Welcome

We are proud to welcome you to the 2024 AANZP Biennial Scientific Meeting, “Prosthodontics 2024: Disruptive Technologies and Innovations in Practice, Education and Life”. Our venue is Kimpton Margot Sydney, an exquisite boutique hotel positioned in the heart of the Sydney CBD.

 

Our theme characterises the curiosities and challenges we face as individuals and organisations during this era of data-driven change, and extends the tradition of AANZP Biennial Scientific Meetings of capturing those aspects of professional life relevant to all members.

 

The Scientific Program features elegant and sophisticated futuristic works alongside prosthodontic clinical and research excellence. We have reprised the traditional format of sessions dedicating ample time for clinical, technical and technological themes in combination with multidisciplinary, educational and non-dental content. A Preconference Workshop is available for all Delegates

 

Attending Delegates will be able to record 18 Continuing Professional Development hours.

 

Industry partners have 40% of the Program Schedule to interact with delegates outside of lectures.

 

We are proud to launch a recursive acknowledgment of the distinguished service of past and present significant AANZP Members. For this BSM, our opening presentation will be named, “The John Locke Oration”, in honour of one of AANZP’s finest leaders and a clinician and person of great reputation.

 

Associate Professor Alireza Sadr, of University of Washington School of Dentistry, is an international leader in research utilising Optical Coherence Tomography, and our 2024 AANZP BSM Keynote Speaker for The John Locke Oration. We are thrilled to host Ali and he leads a phenomenal faculty of presenters.

 

Here you will find our Program Schedule and a synopsis of each session. Industry has shown great support and we have reached capacity of our Trade Exhibition. As the Scientific Program features only unsponsored presenters, industry organisations have an option to nominate Prosthodontists from outside Australia and New Zealand to attend the Scientific Program as guest delegates. Registration for a limited number of unsponsored international delegates is also available, with a limit of 30pax. AANZP has secured a number of guest rooms at Kimpton Margot Sydney and these are available for registered attendees at special corporate rates.

 

 

AANZP Scientific Committee

Dr Sundar Varadharajan  

Dr Graham Carmichael  

Dr Adam Hamilton  

Dr Ken Hooi (Chair)  

AANZP Biennial Scientific Meeting

2022 AANZP Biennial Scientific Meeting at Melbourne’s RACV Club, in July 2022, brought members and industry partners together with invited speakers following the Covid-19 pandemic hiatus. Its theme and program, “The 3 Ps of Prosthodontics: Perfection, Pragmatism and Progression”, was developed by Scientific Chair Dr Phil Yeung, Melbourne Prosthodontist, following the success of the previous conference.

 

In July 2018,  “Vision, Experience and Leadership”, also in Melbourne, was convened under Scientific Chair, Dr Gordon Burt, Melbourne Prosthodontist. As Phil assumed his role in 2018, and Gordon in 2016, both were faced with the obvious challenges of predicting the most relevant topics and presenters two years ahead.

 

Phil and Gordon embraced these challenges and produced highly successful meetings that attracted exceptional member interest, industry support and sought-after presenters. First key to their successes was the intuitive design of their programs, including topics that appealed to members both as a group and as individuals, and formats which balanced their tripartite themes.

 

Second key to their successes were their leadership capabilities. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Phil, Gordon and their other Scientific Committee Members, as well as Presidents Dr Simon Wylie (2018-22) and Dr Janice Kan (2016-18) for their commitment to AANZP and steering us with high quality events that assembled our collective interests. In particular, Phil and Simon and their Executive navigated us all through the murkiness of 2020-21, bringing AANZP back in 2022, with a theme and program still relevant to us all.

 

Armed with the privilege of AANZP history, it was clear to us that the pursuit of excellence, engagement via fraternity, and shared appetites for technologies and innovations in clinical sciences, are ubiquitous to all Prosthodontists. Previous AANZP BSMs include, “Innovation, Convention and Controversy” (Sydney 2016, Dr Paul Hogan), “Emerging Technologies in Prosthodontics” (Melbourne 2014, Dr Cosimo Maiolo) and “Specialists in the Age of Implantologists” (Cairns 2012, Dr Anders Blomberg).

 

2024 AANZP BSM is inspired by this era of technological disruption for us as clinical specialists, educators and consumers of health care, and the legacy of our dedicated AANZP Executive predecessors.

 

We bring concepts which may appear futuristic now, however could well be realities over this coming biennium, such is the rate of expansion of clinical technologies and innovations. These are plotted intimately with the purest prosthodontics for us purists, with over 50% of the Scientific program still retained for clinical practice problems and solutions.

 

From 1992, our AANZP Founders faced their own technological progressions and disruptions in oral rehabilitation (implants), materials (ceramics), automation (CAD-CAM) and education (evidence based dentistry). The past 20 or so years have seen these innovations become added expectations.

 

The interest in digital prosthodontic practices is obvious here in ANZ, as well as at the organisational level of our North American and international colleagues.

 

It is our humblest belief that 2024-26 bears the emergence of data based decision making as a key tributary of evidence based dentistry.

 

We have come a long way since Dworkin and LeResche’s 1992 work, “Research Diagnostic Criteria for Temporomandibular Disorders”, a landmark diagnostic tool. In today’s data science terms, RDC-TMD would be considered a seminal dataframe, engineering continuous and categorical variables for an expert algorithmic clinical decision support system.

 

Imaging data is well established for both surface and sectional information, and key machine learning technologies such as deep convolutional neural networks and generative adversarial networks have taken these types of data into the predictive modelling domains of artificial intelligence. Language data is now available to explore thanks to large language model based open source applications Chat-GPT and BARD. Health care digital twins are on the horizon for dentistry and prosthodontics, and there is already much research interest in Cardiovascular, Neurology and Public Health.

 

In summary, our aim with 2024 BSM is to support members, and engage industry, through this era with a comprehensive range of content, a synergistic format and the most relevant presenters anywhere.

2024 AANZP Scientific Committee

 

“There is nothing more certain”

Dr Gerry Clausen, on the imminence of artificial intelligence systems in dental and prosthodontic practice and education.