I usually have my lunch with me at work and I use this time to catch up on paperwork, answer emails and send referral letters. I stick with healthy homemade options for lunch: 1alads, soups, sandwiches and fruit. Personally I think an hour’s lunch break is a waste of time. I would much rather work through lunch and finish work early. As I have a lovely amily I want to spend every free moment with them.
I do a wide range of general dentistry procedures. I quite enjoy preventative and restorative dentistry. It is very rewarding to make a difference and improve patients’ oral health, especially in young children.
One of my favourite treatments is direct composite restorations. When I was studying at university in Ukraine I only heard about amalgam as an outdated treatment used in the past. It was stopped in all the old USSR countries, I think in the late 1980s. So I was taught to use mainly composite.
Olha Vorodyukhina, 31, is a dentist and aesthetic practitioner at City Dental Practice in Leicester, Mapperley Plains Dental Practice in Nottingham and NuCosmetic aesthetic linics. Olha is from Poltava, Ukraine, and qualified in 2005. In 2013 she took the overseas registration exam (ORE) with the GDC and now lives in Nottingham with her British husband, a sports and exercise medicine consultant, and their two-year-old son.
Recently I attended a masterclass on polychromatic veneers by Didier Dietschi in London and this is actually one of my favourite treatments to carry out; I do more of them than porcelain veneers. This approach allows the dentist to use their creative and artistic side. I am very passionate about facial aesthetics, and I perform a wide range of treatments: skin peels, Botox, dermal fillers including advanced technique and eightpoint face lifts, and Dermaroller treatments. I am from a medical family; my grandfather was a doctor during the Second World War. My parents are also doctors: my mother is a Professor of Respiratory Medicine and my father is a surgeon. So I really had no choice but to do medicine, but I wanted to be a litt different and chose dentistry. Back in 2000, when I started, it was quite difficult. Your school grades don’t really matter too much in Ukraine as medical universities have their own independent entrance exams. If you achieve a high grade you will get a funded place and after graduation the government guarantee you work. If your grade is not high enough to be offered funding you still can attend but you need to finance your own education. I was fortunate enough to get a free education.
I was actually one of the youngest in my year and started university at 16. When I graduated I worked in the local hospital and at a private practice.
We have a national health dental service in Ukraine but it will only provide very basic treatments such as extractions and cement fillings. For more advanced work patients need to pay. The competition among dental graduates is incredibly high. We have too many dentists; in my year there were 350 dental graduates and that is only one dental school.
In my opinion many people in the UK don’t appreciate the NHS system and don’t care about their health, knowing that the treatment is free. How well would you look after your car if insurance was free and you didn’t need to pay for repairs? In Ukraine you need to pay for all medical treatments so people would say ‘we can’t afford to get ill’.
In terms of oral health problems I think Ukraine is similar to the UK, with periodontitis and caries being very common. Overall, however, the diet in Ukraine is far less processed with much less sugar.
My husband lives in England, so it was natural for me to move here permanently after we got married. The process of registering to work in the UK was very difficult, but the actual ORE exam wasn’t. The whole process was slow and uncertain. Places were limited for each exam and were released online. If you were quick enough you could book a place. If not you needed to wait until the next set of dates were released. After passing it was almost impossible to get a VTE position as they are not funded by the Deanery in the same way as a VT post. There is no incentive for trainers. There are still people I know who have not secured a VTE post three or four years after passing the ORE, despite their efforts. I have actually set up a website to share my experience and answer questions to help those finishing ORE (http://lifeafterore.wordpress.com/).
In October this year I spoke at the Clinical Cosmetic & Reconstructive Expo (CCR Expo). The topic was ‘Dentistry and facial aesthetics - a perfect match?’ It focused on how dentists can expand easily into aesthetics, by sharing my experience. It went very well. At the moment aesthetic medicine is still new and a rapidly growing industry, so it creates a lot of interest. Dentists are in an excellent position to integrate aesthetic medicine into their practice.
In January 2015 I will be joining the team at Cosmetic Courses in Buckinghamshire as a trainer. I think they are one of the best training bases in aesthetics here in the UK and I’m very much looking forward to the challenge and developing as a good trainer. I have been invited to speak at the World Aesthetic Congress in June 2015 and am looking forward to that too. I’m also planning to do my Diploma in Restorative Dentistry.
I usually get home from work about 5.30 pm, unless I have aesthetic clinic, in which case it’s 8 or 9 pm. At the moment I feel like I am busier than ever in my life, so, any free time that I have I spend with my family and my little boy. I love fashion and clothes shopping and enjoy sport. When I was younger I competed in Latin American dancing at a national level for eight years. Now I visit a gym when I have time, go to yoga classes and run.
We always cook fresh meals at home. Everyone in our family cooks. Although I’m Ukrainian my favourite cuisines are Japanese and Italian. In Ukraine dumplings are a traditional dish and I love those made by my Mum the most!
INTERVIEW BY KATE QUINLAN
BRITISH DENTAL JOURNAL VOLUME 217 NO. 11 DEC 5 2014
