University of Sydney Alumni Singapore

The University of Sydney held their annual Alumni Day celebration yesterday for its Singapore Alumni. This year, Professor Eli Schwarz, the Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Sydney was also among the 40 strong delegation who flew in from Sydney.

We spent the evening catching up with Prof Schwarz, who updated us on our professors and lecturers from when we were studying there. We also spoke on the future direction of the Dental Faculty in Sydney.

Prof Schwarz then discussed the state of dentistry in Singapore with the opening up of the local dental profession to ASEAN and Indian graduates. Prof Schwarz related Australia's concern about the adverse effects of foreign trained dental professionals and its decision not to allow them free access to the Australian public.

We finally touched on how Singapore patients compare with Australian patients. Prof Schwarz, seeing the size of Singapore commented that it our patients would most likely not need to travel too far to get treatment as compared with Australia where he has known of patients driving 1000 km to seek dental help!

That reminded me of the time when I was in the New South Wales' State Orthodontic Service and I had to fly out to Wagga Wagga once a month to provide orthodontic treatment to the people of the Riverina Area. I had patients drive 5 hours just to see me at the Wagga Wagga Bae Hospital!

All in all, it was a fruitful event and we look forward to the next edition of the University of Sydney Alumni Day.