easy interaction,” Rizvi said. Though the congress hosted 1,300 attendees this year, only 15-40 participants were allowed a seat at each of the table clinics, which could be reserved ahead of the event.

The clinics fully engaged the participants — and the presenters, according to Rizvi, who said that they felt they were able to better teach attendees than in a typical presentation. “The doctors really enjoyed it because, for them, it’s the perfect opportunity to showcase their talent,” he said. “Live demonstrations at such kinds of conferences always win.”

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