Global networking: Meeting the challenges, facilitating collaboration.

The constant change of information and technology advancement as well as the impact of social media has radically changed the world and education and, in particular, the needs of students, organisations and disadvantaged communities who share the aim of training and providing quality healthcare services. Dental organisations and education centres around the world have recognised the importance of networking in delivering effective education to students, healthcare professionals and communities. Networking is one way to meet the challenges of delivering healthcare education and services. This can be achieved by sharing of resources, expertise, knowledge and experience to benefit all the stakeholders in healthcare delivery. The joint ADEE/ADEA Meeting in London on 8-9 May 2017 has facilitated discussions amongst dental educators from all over the world during a workshop on "Global Networking: the how and why for dental educators." The aim of this workshop was to determine how can dental educators worldwide network to share ideas, experience, expertise and resources to improve both the curricula and the teaching and learning environment. A pre-conference survey was designed and implemented to identify the domains of interest and needs of participants. A structured questionnaire was administered, and this information was used to guide discussions on three main themes: curricula, faculty development and mobility of faculty and students. Four questions were then defined to help group leaders to frame discussions in the four working groups. The four groups engaged in parallel discussions, with the ideas recorded and collated by group leaders, which later served for the thematic analysis across the groups to draw the key points discussed. Overall, a great desire and potential to create a global networking to share and gain support and expertise at individual and organisational level was apparent and the working group has proposed an action plan, acknowledging that it requires great planning, effort and commitment.

The healthcare system and the provision of oral healthcare in European Union member states: Part 5: Romania.

Romania is one of the newest member states of the European Union (EU). It has 13 dental schools, 14,841 dentists and 2,935 dental technicians providing oral health care for a population, at 31 December 2014, of 21.3 million. The shift from a communist system to a democratic or capitalist society has contributed to an enormous change in the proportion of public and private sector oral health services. The lack of public funds during the post-communist years has contributed to a dependency on private oral healthcare rather than the government financed public provision. Affordability and social awareness have together established a mixed economy for oral health care costs and oral healthcare is growing slowly compared with other developed EU member states. At the same time, there has been overproduction of new dentists (currently 1500 graduate annually). This has led to un and under-employment and emigration of dentists to other EU member states. This paper explains the current oral healthcare system in Romania and changes in recent years.