Welcome from the Head of School

Since arriving at Melbourne Dental School, this has been my first year when I have been able to see how the school really functions thanks to the COVID pandemic impacting 2020 into 2022. Much has been achieved in 2023 and we have a clear path and plan of action beyond this year.

Professor Alastair Sloan.

We have made some significant changes to our senior leadership with a key focus around growth in the field of population oral health. This is illustrated in part by the launch of a new Graduate Certificate of Dental Public Health. This partnership between Melbourne Dental School and the Melbourne School of Population & Global Health offers many potential pathways for practicing oral health therapists and dentists working in clinical dental services, policy and government, and international oral health.

We have continued to see early career research success across Melbourne Dental School and we continue to be successful in building our strategic partnerships. We’ve had strong grant success with National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Investigator Grants and an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher (DECRA) Award. This was awarded to Dr Ankur Singh who has also been appointed as Division Lead of Population Oral Health.

In further appointments, I am delighted to announce the return to Melbourne Dental School of Associate Professor Matt Hopcraft. A former CEO of the Australian Dental Association, Matt takes up the role of Associate Professor in Professional Practice and he will also continue his research that has highlighted the very real mental health challenges faced by some practitioners. How can we provide a better model of support for dental practitioners? That is something Melbourne Dental School is keen to investigate.

I would also like to announce that Dr Mihiri Silva has taken on a new role as Director of Graduate Research to grow our cohort of PhD students. We have a clear opportunity to grow our PhD student base and help develop the next generation of researchers in oral and dental health. Give the real impact of our research and translational potential, we offer an exciting environment for young emerging researchers.

Over the next six to 12 months, we will grow Melbourne Dental School’s continuing clinical academic base, something that is critically important. The pandemic underscored to me how heavily we have relied on a small group of continuing academic staff. During the pandemic, their workload was demanding and they delivered in spades for students, however, we now want to futureproof the school against any unforseen challenges that come our way. This means we need to grow our continuing academic staffing base to future proof the School and we need to succession plan and, ideally, succession plan for the next succession plan!

The launch of the Collaborative Practice Centre within the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences has been another highlight of 2023. I have been delighted to have had a significant input into this as a Faculty Sponsor and shepherd.

As the Centre grows, our students will benefit from being part of a collaborative practice approach to health care. This fits very neatly with our journey towards championing a complementary, team-based approach that puts patients at the centre of care and also ensures the health and wellbeing of the practitioners who deliver that care.