DentaltownUK August 2017 - 81

a day in the life:
professional profile

Name: Avijit Banerjee
Age: 47
Chair in cariology and operative dentistry,
hon. consultant/clinical lead, restorative
dentistry (Guy's & St Thomas' Hospital
Foundation Trust); head/chair of
department of conservative and minimally
invasive dentistry; director, MSc advanced
minimum intervention dentistry;
director of undergraduate education;
editor, Oral Health & Preventive Dentistry.
Where did you qualify?
United Medical and Dental Schools of
Guy's & St. Thomas' Hospitals (Guy's).
How would you sum yourself up in just
three words?
Infectious, enthusiastic, fair. (However, I am sure my wife, kids and students
would beg to disagree.)
What time do you usually get up on a
weekday, and how far away from work do
you live? 
6:30 a.m. I'm about 45 miles away.
How do you travel to work?
Walking, train and the tube-an
80-minute commute each way, door to
door. Gets tiring by the end of the week!
What are your favourite areas of
dentistry, and what do you find most
challenging?
I'm fortunate that I have many aspects
to my career in dentistry. Teaching both
under- and postgraduate students is always
rewarding. Also, helping oral cancer
patients manage their oral rehabilitation
after surgery, chemo and radiotherapy is
an immense responsibility and privilege.
Heading up research teams and
projects in different aspects of minimumintervention dentistry, cariology and
minimally invasive operative dentistry

helps maintain the mystery and intrigue
in our profession, and is something I
started doing as an undergraduate with
my first peer-reviewed research paper
(published during my BDS4). I very much
enjoy lecturing and writing, working with
colleagues at a national and international
level to help develop the profession. I'm
fortunate to have had those opportunities.
What appealed to you about a career
in dentistry?
I come from a medical family
background, and after having experienced
orthodontic treatment as a kid, I wanted
to find out more about a profession that
can use the skills of both physicians and
surgeons to help people get better and stay
well.
Do you express an interest in
business? Do you think there's enough in
the dental curriculum about the business
side of running a dental business?
To be honest, this has never been a
priority for me, because I always knew
that I wouldn't work full time in NHS or
private practice.
Tell us more about your longer-term
ambitions.
I want to maintain the standards in
all that I do professionally and personally.
I would retire happy if I felt that I had
made a small difference in the way oral
healthcare is delivered to patients by the
profession, with better integration with
all the stakeholders. I still have at least
two decades to go, health permitting, so
this seems a formidable challenge to meet
head-on!
Has any one patient stood out for you
during your career?
I'd have to say the first patient who
suffered molar endodontics in my hands
as a third-year student in the early 1990s.
I not only carried out the endodontic
treatment but also crowned the tooth with
a full gold crown. I was teaching on the
student clinics at KCLDI (Guy's) over 20
years later, and a student called me over
to say hello to the very same patient! My

contemporaneous handwritten notes were
still there-legible, I hasten to add-as
were the tooth and crown.
What did you find most challenging
during your undergraduate studies, and
what advice would you give to younger
students now entering the profession?
My undergraduate time at Guys'
was very enjoyable; I made some lifelong
friends, and was taught by some of the
true greats in the profession, at one of the
best dental schools globally. My undergraduate life was very different compared
with today's-attitudes and expectations
from both undergrads and the dental
institute have changed. It's not about
which era was better or worse; they are
different. My advice to younger students
interested in the profession has remained
the same throughout all the changes: Do
it for the right reasons! Everyone who
enters dentistry is more than capable.
What do you believe will be the
biggest changes we face in the field of
dentistry over the next 20 years?
The implementation of minimumintervention dentistry as a model for
patient-focused, team-care-delivered
oral health care. This is already starting
to happen with developments in the
undergraduate/postgraduate curriculum
and medicolegal changes in practice, but
there is still a reticence to implement these
changes in the NHS service overall. This
will change, but will take time. ■

Check out
Avijit Banerjee's
latest research!
The professor's profile page
on the King's College London
website includes links to his
latest research output and
top downloads. Click here to
discover more.

dentaltownuk.com \\ AUGUST 2017

81
https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/avijit.banerjee.html http://www.dentaltownuk.com
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of DentaltownUK August 2017
