Photo by Bruce Bottomley

Haider Hussain’s (MPerio’24) first experience of Canada was from the window of a quarantine hotel. It was May 2021, and he had arrived from the United Kingdom to take up his place on the master of periodontics program at Dalhousie University.

He was undaunted. “I like an adventure,” he says.

On the move

Hussain’s adventures began long before he reached Canada. He and his family moved from Saddam Hussain’s Iraq to the U.K. when Hussain was in his early teens. The move was “challenging,” he says, forcing him to grow up before his time.

The family settled in Leeds, West Yorkshire, which offered Hussain’s parents — both engineers — work opportunities in a multicultural city.

Many of Hussain’s family members are doctors and dentists, so when he was deciding what to study at university, health care was a clear choice. At school, he was able to get a few weeks’ work experience in a couple of dental practices. He gained similar experience in a GP’s medical practice, but didn’t find it as engaging.

“With dentistry you’re doing lots of things with your hands and being artistic,” Hussain explains. “You’re managing patients and staff, and there’s also a giving-back aspect to it.”

In the U.K., students can study dentistry straight out of high school. And, so, in 2006, Hussain began his five-year dentistry training at the University of Manchester, followed by a compulsory foundation year, which is a salaried position during which new dentists work under supervision.

Only a certain number of practices offer foundation-year placements, and Hussain’s was in a high-needs area near Sheffield. He treated patients needing multiple restorations, extractions, and full mouth rehabilitation, and gained an appreciation for “delivering dental care centred on disease prevention.”

After foundation year, Hussain needed a job. Like other junior dentists in the U.K., he worked for the National Health Service (NHS). He gained more experience and built up his speed, but in many ways, the work wasn’t satisfying enough.

“I understood the need to be fast, but I also wanted to give patients a good experience and for them to want to come back,” Hussain says. “I knew then that I wanted go into private dentistry.”

The road to periodontics

Hussain registered for a 15-day restorative certificate course at the Manchester Dental Education Centre, which he took over the course of a year while continuing to work. It was, he says, a “crash course on all the specialities.”

The course opened the door to periodontics. Hussain was intrigued and attracted to both the aesthetic and surgical aspects of the speciality, and procedures such as crown lengthening and gum and bone grafts. He explored part-time programs that would give him skills and knowledge in more advanced periodontal treatment. A three-year masters in clinical periodontology at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston was the result.

Although combining his practice commitments with his studies and travelling to back and forth to Preston was hard, Hussain says the masters program ignited his passion for periodontics. “There were lots of non-surgical treatments,” he says. “I was also able to do some surgeries, including guided tissue regeneration around implants, plus practising on pig jaws, treating patients, and a dissertation in third year.”

Hussain’s first masters was an introduction to the speciality, but it didn’t make him a specialist. That was why he came to Dalhousie to do a second one. He explored options in the U.K. and other countries, but Dr. Matthew Morris (MPerio’23), whom he met during his first masters and who was already in the Dal program, encouraged him to come to Halifax.

Ready for Dal

The interview for the Dal residency took place over Zoom because of COVID restrictions, denying Hussain an opportunity to visit campus.

“I was really impressed by the questions and by how chilled and relaxed the interviewers were,” he says.

Hussain was also given a lot of information about the program and the types of procedures he would be doing, including gum grafts using multiple techniques. He says it was a “lightbulb moment” when he recognized the scope for soft tissue grafting and the “artistic side of perio” a North American program would offer him.

He was not disappointed. “Dal offers a true speciality training program,” he says. “You’re not only being tested on your skills; you’re also being tested on the way you look for knowledge and gain that knowledge. I think this is what sets it apart from other programs.”

Hussain was ready for a program like this.

“I wanted to be a specialist,” he says. “I wanted an adventure. If that meant a new culture, a new place, new ideas, and working in a new country, I thought it would be stupid not to take that perfect opportunity.”

For Hussain, the adventure is not over. After his board exam, he will be volunteering with Crisis Management Association (crisismanagementassociation.com) at a refugee camp on Lesbos, a Greek island, where around 6,000 refugees from Syria, Yemen, and Somalia wait for their paperwork to be processed.

“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do,” he explains. “I’ve done some volunteering and I like the idea of giving back and meeting like-minded people.”

After some time at home in the U.K., Hussain plans to return to Nova Scotia.