Interview A
sked to reflect on a lifelong career in dentistry notable for many achievements, Professor Bill Saunders immediately chooses one
memory that stands out above all others. Sitting in the dean of dental faculty’s
office at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, where he takes over from Professor Richard Ibbetson this month [October], Professor Saunders recalls the journey from this very place back to Dundee when he was an aspiring dental academic. “I sat the examination here for my
Fellowship rather late, ı2 years after I had graduated, because instead of doing my house jobs, I had gone straight into the Royal Air Force,” said Professor Saunders. “I still remember them reading out our numbers, and thinking: Wow, I’ve passed! “I came back to Dundee on the train that
day, and I must have been grinning from ear to ear because a woman opposite me told me I looked very happy and asked what had happened to me. I explained that I’d just passed the most important exam I’d ever taken in my life and how delighted I was and how important it was to my career. Then the whole carriage burst into sponta- neous applause.” Professor Saunders knew that the
Fellowship was essential to furthering his future in senior academia and his career as a consultant, which took him from Dundee to Glasgow and back, becoming the UK’s first professor of endodontology in the process.
Early aspirations It’s a career which has its roots in some orthodontic work Professor Saunders had done in his childhood. “I must have only been about ı2 years old
when I had that treatment, and ever since then I wanted to go into dentistry,” said Professor Saunders. “I’m not quite sure why, because there were no other dentists in the family – in fact, my father was a serving RAF officer and there was more of an expectation that I would follow him into a career in the services.” After a peripatetic childhood moving
both within the UK as well as overseas because of his father’s postings, the
“I made a decision to abandon the practice, because I wanted more out of dentistry”
aspiring dentist attended the Royal Dental Hospital in London in ı966. Immediately upon qualification, though, he joined the RAF on a cadetship. “Maybe I thought I’d please my father
by joining up, as he was very service orientated,” said Professor Saunders. “I did a five-year short service commission, which included two years at Kinloss in the north of Scotland, and then three years in Germany – protecting us from the Soviet hordes. “In fact, the quality of dentistry in
the RAF was very high, and I managed to develop some good clinical skills. I even earned my pilot’s licence, but didn’t keep it up.”
Big decision Next stop for Professor Saunders was first working as an associate and then setting up his own practice near Southampton, which proved successful, but left him yearning for more from his profession. “The fact is that after six years running
my practice, I was extremely busy but unable to expand and actually feeling quite isolated. That’s when I made a big decision to abandon the practice, because I wanted more out of dentistry. “I tracked down my former senior
lecturer, Ivan Curzon, who was by then a professor at King’s College London, to ask for his advice. He was very helpful and told me ‘We need people in academia, so if you’re interested you should apply.’
I did, and that’s how I ended up in Dundee in ı98ı.” Professor Saunders was appointed to
a lectureship in conservative dentistry at Dundee Dental School, where he also completed higher training in restorative dentistry and a PhD – as well as his Fellow- ship from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Then it was on to Glasgow Dental
School in ı988, as a senior lecturer, where he rose through the ranks and in ı993 he was granted a personal chair in clinical practice. “By ı995 I was concentrating my clinical
practice in endodontology, so I decided I would ask if I could change it to a personal chair in endo, and that was the first of its kind in the UK.”
Continued » Scottish Dental magazine 25
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