Dental Research: Who Cares? I'm A Clinician

This presentation explores the intersection of dental research and clinical practice, narrated through Dr Jilen Patel's personal experiences as a clinician. The majority of dental professionals do not initially pursue a career in dentistry with the intention of engaging in research; instead, research opportunities often arise unexpectedly. This lecture will delve into the research minefield and explore a number of different areas including dental volunteering, child safeguarding, tele-dentistry, silver diamine fluoride and even an intriguing account of how a dentist became involved in water testing in the Goldfields.

Learning Objective

Understand the integration of research in dentistry, explore its applications across various domains such as volunteering and tele-dentistry, and identify opportunities for professional growth.

About Paediatric Dentist Dr Jilan Patel  PhD, DClinDent (Paed Dent), BDSc (Hons), MRACDS (Paed), FADI, FICD, FPFA, SFHEA

Dr. Jilen Patel is a specialist paediatric dentist, senior lecturer at UWA, consultant at PCH and principal at Castlegate Family Dental Care. For over a decade, Jilen has been involved with providing volunteer dental services to remote Aboriginal communities and is the current chairman of the Kimberley Dental Team (KDT).

Jilen's research interests include dental public health and cariology, and he is the clinical lead for the WA Early Childhood Dental Program. His PhD created an evidence-based quality improvement framework for dental care to Indigenous communities and studied the impact of volunteer services to remote communities.

More recently he has been involved with translating and adapting the KDT model to address areas of unmet need in the Central Great Southern implementing a community based oral health promotion program seeing 80% of all 0-4yr old children in the region.

He has also been involved with asynchronous tele-screening for children to increase the reach of dental services in Perth as well as a large city-wide study currently in progress in Saudi Arabia.

Jilen is passionate about unravelling and conveying evidence to help clinicians better understand complex concepts and he has received both the Royal Australasian College Emerging Lecturer Award, the ADA/Pierre Fauchard Academy's Young Lecturer Award and recently received the ADA Outstanding Young Dentist Award for his contribution to the profession.

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