29 May 2021 – Two IMU fourth year dental students, Fong Zi Qing and Tey Lu Yen, formed a team which won first prize in an oral presentation competition at the National Dental Students’ Scientific Conference (NDSSC), beating 37 other teams for the coveted prize. They presented on their research paper titled “A Comparison of Facial Attractiveness Rating with a Posed Smile, Spontaneous Smile and Selfie Smile” at the conference which was held virtually via ZOOM.
The conference provided a truly different experience for these two students as it was conducted online and still ran smoothly with the help of current technologies. Through this conference, the students learned a lot and gained insights from the other participants’ presentations. Overall, it was truly an eye-opening experience for the students, giving them an insight into the world of scientific community, which, to them. is more valuable than the award itself.
Sharing on their Experience Conducting Research During a Pandemic
As this project was completed during the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic, an online web-based survey was created to ease the data collection process. As the technical part of the creation and usage of the web-based survey was unfamiliar to us, as dental students, we were grateful to receive a lot of guidance and support from our supervisor, the e-learning Department (Mr Mohd Fadzil and Mr Hasnain) and the Statistics Clinic (Dr Sangeetha & Dr Elaine). Without their guidance and advice, this project would not have been completed successfully and smoothly.
This fruitful research has given us the opportunity to present the project at the scientific conference and we are truly humbled to have gained recognition from the judges to be awarded the First Prize in the competition.
We would like to express our greatest gratitude to the project supervisor, A/Prof Dr Sivakumar Arunachalam (in the photo on the left) for his constructive feedback and guidance throughout the process of conducting the research.
(L-R) : Fong Zi Qing, Tey Lu Yen
Fong Zi Qing and Tey Lu Yen felt fortunate that they are exposed to scientific research during their undergraduate dentistry programme at IMU as research is critical to ensure evidence-based dynamism for the dental profession. It is their hope that their humble experience and sharing will encourage other students to step out of their comfort zone and explore the scientific field with curiosity and enthusiasm.
About National Dental Students’ Scientific Conference (NDSSC)
The National Dental Students’ Scientific Conference (NDSSC) is an annual conference conducted by dental students for dental students under the guidance of the Dental Deans’ Council of Malaysia. The aim is to encourage dental students to interact, compete and build fellowship with peers from other dental schools in Malaysia. Eleven conferences have been conducted since 2009, hosted by different universities with dental faculties. This year, the 13th NDSSC 2021 themed “Inspiring Tomorrow’s Dentist” was held virtually using ZOOM platform on Saturday, 29th of May 2021. There were 38 teams from different dental schools who participated in the Oral Presentation Competition in total.
