It’s 23 years this year since a little bit of paper came through my door at our little 2-bedroom semi-detached house in Nottingham that we thought we’d die in because it was so expensive.
The bit of paper was in an envelope and I opened it to find a CCST.
A CCST is a certificate for completion of specialist training and conferred me the title of specialist in surgical dentistry.
It was the time of the explosion of the specialist in dentistry and there were 3 lists in surgery created, 1 in surgical dentistry for guys like me working in practice, 1 in oral surgery for singly qualified maxillofacial surgery people and 1 in oral and maxillofacial surgery for the doubly qualified guys who were the real top of the tree in head and neck surgery.
I was absolutely bowled over and over the moon.
The list had recently been created for Surgical Dentistry and I had to submit material to suggest that I was worthy of the title of ‘Specialist in Surgical Dentistry’.
I put together CV’s and logbooks of work that I had done and analysis of current work that I was doing and by hook or by crook I became a specialist in 1999, 5 years after qualifying as a dentist.
Soon the list was rationalised because there were too many and nobody understood them and everybody on Surgical Dentistry got moved up to the Oral Surgery list and so, without passing an exam in this subject (apart from the fellowship below) and without an interview and without a structured training pathway I found myself a Specialist in Oral Surgery.
I had worked in hospital and as a junior house officer in Glasgow and Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine in Perio and then as a senior house office in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in Nottingham and Derby and then as a clinical assistant in Oral Surgery in Derby through my VT year.
I worked 3 years full-time in hospital and I did a VT year with Oral Surgery associated and by the time I got my Oral Surgery certificate I was an associate in NHS practice trying to start a surgery career in implants.
My surgery career in practice started that year by asking my boss if I could protect 30 minutes on a Monday between 12.30 and 1pm to do a surgical procedure once a week.
My boss thought this was mental but agreed to allow me to do it as long as I put extra time in elsewhere to cover the 30 minutes.
And so, I started to do some surgery and asked my colleagues in the practice if they needed any cases doing such as difficult extractions or surgical extractions to help me by giving them to me so that I could do them in my Monday session.
Since that time, I’ve placed over 6,000 dental implants and stopped counting surgical extraction at 10,000. I’ve removed over 3,000 impacted lower third molars and provided perhaps 1,000 apicectomy procedures and lots more oral surgery procedures including cyst removals, exposures of canines and soft tissue surgery.
And so, in the intervening time I’ve thought a lot about being a surgeon and particularly an Oral Surgeon (which is what I used to describe myself as when people asked but not now, I’m much more comfortable with dentist).
I think though, for people heading into this world and also for people at the early stages of it, it’s worth reflecting on the things that some old guy who’s been around the block once or twice in this world thinks are important and so, I’ve decided now to write a little series of the characteristics I think are critical for someone who might want to become a surgeon working in the field of dentistry.
Final point worth remembering is that in 1997 I graduated from the Royal College of Surgeon of Edinburgh as a fellow of Dental Surgery (FDS) (RCS) and so, it means that I’m Colin Campbell BDS FDS RCS Specialist in Oral Surgery.
That used to be a significant thing (or so I thought) but it’s completely useless and insignificant now.
Not even my colleagues in the profession understand what the letters mean so the public have no chance and, in the scramble, to call ourselves Doctors (which I fundamentally disagree with) I was given the elevated title of Mr because I had graduated from being a Doctor to a Mr because I was now a surgeon and nobody in the world understands that.
(Think orthopaedic surgeon has Mr dermatologist as Doctor).
And so, while I was lucky enough (and there was a huge amount of luck involved) to have the title of specialist in Oral Surgery conferred, it means nothing if you can’t use some of the skills and insights I’m about to list in the rest of these pages.
If I had a pound for every time someone asked me how to get referrals after they’ve got an MSc I would have quite a few pounds for that process.
Titles mean nothing and certainly don’t relate to success, happiness and contentment.
Blog Post Number - 3183
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