Commonwealth Games
Glasgow 2014 needs you
Deputy CDOTom Ferris and Olympic dentist Mike Blackie tell Scottish Dental magazine why volunteering at the 20th Commonwealth Games in Glasgow is an opportunity not to be missed
“
I think this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, a chance to get involved in something that is really special. I don’t think
many dentists will see anything quite like this again in their working careers.” As Deputy Chief Dental Officer
at the Scottish Government, Tom Ferris is not a man prone to hyperbole, but it is clear that he is genu- inely excited by his role as organiser of the dental recruitment at the Glasgow Games. He explained
that the volun- teering roles at the event will be incred- ibly varied. He said: “At the actual venues it will be reacting to what is happening and that is about dealing with trauma, avulsion and facial injuries, basically anything that comes our way. Follow
up care will be delivered, either through A&E or if it is just a dentist that is needed, it will be dealt with in the polyclinic the next day or the days thereafter. “There is also an oral health
message that we want to get across to athletes from around the world who have got different experiences in terms of access to services, the level of oral health and so on.” The registration
process for volunteering at the Games officially opens in mid- January but planning for the dental facilities and services is
already well under way. Tom explained that it has been a steep, but inter-
esting learning curve. “It is a matter of getting as much
information from people who have had similar experiences before and
“She had lunged forward and her mask had clattered into her teeth. She actually had the marks of her mask on her
teeth” Mike Blackie
(l-r) Fiona McEwan, Commonwealth Games Scotland; Shona Robison, MSP; Clyde, 2014 Mascot; Lord Smith, Chair of Glasgow 2014; and Councillor Archie Graham, at the volunteering launch
trying to learn from them to make as best a fist of it as we can.” To this end, Tom has been in touch
with Glasgow dentist Mike Blackie who was the only Scottish volun- teer down at the London Olympics in the summer. Glasgow graduate Mike, who is the principal dentist at The Park Practice in the west end, worked at the ExCel Arena during the Games. He said: “I had assumed I would
just be working at the polyclinic seeing athletes and their entourage every day. But after I got the offer I soon realised that I was going to be involved with all the combat sports, so it tallied up with all my sporting experience. I have had various trauma cases over the years as a result of dealing with some the Glasgow Warriors rugby team.” The ExCel Arena was home to the
boxing, taekwondo, judo, fencing and wrestling but apart from a couple of Iranian wrestlers who had bits of their teeth knocked out and some split lips from an energetic taekwondo demonstration, Mike said the injuries were, thankfully, few and far between. He said: “There was one inter-
Mike (second from left) with his medical team colleagues at the London 2012 Polyclinic 20 Scottish Dental magazine
esting dental case involving a Greek fencer who had a couple
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