(L. to r.) Shannon Munsie, FDCSA president; Jay Chan, regional councillor – Western Canada; Jiwon Lee, president of the American Student Dental Association.
Student representatives from the 10 Canadian dental schools recently met at the Federation of Canadian Dentistry Student Associations (FDCSA) annual general meeting. The event, which took place in Ottawa on June 15, saw the continuation of the work initiated at group’s inaugural meeting in 2012.
One of the key outcomes of the meeting was the development of a short-term communications strategy to increase awareness of the FCDSA among dentistry students. The federation is currently working on the creation of a website to foster communications with, and between, its members. Discussions built upon an assessment by the FCDSA external communications committee of the site, including its purpose and intent, structure, functionality and contents.
The meeting saw the election of the federation’s executive for 2013–14, namely:
- President: Shannon Munsie (Western University)
- Vice-president: Toufic Boulos (University of Montreal)
- Regional councillor – Western Canada: Jay Chan (UBC)
- Regional councillor – Central Canada: Victor Toan Le (University of Manitoba)
- Regional councillor – Eastern Canada: Heather Patry (Dalhousie University)
External guests included representatives from the National Dental Examining Board, CDSPI and CDA, and the president of the American Student Dental Association, Ms. Jiwon Lee of Columbia University in New York. The event was organized by CDA and funded by CDSPI.
The FCDSA’s mission is to “connect dentistry students in order to foster the sharing of common interests and challenges, advocate as a unified national student voice for the promotion of accessible, optimal dental education and patient care, and provide an avenue to introduce and involve students in organized dentistry.”