Interview
adventure F
A life-long
rom the fairways of the West Country to the shores of Newfoundland, the new dean of the Dental Faculty at The Royal College of
Surgeons of Edinburgh has certainly taken an interesting route to get to his new post. Originally from Exeter, Professor
Richard Ibbetson, who is also the director of the Edinburgh Postgrad- uate Dental Institute, grew up with dreams of making it in the world of professional golf. However, by the time he turned 17 he realised, with some disappointment, that he wasn’t going to make the cut, so he turned his attentions elsewhere. Following in his father’s footsteps,
Richard enrolled at Guy’s Hospital Dental School in London, and quali- fied in 1974. But, after a couple of years in practice in the West Country, he came to the conclusion that general practice wasn’t for him and decided to pursue a postgraduate qualification. However, the young Richard needed
to find a way to finance his studies. During a chance meeting with an old tutor – who happened to be from Glasgow – he learned of an organisa- tion in Canada that was looking for medical and dental professionals to live and work out there. Importantly, in Richard’s case, the money was good and he worked out that a two-year stint across the Atlantic could finance his first year back at university. The only catch, and the main
reason why the money was so good, was that he was heading out to one of the remotest parts of the developed world – Newfoundland and Labrador, the easternmost province in Canada. Richard discovered that many Amer- ican and Canadian medical and dental
“To see people gain knowledge and abilities in a specialist
arena is very satisfying” Professor Richard Ibbetson
professionals refused to work that far north, and so the province was forced to import UK dentists and doctors. He was recruited by the Grenfell
Mission, originally a Methodist body set up in the early 20th century to provide medical care to the fishing industry. Richard lived and worked in Newfoundland and Labrador for nearly two years. On his return, he enrolled at the Eastman Dental Insti- tute in London, eventually staying there for 20 years. After gaining his postgraduate qualifications he worked as a lecturer, senior lecturer, then as an NHS consultant before returning to a senior lecturer post before Edinburgh came calling. Following the closure of the Edin-
burgh Dental School in the early 1990s it was decided to open a postgraduate institute. Prof Ibbetson was brought on board to develop that in September 1999, a challenge he relished from the very start. He said: “As a team we built up the Institute from pretty much nothing. It was a postgrad- uate specialist clinical care facility with a very small number of ‘grad’ students. In the last 12 years we have produced four new masters degree programmes in dental specialties as well as producing the first honours BSc degree for dental hygienists and therapists; they now do a degree in oral health sciences. And that is the only honours degree of its type in the UK.” The Institute is a collaboration
between the University of Edinburgh, NHS Lothian and NHS Education for Scotland but Prof Ibbetson insists it has worked out well over the last decade or so. “If I was asked then the most satisfying thing in my career has been the development of the Institute over the years,” he continued. “It has made a significant difference
to Scottish dentistry and the quality of what my colleagues and I have provided educationally has been very good, not to mention some excellent patient care.” And, despite his change of focus
early on in his dental career, he explained that he has thoroughly enjoyed his life in dentistry. He said: “It’s been a fantastic career I have to say. It’s still the one where I get up in the morning and look forward to coming to work, which is perhaps strange when you have been doing it this long.” He also revealed that he still gets a
kick out of treating people despite his other commitments: “I still do a lot of dentistry, partly on the basis that, for my specialty (fixed prosthodontics) you can’t teach it if you stop doing it. If you stopped you would have about a year before you were out of date. So I still do a lot of it and I still enjoy it.” And he also gets a lot out of seeing
his students learn and develop as dental professionals, both at the
Continued » Scottish Dental magazine 31
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