CGDent and Dentsply Sirona launch the Tom Bereznicki Award for Advanced Aesthetic Dentistry

  Posted by: Dental Design      28th October 2024

The College of General Dentistry (CGDent) has partnered with the Tom Bereznicki Charitable Educational Foundation and Dentsply Sirona to develop a new aesthetic dentistry award for early career dentists.

The Tom Bereznicki Award for Advanced Aesthetic Dentistry, which is now accepting entries, recognises aesthetic dentistry skills and patient care and is aimed at those who have limited experience with a digital workflow.

The award is open to dentists who qualified in the UK, Ireland or overseas between 2019 and 2023 and have been practising in the UK for at least the past two years. To register entry, candidates must submit pre-operative photographs of an aesthetic case which they are about to start treating and which must:

• be predominantly analogue with the exception of clear aligner orthodontics or
  one digital unit such as a digital crown
• involve more than one tooth, including at least one anterior tooth, with the
  exception of a trauma case or a badly discoloured tooth
• include composite to restore some of the teeth

Treatments of caries, trauma, tooth wear and aesthetic bonding (which could include whitening and/or minor orthodontic tooth movement) are all eligible for entry, with a fuller range of example cases given in the award guidance online.

The deadline to enter is Friday 17 January 2025. Entries will be accepted on a first come, first served basis, and the number of entries is capped at 150. Entrants will then have until Friday 16 May 2025 to complete the treatment and submit their final case report.

Entries will be assessed and scored based on the clinical skills and reflective skills demonstrated, and the 36 highest-scoring entrants will each receive a fully-funded place on a bespoke, two-day digital dentistry course at the Dentsply Sirona Academy in Weybridge, Surrey, with travel costs, hotel accommodation and subsistence included.

The course, designed by Dr Tom Bereznicki FCGDent and Dr Chris Leech FCGDent, has been created solely for the award and is not available commercially. Delivered predominantly through short demonstrations and comprehensive hands-on sessions, participants will be guided step-by-step through the complete process, from scanning to cementation, of creating a digitally-produced crown. Accompanying theory modules, such as on material science, will also be provided through pre-course and post-course videos.

The successful candidates will be announced in June 2025, and the first of three available dates for them to attend the course will be Friday-Saturday 4-5 July 2025. The remaining dates are still to be confirmed but are anticipated to be in November 2025.

Further information about the award, with links to detailed guidance for entrants and the entry form, is available at https://cgdent.uk/tom-bereznicki-award-for-advanced-aesthetic-dentistry/