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Dental Tribune Middle East & Africa Edition

by Dental Tribune Middle East & Africa Dubai, UAE: From the vision of HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Mak- toum, Vice-President and Prime Minis- ter of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, came the creation of Dubai Healthcare City in Dubai, UAE. The well reputed Pro- fessor David Wray comes to the UAE to spearhead the creation of the new Dubai School of Dental Medicine located at Dubai Healthcare City. Dental Tribune Middle East & Africa: Wel- come Professor David Wray, we come across you here at the first ‘Fujairah Inter- national Dental Conference’ at the booth of Dubai School of Dental Medicine. How are you doing? Professor David Wray: I’m very well thank you very much, a pleasure to be here. Professor Wray, could you tell us about yourself, your presence here in Dubai and the opening of the new Dental School of Dental Medicine? Well, I am Professor David Wray, I’m a UK trained doctor and dentist who’s previous- ly been Dean of the Glasgow Dental Hospi- tal and School in Scotland. And in the mid- dle of the summer of this year [2012] I came to Dubai to open the ‘Dubai School of Den- tal Medicine’; The Dubai School of Dental Medicine is part of Dubai Healthcare City which, in turn, is the idea and the vision of HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Mak- toum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, who decid- ed that Dubai, as it emerged into a strong nation, required a strong healthcare infra- structure and hence, created Dubai Health- care City, and the Dubai School of Dental Medicine is one of the products of that vi- sion. What we have been charged with is setting up the Dental School to train post- graduate students in all the dental special- ties, and we have started that process and are taking in our first postgraduate stu- dents in January of 2013. We will be offer- ing specialty dental training programs in all the recognized dental specialties in the first instance. During 2013 we will be offering Oral Surgery, Orthodontics, Pediatric Den- tistry and Endodontics, and then in addi- tion to this we will be offering Prosthodon- tics and Periodontics as Dental special- izations. The thing which is unique about this new Dubai School of Dental Medicine is that the students will, like many other places, be embarking on a three year inten- sive clinical training program with a clear didactic component and a research dis- sertation. In addition to that, the students will get an MSc which will complete the course—but as well as that, we are in the final stages of negotiation to allow our stu- dents to simultaneously graduate with a membership from the Royal College of Sur- geons of Edinburgh in the UK, a diploma which can subsequently be converted into a fellowship so that students will be grad- uating with both an academic qualification in the form of an MSc and also an interna- tionally recognized clinical qualification, which would ultimately be a fellowship from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ed- inburgh. Therefore, our graduates would have the same specialty qualifications, clin- ically, as those colleagues who are consul- tants and professors within the UK. And that influence of the Edinburgh College ex- tends both to the Middle East, the Far East & Australasia, and of course they also ex- amine in North America where they have joined exams with some of the American boards as well. So we’re offering our stu- dents a unique package and they are going to be taught by an international faculty in a state of the art dental school and a den- tal clinical facility which will be complet- ed during 2014, and we anticipate during 2015 that we will have 150 dentists work- ing within the Dubai School of Dental Med- icine either teaching or training. Congratulations on the new project, an in- teresting initiative. With your vast expe- rience in the UK, what can you say about the Middle East market in terms of den- tistry? Did you market Research the region before moving here and taking on the task to open the school? Well there was pre-existing market research, which is but a few years old, which indicates that there is, very much, a demand for post- graduate dentistry specialization within the Gulf region. To give you an example, with- in the UAE itself we have very nearby un- dergraduate dental schools which will pro- duce in excess of 250 dental graduates per annum. But these graduates have no mech- anism, except for a very small number of places, currently to get postgraduate edu- cation to specialist level within the Gulf re- gion. Therefore they are bound to go either to North America or the UK in order to get specialty training. The problem with that, if you take the UK as an example, and indeed the same occurs in North America, the stu- dents go over there at a significant expense because not only do they have tuition fees, but they have the cost of travel, accommo- dations and the cost of living within these countries as a foreign national. And these individuals then get an academic qualifica- tion from the host university, but don’t get anything to indicate that they’ve had a for- mal clinical training—and indeed they don’t get a formal clinical training within these in- stitutions. So not only are we providing a homegrown opportunity for these students to get a postgraduate education to specialist level without having to leave the Emirates, which is certainly an advantage to some of the female graduates that we have here, but in addition to that they are getting a clinical qualification which will allow them to have a clinical license within the Gulf and, in fact, one which is internationally recognized. Based on what selection criteria will you accept your students? And the program will be offered in which languages? Well in line with the rest of the tertiary ed- ucation facilities here these courses will be taught exclusively in English and our selec- tion criteria demands are very clearly set, because of that our students must be pro- ficient in English and reach the necessary grade of understanding English in order to participate in the course. However in ad- dition to that, they need to be the top stu- dents form their graduating dental schools, they need to have had a few years’ expe- rience: one, to cement and seal their clin- ical competence as a General Dentist and also an opportunity to figure out for them- selves which area of dentistry they’d like to specialize in. And we then take them on a competitive basis after an interview pro- cess and the usual admissions criteria, and the students are then brought in and are encouraged to develop the ability to have lifelong learning when they leave, and also they will be subjected to a very stu- dent-centered postgraduate training pro- gram where there will be a maximum class size of six students and any one cohort be- ing taught by, as I said previously, the in- ternational faculty. So it will be very much, all small groups teaching, which we antic- ipate will produce not only students who are highly competent, but the clear inten- tion is that they will be specialists who will be able to practice autonomously and pro- vide high quality specialist advice. In ad- dition also serve as ambassadors for the new Dubai School of Dental Medicine as it increases in its scope and in its influence within the Gulf region because, of course, it’s going to end up being the largest dental healthcare facility within the region. Last- ly, as a parallel aspiration of this school, be- cause we will be a large specialized unit we hope to be able to provide tertiary care for patients with complex and difficult prob- lems. And hopefully we will very soon be- come a significant referral base for both the dental and the medical professions within the Gulf States. Regarding your lecturers and educators, based on what criteria do you select them? Well clearly when one has the opportunity to start a new school and has a blank sheet of paper with which to create the faculty, the curriculum, etc. one starts with the very highest expectations and I’m glad to say that my experience today has exceeded my We will be offering specialty dental training programs in all the recognized dental specialties "The Dubai School of Dental Medicine is part of Dubai Healthcare City" "A three year intensive clinical training program with a clear didactic component and a research dissertation" "A postgraduate education to specialist level without having to leave the Emirates" 24 DENTAL ACADEMIA TRIBUNE DENTAL TRIBUNE Middle East & Africa Edition | Jan-Feb 2013

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