I had a recent meeting and interview with Dr. Shiraz Khan at the Young Dentist Academy meeting at the Henry Schein Dental Showroom in Glasgow. Inspired by this, the DentaltownUK team have been thinking about more ways to engage with, encourage and support young dentists. As well as, appreciate more about what we can learn from them.
Shiraz has been a regular contributor to DentaltownUK’s lifestyle section, on the topic of style and fashion, since our first issue over a year ago. I am delighted to announce that he has agreed to join our team of honorary editors.
I am confident that his involvement will help us to continue our work to inspire all dentists from the most recently graduated to those with retirement in mind!
Before, during and after the interview (watch it here), I was impressed by Shiraz’s energy and enthusiasm for helping young dentists and to teach.
Moreover, having sat in on his presentation, I was impressed by his presentation skills, depth of knowledge and clinical
skills, especially given how recently qualified he was.
As you will see in the interview, given that the lecture was aimed at ‘young dentists’, I was surprised by how much I thought that I had personally gained from his lecture, despite my 19 years of clinical work, and CPD!
‘Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.’
— Henry Ford
I was delighted when Shiraz reassured me that there was no age restrictions to attending a Young Dentist Academy event, and I am now looking at my Personal Development Plan with different eyes!
Shiraz qualified from the University of Birmingham in 2013. After foundation training, he completed his core training in a range of areas including ‘restorative’ at Croydon University Hospital, Guys and St. Thomas. He is already lecturing internationally and having seen him in action, I can understand why he is in such demand.
I hope that the Young Dentist Academy will enjoy great success in the future among ‘young’ dentists of all ages!
Our resident student editor, Kishan Sheth, also interviewed Shiraz recently for this issue, providing us with an excellent article which covers aspects of Shiraz’s life, including his passion for dancing as well as his dentistry. We follow this up with a ‘posterior composite stratification’ case study from Shiraz.
My attendance at Shiraz’s YDA lecture really reinforced to me that there is a lot to learn from our peers regardless of age and experience. We are therefore delighted to present other contributions from young dentists in this month’s issue, including excellent case studies by Natalie Bradley on the Hall Technique and Dav Singh Kalsi on crown lengthening.
At DentaltownUK, we welcome interesting clinical papers and case studies from all dentists, regardless of age and experience.
If you would like to submit a case or paper for consideration by the editorial board, please email me at mike.gow@dentaltownuk.com.