Facilitating improvement in Wellbeing and Resilience of Dental Students

Maria is Assistant Professor at the Department of Dentistry, School of Health Sciences, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, with experience in the clinical and managerial practice of Dentistry. She has been a research and clinical member in the prosthetics clinic of the University of Freiburg in Germany. She holds a Master's Degree in Aesthetic Dentistry from the University of Athens, while her doctoral dissertation was on the application of dental biomaterials in the modern practice of dentistry. She is also a Certified Systemic Analyst Professional (CSAP) following the Executive Mastering Program in Systemic Management at the University of Piraeus, Greece. She specializes in dental psychology and patient coaching and management, professional counselling, performance enhancement and dental business initiative counselling, dental management, and marketing. She is also an ACSTH by HRE certified ICF program and AC Accredited Coach. She is the author of the book “Application of the Humanities and Basic Principles of Coaching in Health Sciences” (Athens 2021, Tsiotras Ed., ISBN:978-618-5495-45-9).

Charlotte Chan is a final year Bachelor of Dental Surgery student at the University in Hong Kong with a special interest in psychology and mental health. As a Board Member for a local mental health charity, Mind Hong Kong, she helped steer their youth mental health programmes and served as one of the lead organisers of the 2020 Hong Kong Mental Health Conference. She is passionate about understanding and improving the wellbeing of dental students which she is currently researching with her peers in a faculty-supported project.

Dr Vehid Salih is Associate Professor in Oral & Dental Health Research, based at Peninsula Dental School (PDS), University of Plymouth. His research career comprises 15 supervised PhD students, +100 research publications and several book chapters. Throughout his research and teaching career, Dr Salih has mentored and guided students through anxious and stressful phases of their student experience. For the past 4 years he has been working together with Wendy Smith to develop a resilience programme for students. Dr Salih is a proactive advocate of helping students understand that their challenging courses of study are achievable with appropriate guidance and self-help strategies which will help organise their non-resilient thoughts into practical and reachable goals.