Dr. Zuhair Waheed on Learning a New Country and Career
Dr. Zuhair has called many places home. His adaptability in his personal life has seeped into his professional life. He talks about how working as a lab technician made him a better dentist and gave him an edge in the world of implant dentistry.
The weekend was good. We did a lot of shopping for the baby. Me and Zarrish, my wife, are expecting. The due date is first of July, Canada Day. We are setting up the room, getting the crib, dresser, stroller, car seat. We do a lot of Googling and YouTubing first to look at the stuff, look at the reviews, then we go to the shop, see it physically, then we get it. That’s why it’s taking a long time. Yeah, less than three months, it’s coming up fast.
Right now, everything is revolving around that. Before, when we used to shop, I’d go to the men’s section and she’d go to the women’s section. Now we both just go to the baby section.
I was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, and lived there for eighteen years. We used to go to Pakistan every year for vacations. When I turned eighteen, I went to dental school in Pakistan. I was twenty-two when I graduated, and I worked for two years in Pakistan, and then I went back to work in Saudi Arabia, for five years from 2012 to 2017. And then I moved to Canada.
My wife is Canadian. When we got married in 2013; she wanted to move to Canada. She also knew that I was settled in Saudi Arabia, and I had a job there, so she never forced it on me. In 2014, we came to visit Canada. We had a feel for what Canada is like. I told her I’d move here, but only once I had a job, since I couldn’t work as a dentist over here yet. We came here for a month, and then we went back to our regular lives. In December 2016, she said, I should just apply for a job. You never know, something might open up. So this dental lab job opened up in Toronto. They were looking for something I had experience in, planning dental implants and fabricating surgical guides. They offered me a job and a contract, and as soon as I signed the contract, I moved to Canada.
Moving to the lab didn’t feel like a huge career shift for me. In Saudi Arabia, I was working as a dental specialist hired by a surgical laser company. I would go to different dental offices and work on patients to show other doctors how to use the lasers. Same thing with CBCT radiograph machines. I was trained on how to take CBCTs, and then show doctors how to do implant planning on the software. Similarly, they had recently started a CAD/CAM line, where they had a scanner, a milling unit, a printer, and implant-planning software. So that’s where I learned surgical guide fabrication.
In dental school in Pakistan, they taught us the core stuff. And then, when we graduated, we worked in very focused lines, working on only restorative dentistry, or only endodontics. We would gradually step up to dental implants and stuff like that. But working for that company, we were doing full-mouth cases right from day one. We were planning implants right away. There was a huge learning curve, and the lab helped me with that. I learned most of my implant-planning skills from that lab. The benefit was that I had the technician right next to me then. When I was planning an implant, and was wondering if the crown would fit on the implant, I could just lean over and ask, “What do you think of this implant crown? What do you think of the case?”
Most dentists don’t know the technician side. We don’t know metal; we don’t know zirconia; we don’t know the fracture toughness of those materials. But the technicians are very well aware of those things. That’s what I learned on the lab side, and it was really interesting.
In a twist, now I’m the customer for this company. I used to train doctors on how to use this hardware and software; now, I’m doing this work for the patient, and the same company supports me in placing dental implants.
I got my Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS) from the University of Toronto. I basically learned how we do dentistry in Canada. In Pakistan, we followed the British system, and here we follow the North American system. Some things are different, but the patient care remains the same.
I really liked learning how to develop treatment plan cases, and that’s where I focused my energy during my DDS. It feels great to be able to provide that service for my own patients, and to be able to take care of everything from beginning to end. Either I’m doing the work myself, or I am referring out to specialists who can take better care of specific procedures.
The first thing I noticed when I got my DDS was how comfortable I felt in a dental office. I was on my own, responsible for the treatments I provide. I find it fascinating how every patient is different, every patient has a story, every patient has their own life. Each patient is a new experience.