This profile was first published in the ADA’s News Bulletin, April 2022.
What has it been like to be awarded the ADA Valuable Service Award – what does it mean to you?
It is a huge honour and privilege to be awarded the ADA Valuable Service Award and I was very excited and thrilled to be recognised by my peers. I have never won an award before!
What led you to choose dentistry as your profession? And how long have you been practising?
I first considered dentistry in Year 7 when my maths teacher mentioned that two of her daughters were studying
dentistry. It was the first time I realised that a girl could be a dentist! I wanted a career that involves people, using my hands and making a difference without the shift work in medicine. I have been a dentist for more than 27 years and a periodontist for 19 years. I love the balance between seeing long-term patients, having an integral role in stabilising a dentition and doing surgery and implant placement.
Tell us about your time as National Secretary of the Pierre Fauchard Academy – we hear you were instrumental in growing this organisation’s profile?
Part of the role as the National Secretary of the Pierre Fauchard Academy (PFA) involved sending out the letter of invitation to become PFA fellows and corresponding with the dental schools around Australia, New Zealand and Fiji for the awarding of the PFA student prize. As a PFA Board member, I nominated a number of worthy Fellows including past ADA branch presidents, academics, dental volunteers and exceptional clinicians in Victoria and Tasmania. Due to COVID, the PFA could not have its induction at the ADA Congress. Instead, the regions had local induction ceremonies. The Victorian/Tasmanian induction lunch was held in between the Victorian lockdowns. The highlights were the presentations from two of the inductees, Drs Som-Ling Leung (2020 ADA Valuable Service Award recipient) and Raymond Khong about their overseas dental volunteering projects.
You have also spent a lot of your life involved in committees, both within and outside the profession. Tell us more, and how is this meaningful for you?
I thoroughly enjoy being on committees and trying to make a difference. When I returned home to Melbourne after my periodontal specialist training, I was very fortunate that Dr Chris Callahan, the ADAVB President at the time asked me to join and Chair the ADAVB Oral Health committee. I loved the experience make a small part in improving the oral health of Victorians. I subsequently joined the ADAVB Council becoming the President in 2017. In addition, I am a past president of the Australian Society of Periodontology Victorian Branch and helped organise meetings including a conference. I was recently appointed the Co-Chair of the Australian Dental Health Foundation Victoria with Dr Katy Theodore. This is a wonderful organisation which helps patients such as victims of domestic violence and the homeless get access to pro bono dental treatment in the private sector. I have the privilege of treating some ADHF patients in my practice. Outside of dentistry, I am the Co-President of the Korean Adoption Families (KAF) in Victoria which is a wonderful group of Korean adoption families. We have a number of functions and camps which is important for my son to have connections with other Korean adopted children.
Do you think it’s important for practitioners to include volunteer and committee roles in their professional life? Why?
I wholeheartedly believe that it is important to volunteer and be involved in organisations that improve the oral health of the wider community and the working life of dentists. As dentists, we are able to make a difference to those less fortunate such as providing pro bono treatment, giving oral health education at schools and kindergartens and providing mouth guards for sporting clubs.
Do you have any advice for anyone in the profession worried about how to juggle running a practice or building a career, with volunteer work or committee roles? How do you do it?
The main advice in juggling running a practice and volunteering is to be organised, prioritise what is important and delegate what you aren’t good at. I have a wonderful bookkeeper and my staff are fantastic. Also, I have an exceptionally supportive husband and don’t watch much TV.
You’re known as an effective mentor particularly for young women in the dental profession. How did this come about?
Dr Jo Cherry was my undergraduate preclinical demonstrator and joined the ADAVB Council with me. Jo did a great job mentoring me and I subsequently mentored Dr Gitika Sanghvi when she joined the ADAVB Council and Dr Angie Nilsson when she was the ADA Tasmania President. Angie’s boys are a bit younger than my son so I was able to give Angie advice on how I juggled parenthood with ADAVB commitments. I replaced Dr Deb Cockrell as the PFA National Secretary and she was a wonderful mentor for me. Gitika replaced me as the Victorian/Tasmanian PFA Board member and Angie is now the Queensland PFA Board member. Dr Louise Brown was a trailblazer as a female periodontist in Australia being the first female president of the Australian New Zealand Academy of Periodontics and was very supportive to myself and a number of other female
periodontists around my age.
What excites you about the future of dentistry and the oral health field? How do you see the ADA fitting in with that?
The increasing role of digital technology in various aspects of dentistry is really exciting resulting in better clinical outcomes for our patients. The ADA will have a major role with education at both the Branch and Federal levels.
What’s next for you?
I am presently the Vice-President of the Royal Australasian College of Dental Surgeons (RACDS). My role includes being the Chair of the Education Policy Board and the Scientific Chair for the upcoming RACDS Conference in Melbourne in September 2022. I am thoroughly enjoying helping organising this conference. Charlotte Stilwell, the current President of the International Team for Implantology (ITI) will be an outstanding keynote speaker.
