ORCA Communication
- Overview July 2010
By Nigel Pitts, Past President
In recent years ORCA has been expanding its range of activities to ensure that it delivers on its objectives. To review them - ORCA’s Objectives are:
1. To promote oral health through scientific understanding of the aetiology, pathogenesis, prevention and clinical control or management of dental caries. Health outcomes related to dental caries are also of interest, as are other disorders of dental hard tissues.
- To evaluate the findings of research; to encourage their practical application; and to prevent their abuse.
- To establish close contacts between all individuals and organizations with similar aims, without distinction as to nationality.
2. ORCA shall be a not-for-profit organization
Current ORCA Activities and Developments (at June 2010):
Research in Cariology
- Participation in IADR Global Oral Health Inequalities Research initiative (GOHIR) – the Dental Caries Task Group has the ORCA President-elect and three further ORCA members sitting on it.
- A new Editor has recently been appointed for our Journal Caries Research, to build on the previous successes with a range of developments (including more on-line access) and to increase further the all time high Impact Factor.
- A new Senior Prize has been added to the ORCA fold; every three years we now contribute to the process of awarding the Yngve Ericsson Prize to complement the current ORCA Prize and the recently introduced Young Investigator Award.
Evaluation and communication of research findings and prevention of their abuse
- In association with the Association for Dental Education in Europe, ORCA organised a very successful ORCA / ADEE Workshop on a core Cariology Curriculum, held in Berlin from June 28-30. This provides excellent new Education links – a Supplement is to be published in the ADEE Journal
- Collaborations with the ICDAS Coordinating Committee continue across the domains of research, education, public health and clinical practice. The development of the ICDAS-Caries Management System (CMS) for Practice is a recent initiative. Following an April ICDAS Workshop in the US and a pre-ORCA Symposium held on July 6th, a Synopsis of developments will be published in Caries Research
- Participation in the FDI World Dental Federation’s Global Caries Initiative (GCI) continues. This started with meetings held in Rio in July 2009, followed by ORCA participation in meetings held in Kuwait and Dubai. The GCI continues to evolve with a meeting in Salvador, Brazil in September 2010 for further build research to practice links.
International Perspectives
- In 2012 the ORCA Congress will be held near Rio in Brazil with a meeting linked with IADR Congress held around the same time.
- New arrangements have been made for International keynote speakers at each conference coming from range of countries with new disciplines represented – in 2010 there was an Education Speaker from the US.
- Engagement with the ICDAS Foundation and ADEA has resulted in the publication of an International Glossary of Cariology Key terms published by Karger and there is now on-going development with input from ADEE, ADEA and FDI.
Information to Members
- Developments of the ORCA Website are continuing to provide more information and facilities for members and linked dedicated web sites are now created for each ORCA Congress
- On-line abstract submission has been developed and introduced successfully. Feedback from members has been very positive.
- There is now an increased range of peri-ORCA Congress activities before and after the main Congress in order to build value for members and attract Congress participation.
Financial Matters
The ORCA Board is updating the way in which the organisation interacts with its various values corporate members in order to serve members better and meet sponsor needs more effectively.
Nigel Pitts, June 2010