Thinking aloud

The thoughts of Dr Dejan Dragisic, oral surgeon at Wimpole Street Dental Clinic

Interview: Ellie Costigan / Portrait: Christopher L Proctor

The training to be an oral surgeon is long—it took me 11 years—so you need to like it, particularly as there’s not much else you can go into afterwards! I started in dental school, then did almost four years of medical school as well before going into specialist training. That was more than 20 years ago. I’ve never regretted it.

Google can be dangerous. Patients form an opinion before they come in sometimes, which is quite often misleading, so I prefer when they don’t know much about the treatment we are going to provide. We can always point them in the right direction, give them links to good literature, to publications and peer-reviewed articles.

The mouth is an intimate area. Because of that, dental work or surgery can cause anxiety for a lot of patients. Much of my work is invasive and can be unpleasant—extractions and cyst removals, implants—so you need to guide the patient psychologically. It can be intense: I talk a lot during treatment, to reassure patients.

Patients expect a high level of service and that begins with our reception and our nurses, how they talk to patients, how they explain things, how pleasant the waiting room is—even the smell of a surgery. Music is an important factor, as is making sure that you don’t make people wait. I like to get my patients in straight away.

Medicine is in my blood: the wider family includes dentists, vets, a gynaecologist, a paediatrician, and my brother is an ophthalmologist. I grew up with it.

Treatments have changed a lot in the past 20 years, though not always for the better. It has become more financially driven. There’s much more cosmetic treatment, which is something I’m not involved in. I think the biggest advance has been in dental implantology, which has got better and safer. Knowledge and seminars are more accessible too, because of digitisation.

It was always the plan to set up a practice in Marylebone. The buildings in Marylebone are beautiful. It’s also central, which is useful for patients as they come from both within and outside London, as well as abroad. We were lucky; the practice that we acquired about six years ago was in a terrible state, so we could design it the way we wanted to.

We had to close in March last year until June, which was a disaster. It has created a lot of problems because patients didn’t have any access to dental and medical treatment, so certain conditions we could’ve treated with simple intervention have become much more major. Since re-opening, it has been full-on.

I offer specific types of treatment that a lot of dentists don’t do. I’m lucky because I get these patients referred to me. We have several hundred practitioners in the Harley Street Medical Area, so there is a really nice exchange. If I have a patient who needs a filling or a crown, I know where to send them to get really good treatment.

This job is a combination of academic work and practical work. You are constantly learning, constantly developing. You get to meet new people all the time, and we work in a team. It’s a great job.