Welcome to our new panellists

BDJ Team is delighted to introduce the following new members of the dental community to our reader panel for 2021 and beyond.

Alizey Kazmi

Alizey is a dental core trainee 3 currently working in Liverpool Dental Hospital Oral Medicine department. Alizey is from Lytham St Annes and is going to write for BDJ Team on the importance of prevention in oral health and why we still face preventable childhood caries.

Ammar Ahmed Zaki

Ammar Ahmed Zaki qualified BDS from the University of Liverpool in 2018 and is currently carrying out his second year as a dental core trainee in OMFS in North Wales. He is interested in pursuing a career in restorative dentistry and hopes to apply for speciality training in the coming years.

In October, Ammar published The new classification of periodontal diseases in BDJ Team (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41407-020-0435-5). We look further to reading his next contribution to BDJ Team in 2021.

Bev Littlemore

Bev is a Senior Lecturer and Course Lead for the integrated BSc (Hons) Dental Therapy at the University of Central Lancashire.

Having worked in dentistry for 30 years Bev is passionate about furthering the development of dental care professionals. Bev has worked in general practice, maxillofacial and orthodontic settings, community and in public health and has been teaching for over 20 years.

Bev graduated with a Combined Diploma in Dental Hygiene and Dental Therapy (with Distinction) from Liverpool University. She has since achieved a BSc (Hons) in Dental Studies (1st class) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Management. She has completed her PG Cert in Learning & Teaching in Higher Education to achieve Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. She is currently studying for an MSc in Advanced Restorative and Periodontal Practice with UCLan.

Alongside her teaching commitments, Bev is also an examiner for the Royal College of Surgeons and delivers CPD courses and training to fellow DCPs.

Bev plans to write for BDJ Team after she has completed her dissertation.

Claire Bennett

Claire has been in dentistry for over 24 years, working in several different roles. Originally a qualified dental nurse with additional qualifications in dental radiography and oral health education, she progressed to teaching dental implant nursing nationally, for multiple companies, and lecturing, as well as running a successful state of the art dental practice with her husband. Claire always felt she wanted to be the other side of the chair and treat patients herself, so returned to university in 2017 to become a dental therapist.

Claire graduated from Cardiff University with a first class honours degree in dental therapy and won the BSDHT Cardiff graduation award for professionalism and excellence, the Dentsply Periodontal care presentation prize, the BSPD Paediatric care prize and more recently the BSDHT national student of the year award.

Just before going to university, Claire discovered that she was dyslexic, and she is going to write about dyslexia and dentistry for BDJ Team.

Dominika Jaslikowska

Dominika says: 'I started out as a dental nurse back in 2012; I completely fell into the job randomly if I'm honest. I have a caring nature and get a great satisfaction from helping others, making them feel at ease, so the job was right up my street.

'I've loved working as a dental nurse through the years but soon realised I would like more autonomy so that's when my next journey began. I applied to study dental hygiene and therapy but was unsuccessful at the time. I looked for other ways which would widen my knowledge and help me in my future application; that's when I enrolled to study Biomedical Science at Portsmouth. I am glad I took this route because that's when I fell in love with research and the need for new, exciting findings to aid future practice.

'I was lucky enough to participate in a research project (supervised toothbrushing programme) at the Dental Academy in Portsmouth and also, was able to undertake my final year project there too. I am now in my first year of dental hygiene and therapy at the University of Sheffield, which I really enjoy!

'In years to come my dream is to work as a dental therapist while spending some time on research projects, utilising my love for science and art.'

Dominika is going to write about environmental issues in dentistry for BDJ Team.

Fiona Ellwood

Fiona is the President and Executive Director of the Society of British Dental Nurses and a member of the Dental Professional Alliance (DPA). She has received a British Empire Medal (BEM) and acts as a key opinion leader and advisor for oral health and preventative practice, infection prevention and professional practice. She has a strong interest in population level health matters and inequalities in health. Fiona is heavily involved in education across the sector and invests a great deal of time on programme design and development with a strong focus on quality assurance and assessment.

Fiona is an External Examiner for the University West of Scotland and a GDC Education Associate and Registration Panel Member. She completed an MSc PG Cert in Public Health focusing on displaced people and mass disaster and has been accepted on to her PhD programme. As a trained mentor, Fiona has fostered and developed a mentoring culture within and outside of dentistry and applied this to a programme supporting GDPs, as well as applying mentoring and coaching to clinical supervision programmes.

Fiona is a Subject Expert at Bangor University and a member of the Human Factors Advisory Board. She regularly speaks on the dental circuit and internationally. Fiona more recently has been appointed to the Royal College of Edinburgh Dental Faculty Interim Education Board and is a Regional Ambassador for the College. Fiona is currently the driving force behind the Mental Health in Dentistry work along with other members of the DPA and Roz McMullan, Immediate Past President BDA. More recently Fiona was honoured to be part of the SDCEP research work on the Rapid Review working group. She was also interviewed for an article in BDJ Team this January: COVID-19 and dental nursing.

We look forward to working further with Fiona and all of the other new panel members in 2021!

Look out for a second series of introductions to new panel members in the February issue.