Georges Tawil, a Visiting Professor at Yerevan State Medical University named after Mkhitar Heratsi, Professor Emeritus at Saint Joseph University in Beirut, has very special links with the Armenian community in Lebanon and speaks admiringly of the Armenian people: lots of his patients are Armenians.
He taught for 37 years at Saint Joseph University. He established the Department of Periodontology in 1977 and started teaching there, he also developed the Postgraduate program․
73-year-old Georges Tawil feels to some extent obligated to give back what he received.
Now the Professor gives lectures to different places in the world.
We talked with Georges Tawil about choosing the profession of dentist, the advantages and challenges of that profession, cooperation with Armenian specialists, as well as an unfulfilled dream.
– How did you decide to become a dentist?
– I was always very interested in science and biology. My father was a dentist. I cannot say that he hasn’t influenced in my decision to become a doctor. One day I should have become a doctor, maybe, not a dentist, but probably a doctor. And then deciding between medicine and dentistry I was pushed by my family why not continuing in dentistry. Medicine is something I was born to be in. But the decision to become a dentist was finally personal. You should do a profession where you really enjoy every moment of the day. If you don’t go to work with a passion, it becomes a disaster.
– What are the privileges of your profession?
– The most important thing in life is to do something that really interests you. And to do it every day with the same passion. If you are happy, then you make happy people around you. When you do surgery, you have done something really great and beautiful, it is something that is invaluable. The second part of it is the practical part. When you become famous as a doctor in the society you live in, then you enjoy this, of course.
– Could you mention any challenges in your profession?
– I am not simply a practitioner that goes to the clinic every day. I am a teacher, I taught half of my life. So, challenges are in the teaching, and challenges are in the practice. The methods and facilities of education have changed so much compared to what we did 30 years ago. Now the education challenge is the innovation that has changed the way of teaching. So, in my last 10 years of university I have again learned how to have a course. Educational methods have changed dramatically, and that’s a challenge to us. Today a robot can place an implant in your mouth. Would you have imagined this 20 years ago? I don’t think it is for the best because they are not developing your skills. They are replacing your skills. Robot is not going to replace human being. For practitioners the challenge is to keep up with the knowledge every single day. But on the other hand, you should be clever enough to handle all this information. The world is changing, and you should be able to be part of these changes and innovations.
– Please, tell me about your career ladder.
– I have graduated from the School of Dental Medicine in Lebanon in 1972. After that, since I was going to education, I needed to have a special training for education. I was one of the first people in Lebanon to have specialized and worked for 50 years in my specialty. In that sense, we were pioneers in our part of the world. There were no specialists in Lebanon and Middle East ever. Before that I did the PhD degree in France, then I went to the United States and spent two and a half years there. That really prepared me for the education. You need to have the right technic to transfer your message. When I came back to Lebanon in 1977, 40 years I worked as a practitioner, then my son followed my steps, and he also became an excellent specialist in the same field. We had been working together for the past 11 years. There is a continuity, my father was a dentist too. In Lebanon when you say the surname “Tawil”, it’s like a brand. We have been in the field of dentistry as a family for more than 80 years.
– What about your collaboration with Armenian, especially YSMU specialists?
– Raffy Semerdjian, the Executive Director of the “Management Mix” Company; partner and co-initiator of the Master's Educational Program “Management of Medical Institutions” of the Faculty of Public Health at YSMU, is a patient and friend of mine. Sebuh Hovnanian was a very good friend of mine from the years of the university. He was a fantastic person. And we have been collaborating for almost 40 years. This is a good example of Armenian-Lebanese collaboration. So, this is an opportunity for me, first of all, to say “thank you” to this very super community you have in Lebanon. If YSMU gives me the chance to share my knowledge and experience, why not? I spent half of my life teaching, so, I could teach in Armenia, for YSMU students as well.
– Tell, please, a little bit about your family.
– My wife is an architect working for a very famous journal that was edited in Lebanon. Now, unfortunately, it is closed. Me and my son are in the medical field, my wife and my two daughters are in arts. My elder daughter is a fashion designer, my younger daughter is an architect, but now she is an event planner.
– Do you have any dreams that haven’t been realized yet?
– Professionally, the one thing that I would like so much to do was to go into experimental research. Why? Because we didn’t have the facility in Lebanon, we didn’t have the finances, and we didn’t have the team that was interested in developing this kind of things. So, this is the big miss in my life.
– How do you relax? What are your hobbies?
– I’m a mad of sports. I am 73 today, and I play tennis twice a week, three times in summer. This is my fancy. I do snow skiing. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink. I am able to keep my physical capacities to perform in sports.
– As an experienced Professor, what advice would you give to the future generation of dentists?
– I should say that one of the big and most important things in life is to keep up with innovations and improve your knowledge. It is important to give a lot of your time reading, following presentations, knowing who is the capable of giving the right information. One of the difficult parts of our practice is the interaction with your patient. A patient is demanding, a patient comes to you because he is in pain. So, you have to be psychologically prepared to handle these things. It’s not easy, because you have your own problems too. You should be able to listen to the patient and bear his negative feelings, anxiety. It is very difficult and sometimes frustrating. You interact with the patient. If you can make him happy, it will be an added value to your life.
Author: Tatevik Ghazaryan