In 2011 Colin Clark’s true life story was converted into film, under the title My Week with Marilyn, it grossed millions of pounds and received great critical acclaim. I mention this because at a recent event I began to start mentally spending the money I would make from authoring the film’s sequel, My BDA Conference with Marilyn, before reality brought me crashing down to earth again.
Obviously it wasn’t the real Marilyn Monroe, and it was just a lookalike hired by an exhibitor to lure in delegates, but I was not going to complain and I duly held my stomach in and tried to appear nonchalant, aloof, James Dean-like as I posed for a photograph with the stunningly beautiful model. The horrible reality of it all wasn’t how awkward and gormless I looked in the picture (who says the camera never lies?) it was the emotional blow that just two minutes after my photo, Marilyn was off posing with other delegates. I felt so used… so much so that I couldn’t even bring myself to write the review of the event this year and relive the pain. As such you can read my assistant Charlotte’s report of the BDA Conference on page 68 of this issue.
Injuries
I was perhaps a little more sensitive following the BDA Conference than I would normally have been, but even taking that into account there are still certain ways to begin a conversation that ensure you don’t offend the person you are talking to. I recently met up with Sarah Bradbury from Dentists’ Provident, after she excitedly told me she had an idea for an article. I was expecting the conversation to begin with “Good morning” or “How are you?” but even a simple “Hello” would have been fine… instead my welcoming greeting smile was met with her opening gambit of: “Little prick!”
Whilst busily spurting out denials I tried to work out who on earth she had been talking to! It wasn’t until a good 15 minutes later I realised that what she actually meant was that she wanted to write a piece on the changing regulations regarding needle stick injuries. Of course… what else could she have meant after all? In this issue we have two articles on the effects of the changing regulations, they run from page 24-29.
Happy birthday
Possibly the biggest dent to my ego last month came with the publication of the May issue of Dental Update, our sister journal. Now of course I do take a great sense of pride in working for the company that produces such a good quality title, the peer reviewed journal is universally praised across dentistry, but it is more than a little bit humbling when the May issue announced the publication was 40 years old! That makes it older than me... and it is more popular too having more subscribers than I have friends (I use the term friend in the loosest sense of the word which includes everyone I know on Facebook). The May issue saw the title reprint some of the original articles that appeared in the very first issue back in 1973. It is interesting to see the development throughout the years, both in dentistry and in dental publications, but as Trevor Burke, Dental Update’s editorial director, explained in his comment piece, the philosophy behind the journal has remained consistent. It is written by clinicians for clinicians, providing readers with evidencebased peer reviewed articles directly relevant to practice.
If Fate had been kinder then everything would have worked out nicely. On the second date I could have asked that Marilyn girl to sing a JFK style ‘Happy birthday’. That would have been glamorous and striking but alas it wasn’t to be. It doesn’t have quite the same effect when I say it but this is the best I can do so…Happy birthday Dental Update!
Eddie MacKenzie