2021 06 04

Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry

Dental Institute

Issue #8, December 2020

Dentistry | Healthcare | Technology | Politics | Students

​

​

Welcome back to this academic year’s first Dental Mirror issue! It may come as no surprise to you what the theme of this issue is: ‘A new way of living’. As we come to the end of 2020, we reflect on the overwhelming year gone by and the sequential effects this pandemic has had on us as individuals, university students, and Dentistry as a whole.

Over the past couple of months, uncertainty has clouded our view of the future and unsurprisingly this has affected many of our mental health. I really enjoyed reading ‘The Vaccination for our Mental Health’ which delves into this topic further. Being a dental student or tutor at this time has been an eye-watering experience for many of us; trying to battle with a bad internet connection and having had patient interaction taken away from us till an unforeseeable date. Emma Elliot has written a great article about her personal experience with self-isolation.

Even though the majority view is that life will never be as it once was, we are filled with optimism, and some scepticism, with the news of vaccinations. Hopefully soon we will be given the opportunity to gratefully slide back into our regular busy lives and will reflect on the tough days we lived doing nothing but eat banana cake, laugh on TikTok, and watch Netflix. I have really enjoyed reading every single article in this issue, and I hope you do too!

Yours, Shiva Naser

Editor-in-Chief

 

We have tried our hardest to make this issue informative yet fresh and hopeful. We take a look back at the various effects this year has had on Barts as a whole, individual student encounters, and what things look like for the future of Dentistry.

I’m sure most of us are looking forward to the clock striking midnight on the last day of 2020 – and waving hello to new opportunities in 2021. It’s important to remember, however, all that we’ve learnt from this year and try to take it with us into the next one – whether it’s new recipes, Warzone gaming tactics, meditation techniques (after the Gulag losses) or to be just that little bit more thankful to the stranger holding the door for you (especially in light of the pandemic and people going through a tougher time).

I’m extremely proud of our front cover this year as well as the overall clean design of the magazine - a massive thank you to our design team! Of course, thank you also to our editors and writers for making this issue possible, and I hope you take some time out of your day to give some of this wonderful work a read!

Yours, Ema Rutkeviciute

Deputy Editor-in-Chief