Monthly Archives: January 2013

Nikoletta Kafantari Why I love what I do

One of the things I love about my job as a dentist is that I usually get to know my patients very well and many times meet their families, talk about their jobs and their lifestyle. On the other hand, what usually happens is that our patients know very little about us… I therefore thought about answering to the two most common questions I receive from my patients.
The first one is ‘Where are you from?’ (As my accent is still strong), and as soon as I admit being Greek, here comes the second ‘…and what are you doing in the UK? Why did you leave the sun to come to rainy England?’ … Well, the reason I came to England was to attend a postgraduate course in the field of Endodontics (Root Canal Treatment), as I was accepted in the most famous dental postgraduate Institute in Europe. After I finished my first degree in Greece, I applied for the Endodontics course at the Eastman Dental Institute, UCL, and I must admit it was the best experience of my life so far. Three years later I am still here, for good, due a combination of personal life choices and great work opportunities in the UK.
The third question has to do with my job; the utterly feared Root Canal Treatment! Most patients consider it as the most painful of the treatments and therefore cannot understand my choice of specialisation. My answer to that is simple, the root canal treatment procedure can be totally painless and is very challenging for me as a clinician (I’m always up for a challenge). But most of all, I see patients with severe pain and many times swelling and manage to get them pain-free and save their tooth. The appreciation and the comments that I receive, such as ‘it was totally painless’, or ‘thank you for saving my tooth’, always puts a smile on my face and makes the lengthy and challenging process of the root filling totally worth it.
For any more questions, I’m always at your disposal! 😉