Happy New Year to you all and welcome to BDJ Team's tenth anniversary year!

Looking back on our first ten years, to date we have published 98 issues and 2,371 articles! Twenty real dental professionals have graced our covers over the ten years, and our most popular article [see news stories in this issue] has been accessed 142,000 times. I'd like to tell you how many people have contributed to our sparkling content, but that would take so long to work out, this issue would never be published…

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To kick off 2024, we meet the author of our long-running dental ethics series, Keerut Oberai. His photo was perfect for the front cover. It's always good to put a face (and career story) to a name.

In a new two-part series, Caroline Holland investigates the ongoing battle to make prevention central to dental care. Caroline set out specifically to examine fluoride varnish and how preventive advice has evolved since the late noughties. As she says: ‘Sixteen years ago, fluoride varnish application - delivered by an army of extended duties dental nurses - appeared to be at the forefront of the battle against dental caries.' But what went wrong and where are we now?

I was pleased to be contacted by guest contributor, US dental hygienist Deborah Lindell, who has written about Long-COVID and its impact on dental patients. It's great to know that we have readers beyond the UK.

James Green has kindly adapted his BDJ article to our DCP audience, with ‘Medical Device Regulations for custom-made devices: Answers to a further ten important questions', including CPD questions. Don't forget, if you haven't had chance to complete the 2023 CPD questions, they are still available for the rest of this year.

We also look at the student journey for DCPs at Peninsula Dental School. Look out for further articles from the highly proactive staff and students down in Plymouth.

2024 has lots in store. Thanks to you all for reading and supporting BDJ Team. What a decade it has been.

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Kate Quinlan

Editor

k.quinlan@nature.com