Once again, I am able to look back on a packed ITI year with pleasure and satisfaction. It is one in which we as an organization and community have achieved a great deal in line with our purpose “to engage and inspire the global dental profession to strive for excellence in implant dentistry for the benefit of the patient”. Our philosophy, which centers around evidence-based, predictable patient-oriented treatment, underpins our purpose and is indeed our DNA. It has been a year of growth with membership figures increasing by almost 20% to 25,000. This all confirms that we are on the right path with the strategy we have been following since 2020.
An essential aspect of this strategy is greater responsibility, accountability, independence and control for our Sections. Our 36 Sections with their very active Section Leadership Teams are driving our transformation with their very real impact at a local level in terms of education, community and networking. The Sections work closely with our core team at ITI Headquarters and are thus a perfect example of thinking globally and acting locally. I was able to see this close-up this year on my extensive ITI travels during which I attended 12 ITI Congresses, 7 Section education events as well as 3 ITI Education Weeks. It was a great way to meet up again with our hard-working Section Leadership Teams and the broader ITI Community all over the world.
2023 was a prime consensus year, with the first ITI Consensus workshop on Zygomatic Implants as well as the 7th ITI Consensus Conference in Lisbon
In addition, Volume 14 of the ITI Treatment Guide on immediacy was published. Together, they testify to the impact of the ITI on evidence-based implant dentistry in terms of both theory and practice.
To assist clinicians with the implementation of evidence-based treatment in their day-to-day practice, we have introduced a practical checklist that is part of a wider position paper in which the ITI defines its understanding of evidence-based implant dentistry. The checklist is available in the form of an easy-to-use web app and you can read the paper in our very own journal Forum Implantologicum.
Our program of education moves from strength to strength, and I was very impressed with the three ITI Education Weeks I visited in Boston, Bern and Belgrade this year.
Our Study Clubs remain our most popular membership benefit. They continue to grow in number, and we now have more than 900 thanks to the dedication of our Study Club Directors everywhere.
Our Scholarship program is as popular as ever and we are positioning it as a steppingstone in an overall career plan that is fostered by the ITI. We are supporting more Scholars but also increasing the number of ITI Scholarship Centers around the world.
Looking towards next year, the ITI Academy, our rich and well-established e-learning platform, will see a major overhaul from a broad-ranging repository of knowledge and learning to something that is even bigger, better and more interactive. Users will have access not only to knowledge and information but also to courses, tools and a clubhouse function that supports exchange and networking.
Of course, the main event of the coming year will be the ITI World Symposium 2024 in Singapore in May, an absolute must for clinicians everywhere. As its title indicates, it promises to be the most patient-centered World Symposium ever: Every patient has a story: Evidence meets patient perspectives to guide clinical care.
The main topics under discussion were selected based on community feedback and therefore reflect the areas of current greatest interest. We have chosen an innovative format of short commentated clinical case videos from start to finish with real patients. These are supported by patient interviews with invaluable insights as well as lectures given by top experts in each topic area. I hope to see many of you in Singapore!
What makes the ITI special is the aspect of family and give-and-take that pervades the entire organization. Whether you are an ITI Fellow or Member, active on a local level in your Section or Study Club, or on a global level in a Committee or task force, you are an important ambassador for our community, for our ITI family. We are the ITI, and we all have a role to play in inspiring and engaging others to join us in adopting the ITI philosophy and growing our second-to-none professional network as far and as wide as possible!
My warm regards and very best wishes to everyone in our global ITI family for a positive, strong and healthy 2024.
