Winners of the 2018 ANZSPD Louise Brearley Messer Undergraduate and Postgraduate Essay Competition

It gives me very great pleasure to announce the winners of the 2018 ANZSPD Louise Brearley Messer Undergraduate and Postgraduate Essay Competition.

This essay competition has been named in recognition of the great contribution made by Professor Louise Brearley Messer AM in Teaching, Research and Administration in Paediatric Dentistry. The judges commented on the difficulty in choosing the winners due to the high standard of the entries received. I would like to thank all students who participated in the competition, their supervisors and especially the judges.

The results are as follows: 

Postgraduate Essay: 

Dr Vanessa Cho

University of Western Australia

Topic: "A new class of anticoagulant drugs, the new oral anticoagulants or NOAC's, have begun to play a role in the management of thrombotic diseases. Discuss: (1) Thrombotic disease in children and whether there may be a place for NOAC's in the management of these children, and (2) The dental management of patients on anticoagulants and how this would need to be altered for any children taking NOAC's."

Undergraduate Essay: 

Kumudika Gunaratne

University of Sydney

Topic: "Dental caries in children - infectious disease or parental lifestyle choice? Discuss your views based on current knowledge of aetiology and epidemiology of the disease."

The winning essays will be published in future editions of Synopses.

Dr Carmel Lloyd

Federal Secretary ANZSPD (Inc)