Polish and shine

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Where did you practice, before moving to the UAE?

I trained in Warsaw, Poland's capital city. The training was only two years but was very intensive. I graduated in 1995 and then continued working in Poland until my move to Dubai three years ago.

How does the style of work in Dubai compare?

It is very difficult to find a role as a qualified hygienist in Poland, so many of my colleagues worked alongside dentists as dental assistants. My work here is simpler, because it is easier to motivate the patients.

It is much easier to encourage patients to maintain better hygiene and to improve - but that is also because we predominately see expatriate adults.

Are expatriates more conscious of oral health?

It depends greatly on what country a patient is from as to how much education they have about oral health. American people, for example, typically have very good teeth and take their oral health very seriously.

In Dubai, we need to educate younger children on the importance of good oral care. At Drs Nicholas and Asp, we provide an education programme for local schools. We visit children and discuss what types of food are healthy choices for their teeth, and which are not.

Do community outreach programmes help with this?

It is difficult to motivate local children to improve their oral hygiene but I try and speak with their parents and get them to enforce it at home.

With about 60% of those patients, we'll see a real improvement, but the rest will continue to have very poor oral hygiene.

Even if I explain the impact of decay, and poor oral health, because they're young they find it difficult to imagine that it could become a problem in the future.

How do you encourage parental involvement?

By explaining that children need to be told more than once. They need to be encouraged to maintain good oral care by their parents - without this it is very difficult.

Often when I show the parents how the children should be brushing they are surprised and they say that no one has shown them before. Parents need to supervise young children while they're brushing.

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