Join in the 'Thunderclap'

Dentists have a significant role to play in helping to slow the global development of antibiotic resistance, and the Faculty is keen to highlight the problem.

FGDP(UK), whose guidelines Antimicrobial Prescribing for General Dental Practitioners are available for free online, has joined forces for the second year with the Association of Clinical Oral Microbiologists (ACOM) and the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy  (BSAC) to create a thunderclap , which harnesses individuals’ social media networks to spread messages.

Dentists are asked to pledge that they will “make more time to manage infection and only prescribe antibiotics in line with published guidelines”. The website will then create an attention grabbing ‘thunderclap’ by simultaneously posting the pledges on the social media accounts of all those who signed up at 1pm on Monday, November 30. Over 100 dentists subscribed to last year’s thunderclap, which reached over 100,000 social media users; FGDP is hoping to exceed those numbers this year and is encouraging dentists to sign up and share the link with other dentists.