Choose your own path

Fazeela Khan-Osborne looks at what it takes to become an implant dentist.

There is not one definitive route to a career in dentistry. You only need to compare your own experience to that of your colleagues to know that there are various paths to success. Some will have known they wanted to be a dentist before they’d even stepped foot in a dental school; others – myself included will have started their journey as a postgraduate, having taken a degree in another subject.

Occasionally, there’s an element of luck – meeting an individual who inspired you and gave you that lightbulb moment. A common theme is someone who says they knew they were good at certain things, and enjoyed certain things, then eventually joined up the dots. My academic background is scientific, which taught me discipline and focus. But I started to realise I didn’t want to spend my life in a lab, I wanted to be out there, caring for people. That’s when I considered dentistry, which is about doing things in the correct way to enable patients to lead better, healthier lives.