Inspiring, guiding, and serving – new EFP president Xavier Struillou explains his vision

Xavier Struillou has become EFP president for the next year, taking over from Filippo Graziani and highlighting the importance of listening to the 37 affiliated national societies of periodontology, the “heart and engine of our federation”.

“We need to listen to and collaborate closely with each of the member societies and give them all the support we can,” says Dr Struillou in a message to the periodontal community published on the EFP website. “Their drive is the EFP’s drive, so we owe them a lot.”

Associate professor of periodontology at the University of Nantes in France, Xavier Struillou becomes the EFP’s first French president since Jean-Louis Giovannoli, who was the federation’s first president in 1992.

Today, the EFP represents more than 16,000 periodontists and members of the oral-healthcare team and the new president’s vision is that “we try to inspire them, to guide them, and to serve them.”

He highlights EFP initiatives such as its campaigns with its partners, its guidelines, and its events such as EuroPerio, Perio Master Clinic, Perio Workshop, and Gum Health Day, noting how the EFP provides “a framework for patients to have better treatment, for citizens to be made aware of gum health, for professionals to be kept updated, and for students to be trained – always in the context of our shared goal of “periodontal health for a better life”.

Addressing the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the new EFP president sends a message of support to all members of the oral-healthcare team involved in offering urgent treatment and service to patients. “On behalf of the EFP, thank you for your sense of duty, your professionalism, and for adopting safe practices and standard procedures according to each country,” he says.

Dr Struillou, who was the EFP co-ordinator of Gum Health Day 2018, says that he is “deeply honoured” to be able to build on the “extraordinary legacy” of his predecessors as president and thanked Filippo Graziani and Anton Sculean (president 2018-19) as well as the members of all the EFP committees.

Looking back on his year as EFP president, Filippo Graziani commented: “It has been an amazing experience, extremely intense, and I am so proud and happy to have served this community. And I am excited to see what the EFP will become in the year in which Xavier Struillou is president.”

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