Dear friends, colleagues and members,

Happy New Year and welcome to your new AAPD website!

After such a difficult year, I, along with your AAPD Executive, send best wishes for a calmer, safer and less chaotic year ahead.

Despite the many challenges and limitations, the AAPD has continued to maintain its strong advocacy and activism for our patients and profession, while also pivoting into a number of new and exciting ventures.

Several initiatives are forthcoming, including the second webinar from the joint AAPD/IM series on oral care and disability sector, the launch of our Mentorship programme, and the Virtual AAPD Scientific Conference in May, to be hosted from Queenstown, New Zealand (further details to be announced shortly).

A most exciting and rewarding enterprise has been the launch of the Academy’s new website. I urge you to take a few moments to navigate the updated and enhanced site, which contains many new features and greatly improved functionality. I would like to express the gratitude of the AAPD Executive to our secretary Dr Venkatesh Bhardwaj who, together with the expertise and vision of Jack Lee from Novu Creative, has overseen the development of an amazing new platform worthy of the work of the Academy.

We encourage all members and post-graduate students, past and present, to register and update their details in the new site. By doing so, we can enhance our contact base, develop our ‘Find a Paediatric Dentist’ functionality and continue bringing you valuable information, resources and content to assist you in your pursuit of best practice.

As a gesture of the Academy’s continued support of our members, particularly within the challenging COVID-19 environment, we are offering a Promotional Membership fee of $180 for 2021/2022.

Please feel free to contact the Executive team at any stage with comments, feedback and suggestions for improvements.

As always, we thank you all for your ongoing support.

Warmest regards