Prof. dr. Curd Bollen, DDS _ PhD _ MSc _ PGCert2; Visiting Professor at the Department of Surgical Stomatology and Maxillofacial Surgery at Yerevan State Medical University; Professor at the College of Medicine and Dentistry at Ulster University, Birmigham, UK; Senior Lecturer at Tipton Training, Manchester, UK; Senior Lecturer at MED Academy, Kaunas, Lithuania; Honorary fellow and ambassador of the CleanImplant Foundation, Berlin, Germany; periodontist, ceramic dental implant specialist at Mondcentrum Eyckholt_Roosteren, The Netherlands; believes there are 3 main characteristics every doctor should have: 1. being compassionate; 2. being up to date; and 3. being a go-getter.
We talked to the Professor about the strengths and weaknesses of the medical profession, his narrow specialization, the way of overcoming stress, as well as the future of the global healthcare system.
– Why did you choose medicine?
– The medical field is the most beautiful area to study: you learn how to make the life of other people better. For me it didn’t matter whether it was curing them from a disease or helping them to keep their teeth. All domains of medicine have their important input in the lives of other human beings.
I doubted a long time between medicine, dentistry and veterinary. I chose dentistry because at the start this only 5 years of study in Belgium. But during the last 2 years of this course, I understood that general dentistry was not my thing. I wanted to do surgery and wanted to do research. Sitting day after day in a clinic and treating patient after patient was surely not my dream. So, I applied for a specialization opportunity at my Alma Mater in Leuven (Belgium). I could start immediately the specialist training in periodontology & implant dentistry in combination with research for my PhD.
After 10 years of study, research, and clinic, I had my DDS, PhD and MSc periodontology diplomas in my hand.
– What is your narrow specialization?
– As mentioned before, I am trained as a periodontist. So, in fact my specialization is just about 3mm of gums. Curing gum disease, helping patients to keep their teeth; that’s my job. Fortunately, I started also immediately focusing on dental implants. By using them, I can help to give people the teeth back they lost before.
Since almost 10 years I developed my own biological concept to help my patients. I combine metal-free ceramic dental implants with concentrated growth factors (from the patient’s own blood) and ozone therapy. I also focus on nutrition and use patients lost teeth to make bone substitute materials, when necessary.
All this gives me the feeling that I cure and help my patients in a natural and healthy way.
– Why is professionalism important in medicine?
– Professionalism is important in every profession, but absolutely in medicine because we are working with the health and even the lives of people. Specifically in dentistry, professionalism should be focused on keeping up with the latest research and developments. This doesn’t mean following every trend, but focusing on improvements in treatment concepts, materials, and equipment. For example, the digitalization of dentistry, using CBCT, guided surgery, intra-oral scanners, and CAD-CAM, is for me a clear sign of professionalism. Of course, everything we do, improve, change, should be in the sign of giving better therapy to our patients. Of course, this way of working asks for lifelong learning. Colleagues, who stop further education and training, should in my opinion also stop their profession.
– Please, mention strengths and weaknesses of the medical profession.
– Weaknesses are in every profession. After all, not everyone handles the same standards. This is not only for therapy, but also for training, equipment, approach and after care. As long as human being treats another human being, there will always be shortcomings. To minimalize this, training and education should be internationally matched. Also exchange of students and professionals between different countries and cultures can help to the bridge gaps.
The strength of the medical profession is that this field is always moving. Continuously new research offers us new insights in better therapies and approaches. This is a never-ending story, I hope. Of course, research needs money, so governments need to be convinced to raise the budgets for medical research and development.
– How do you cope with stress? Do you manage to relax?
– Stress is my pitfall. Combining my own private clinic, my academic work in the UK and Armenia, my family and social life is not easy. Of course, it helps that I see my academic work as my hobby, so reading articles, study books and preparing lectures are not exhausting for me.
Although I get often remarks from my close family that I work too much, I try to keep everything in balance. I try to destress by running 3 to 4 times a week, watching some series on Netflix or reading a good novel.
– What recent books have you read?
– I read a lot. A day without a book, is a day not lived! But in my “free” time I don’t read professional literature. I prefer novels, from local and international writers to the great classics.
My 3 favorite writers are: Harry Mulish (Dutch), Michel Houellebecq (French) and Mario Vargas-Llosa (Peru).
But also good biographies are welcome. The last one I finished was about the late French president François Mitterrand. The most recent book I finished however is “The history of Armenia” by Claire Mouradian. Now I am reading the biography of Elon Musk.
– From your point of view, what makes a good doctor? Which quality, do you think, is the most important in a doctor?
– I believe there are 3 main characteristics every doctor should have:
– How do you see the global healthcare system in 10 years?
– Unfortunately, that depends mostly on some important external factors. The earth is involved in some huge crises: not only wars are spreading from continent to continent, migration is also growing daily, autocrats are ruling the world and finally, our climate is dramatically changing. These co-factors will play a significant role in the development of all fields.
Besides that, I believe Artificial Intelligence will play a decisive role I the further evolution of medicine. Robots will take over more and more jobs in medicine. This can of course have positive effect, but it can also become catastrophically if we would completely rely on machines in the future…
Author: Tatevik Ghazaryan
