Kuwaiti Prosthodontist Residency Personal Statement

Kuwaiti Prosthodontist Residency Personal Statement, Helping the Underserved

Born and raised in Kuwait, I became a dentist in the UAE in 2019. Since I began dental school, my heart has been stolen by Prosthodontics for a variety of reasons, most of all the way that I have been raised to honor older people and to give them priority attention. Thus, I hope to be selected for a residency program in my chosen area of specialization, prosthodontics. I look forward to contributing to the diversity of your program as a Kuwaiti Arab man who is devoted to the cause of expanding access to prosthodontic treatment for the underserved in my native Kuwait, particularly older or elderly Kuwaitis.

Now with several years of experience as a practicing dentist, I have noticed that most of the patients I have treated could benefit from at least minor prosthodontic intervention ranging from replacing a missing tooth to creating a new smile. After distinguishing myself in a residency program, I plan to return to Kuwait and work with a team of interdisciplinary specialists and to increasingly focus my attention on the underserved, also as a volunteer. Kuwaiti citizens enjoy dental care funded by our government. I am especially concerned about the many thousands of foreigners, mostly Indians, Bangladeshis, and Nepalese, who overstayed work visas and find themselves economically trapped with oral health care far out of reach. The best of Kuwait’s dentists help foreigners at no charge when they are in need, I am not alone, but I look forward to working to stimulate this generosity in the future in coordination with our Ministry of Health. Promoting the professional organization of Prosthodontists in Kuwait and throughout the Middle East, is also high on my list of priorities for the future.

I completed dental school at ____ University in the UAE, earning a DDS in 2019 and staying for over six years to gain experience. This has helped me to understand better the Arab world and the many challenges that it faces in oral health care. I appreciated the diversity in the UAE and the fact that I was given much practice in dentistry in English. I spent almost one year in the UK between 2012 and 2013 and had an opportunity to visit France and Italy. I have also spent significant amounts of time in Egypt.

I have worked with and treated individuals from many ethnic and social backgrounds and celebrate the challenge of diversity at every step, always putting the patient first. I enjoy sharing my experiences and listening to those of my colleagues. I passed the MFDS Part I exam and planning to take Part II in March 2023. During my training in my current general dentistry residency position, I have gone out of my way to gain as much exposure to prosthodontics treatments as possible, training alongside highly experienced Prosthodontists. Each day I seek to emulate their excellence.

As a volunteer, I have provided home dental care for disabled people and visited many primary schools doing preventive treatment for children to avoid cavities. My last volunteer experience was during the Covid pandemic, and I was most pleased to receive a Certificate of Appreciation from Kuwait’s Prime Minister.

Nothing brings me as much joy as finding someone when I am out and about in public who very much needs prosthodontic treatment but cannot afford it even though they work 7 days a week. I met a young Indian man in a parking garage, for example, who had been in a motorcycle accident that cost him his front teeth. I made him a present of partial dentures upper and lower. The smile on his face is etched in my mind. During my fifth year of dental school, I met a man working in a grocery store and gave him my number. An older gentleman, also Indian, with a cleft palate and many missing teeth. I fixed him up with an rpd with palatal obturater. Tears rolled down his cheeks from the happiness.

These experiences and more have left me most determined to go as far as I can in prosthodontics, perhaps at some point teaching in my field, in addition to practicing for the balance of my professional lifetime.

Thank you for considering my application.

Kuwaiti Prosthodontist Residency Personal Statement