Written by Dr Heng-Ming Mark Chang,
Chairman of organising committee, 2019
Taiwan Association of Orthodontists (TAO)’s 2019 Annual Meeting was hosted in Fullon Hotel LihPao Land, Taichung. The theme for the meeting was "Innovation and Beyond " and the scientific program included a variety of renowned international lecturers including President Elect of the World Federation of Orthodontists (WFO), Prof. Nikhilesh Vaid and the former and current editor-in-chiefs of the AJO-DO, Prof.David Turpin and Prof. Rolf Behrents. In addition, many orthodontic chairs/course directors of different universities from the United Kingdom, America, Japan and Korea were also invited to this meeting including Prof. Derrick Willmot, Prof. Philip Benson, Prof. Ching-Chang Ko, Prof. Chung-How Kau, Prof. Keiji Moriyama, Prof. Shouichi Miyawaki, Prof. Kee-Joon Lee and Prof. Seong-Hun Kim.
This year, the event attracted more than 800 participants including 679 local and 123 international attendees. Due to the increase in number of international attendees, President of TAO decided to use English as our official language throughout the whole meeting.
The social event included a themed Gala dinner, ‘Secret Service Agent’ and the evening started with a short movie with President of the TAO as the lead actor. The dinner guests were kept entertained by a variety of pop dances and a Saxophone performance. As a tradition of the Taichung team, all the performances were prepared and played by the orthodontists from the organizing committee.
This year’s Taichung meeting was a successful event and I would like to take this opportunity to thank President Dr. Lu for his continuous support throughout the preparation for the event. I couldn’t ask for a more dedicated organising team and would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the committee for their hard work and never-ending support in making this event come true. Finally, a big thank you to all the participants who have made the 2019 annual meeting so prosperous and successful. We sincerely invite you to come and join us again four years later in Taichung.