PROF EMERITUS DATO’ DR WAN MOHD NASIR BIN WAN OTHMAN
“ What inspired you to choose dentistry as a career?”
Thank you very much, firstly I would like to thank The Malaysian Dental Students’ Association for inviting me for this interview. So, for your question, on why I choose dentistry, actually I don’t have any inspiring stories, but before the end of form six, there was a career talk. During that talk, he mentioned that there is not enough dentists in Malaysia. Just look around, there are many children with rotten teeth, that struck me as a student to choose dentistry as a career. Before that, I was looking at agriculture as a career. But, that talk inspired me, or mostly it influenced me to choose dentistry as a career.
“ You are the Founding Dean of Faculty of Dentistry, USIM, can you share with us on the journey of starting up a new faculty in USIM, and what makes it different from other faculties in Malaysia?”
Thank you for the question. Before I retired as the Director of Oral Health Services and a Registrar of National Dental Council, I was approached by USIM, to set up this faculty in which they offered me the job. I told them to give me some time before I make the decision. Then, I went through their website, and then I noticed that their philosophy is different from usual, that they are integrating their revealed knowledge and acquired knowledge. That is quite different. Then, I get back to them and accept the offer. I was anxious to take up the post because it is not every year we established a faculty. This can be a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Apart from dentistry, I have a strong background in educating health personnel. I was involved in the development of curriculum of auxiliaries; paramedics, not only dental nurses and dental technologists but also, the medical assistants, nurses, pharmacists and so on. I was also involved in dental training schools in Malaysia responsible in training dental auxiliaries. My curiousness started there. After 5 months in Kota Bharu, they posted me into Penang dental training school. And I was in there for many years, in & out and later on I became the director. So, education has always been dear to me. I retired on 23rd September 2006 and 2nd October, I reported for duty. That is only one week after I retired. I notice that there is nothing here, I started from ground zero.
After I reported duty in Nilai. I came back and Prof Dato' Dr Nik Nasri was the Founding Dean of Medical Health and Sciences Faculty. He was very helpful. He gave me one room in a small office in the faculty of medicine at the 13th floor. He even assigned one of his staff to be my secretary. That was very helpful and I started from there, me & my secretary. There's nobody yet. We started to look around and recruite others. The first thing that USIM did was recruiting the administration. Along the journey, I am also grateful to my friend Dr Irhamin. We were long time friends. I asked him to come to USIM. At first, he was reluctant as he wanted to go somewhere else. But like me, he was also interested in ‘naqli’, ‘aqli’, so he consented to it. He was very helpful. We had a lot of friends. Some of my friends from the Ministry of Health, veterans, and the dental technologists also come and become the early path people. They gave a lot of support. I also consulted with my friends in the Ministry of Health. So, at that time I started from ground zero, no curriculum, no building to call our own. Zero. We started building from there. We started recruiting lecturers. Later, if they got a place, they can go for their postgraduate. We recruited quite a number of them. We also recruited Dr Hassan who at that time migrated to New Zealand and Australia. He was one of the earliest staff recruited. Those are the few people at that time.
The first challenge for me was developing the curriculum. My strategy is to share this curriculum with my colleagues. Because if something was different, I have to prepare for it. I prepared the curriculum by January. Then, we had a workshop at a hotel beside KLIA. I forgot the name of the hotel. It was Pan Pacific Hotel at that time. Now it is called...I forgot. But that is what we did at that time. A number of my colleagues, some are dean of faculties, some from the Ministry of Health. We did a workshop and I am grateful they offered some suggestions and so on. We looked at that and developed and strengthened that, adopted and used it as our curriculum. In 1st July, we started the intake as it was time, curriculum was ready & everything was ready, so slowly trickling started coming in, working with us. But, still we had only the skeletal staff. So, we used a lot of part timers. We are so grateful for them. Some from the medical faculty, medical faculty of UKM, they are in charge of teaching physiology, anatomy, biochemistry and so on. Until later on, for basic sciences, we recruited some students with their basic degrees (tutors). Then, we sent them for Masters & now they come back with PhD. But of course along the way, some came in. Some years later we recruited those with PhD. At that time, it was difficult to find those with PhD to join us. So, we had to develop our own personnel. So those were some challenges faced. First, the development of curriculum and second, recruitment of personnel and thirdly, along the way we have to establish our faculty to the others.
“ From the recent establishment of Dental Act 2018, I heard you are one of the panel, can you share with us the reason on why it is being implemented?”
I was in the committee for review of the dental act that was way back in 2002. I was the Deputy Director of Oral Health at that time. I was appointed to represent the Ministry of Health, of Oral Health Division to be in the committee to review the act, because the act cannot be static. The development of dentistry is very fast, there was a lot of development in both technologies, policies, knowledge and so on. We needed to relook at the act. The act was established back in 1971. That was many years back, and we needed to look back at the act and see what are the changes that need to be made based on the development in dentistry. I was one of the members. There was members from the public sector and private sector. The chairman at that time, now he has already passed away few years back but we are grateful for his contribution. So, we looked back at other dental acts, and looked at the requirements, regulations and what is in the content and see if it fits with what is going on in the country, as well as whether it is consistent with the development of knowledge. We went through quite a lot. We started in 2002 and it ended in 2012 roughly.
After we established that, there were other developments. In these developments, there were inclusion of dental therapists in the act and also the registration of specialists. At that time, during 1970’s, there were very few specialists are very few specialties. There was only Orthodontics, Oral Surgery and Dental Public Health. Now, we have so many specialties. So that was included in the act, and also the restriction of specialists. Another aspect is the need for dentist to keep up with the knowledge and technology advances. So, that is related to Continuing Professional Development (CPD). CPD points are incorporated to ensure dentists keep on evolving in knowledge and technological advancements. So, that was some changes that was incorporated. We also had lots of discussion, engagement, and we also looked into discussion with law delegate advisors, ministry of health as well as the chambers. It was suggested that because there was lot of changes, it cannot be amended and need to be repealed. Because if it is amended, you can use Dental Act 1971, but because it is repealed, it is Dental Act 2018, and it had to pass through all the levels of inspection. I was appointed by Dental Council as a chairman. The act cannot be fully implemented without regulations. Now, it is the stage of implementation after it is completed. We made an engagement with interested parties and now there is also discussion within the council. Lastly, we had the discussion with all people involved and the council. We worked to get the consent from the Minister. Now, my job is finished and the act is implemented.
“In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge faced by student’s today?”
Okay, to me the biggest challenge is managing the time. There are so many things that they have to do. You can see that our student learning time is a lot. You can see that 3rd, 4th and 5th year students, they are in the faculty from 8 to 5 every day. They are also involved in many other things, such as doing assignments and so on. So, they should have the ability to manage time. They should not procrastinate. They say "I will do this tomorrow", but tomorrow will never come. So, they must be able to do that and control themselves. They must control and do what is more important. Of course you can play your games but don’t play games for too long. Of course you can use Facebook and Twitter, but there is time for it. Time to read, time to play, time to adapt. You cannot just stay in your room and go to the library. You need to go out and live your life to the fullest. You must make full use of your time. Manage the time very well, and don't just only study. This is the most important time, most interesting time of your life and your youth.
“ What is your advice for dental student today?”
Okay my advice, you know my motto is ‘Think big, Start small, Work smart and Act fast’. So, I think that is my advice today. So, whatever you do, make sure you look where're you going. You cannot go and reach there without looking. Make your path. Let us say after you graduated, you want to do good or contribute to the society, you have to establish yourself first. So, you can know where you are going. You have to make your own path to contribute to the society to the best ability you can. Think on, “what is the way?”. Then, start small, you cannot be oblivious. The foundation is important, start small means to develop a foundation, to ensure the basics are strong, so that when you become older, when you come to those challenges and all those things, you can face them with confidence. That is why it is most important to have that foundation. You must have that confidence.
They say “A tree without strong roots, the first strong wind will uproot the tree”. That is why the foundation must be strong. That is the thing I mentioned just now. Next, work smart. Work smart means you have to adapt. There are certain things that people had done, you adapt it. If there are certain things you can adapt according to your requirements and needs, adapt it. Last, work smart and act fast. It is all about time management. Don't wait. "Ok I'm going to do this" but then it becomes tomorrow, tomorrow, and another tomorrow. You have to get started. Same thing with your assignments. The lecturer asks you to do assignments so, you must try to prepare for the assignment earlier, because there's not only one lecturer that gives you assignment, but there are so many lecturers. After some time, so many lecturers, you postpone it, you become stress. So, anything, any instructions, do it as fast as possible, as soon as possible. So that is to me, the things that need to be considered by students. This is another one, you can see here, 'Dengan ilmu, hidup itu akan menjadi lebih mudah', with knowledge, your life will be easier for you, 'Dengan seni’, culture, ‘hidup itu akan menjadi lebih indah’, your life will be very nice. And lastly, 'Dengan agama, hidup ini akan jadi lebih bermakna', with religion, your life will be more meaningful. These are the things that I put in my modules. So, these are some things for you to ponder.