Dr Dianne Rekow, Senior Vice Provost of Engineering and Technology at New York University (NYU) and Provost of Polytechnic Institute of NYU, has been appointed as the next Dean of the GKT Dental Institute, King’s College has announced. She will succeed Professor Nairn Wilson, who is due to retire at the end of this year, and will take up the position from 1 January 2012.

Commissioning of NHS dental services is experiencing a turbulent period as it contends with structural change in the NHS, the launch of pilots for a new dental contract and pressures on funding. The BDA survey of PCTs reflects a shifting landscape for them, in which more than a quarter of those questioned said that their commissioning functions had merged with those of other PCTs.