Laleh Sharifian

Dentistry has been the only profession on my radar for as long as I can remember! Not having any family in the medical world and having a rather odd dentist as a child, I am surprised this obsession managed to stick around and I was lucky enough to join the prestigious United Medical and Dental Schools (UMDS) of Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals to study dentistry. At my interview I remember talking about how excited I was to treat nervous patients and to learn about sedation. As an undergraduate, I was awarded the Malleson prize for my final year research project on the psychosocial effects of tooth loss.

I qualified in 1999 from UMDS and enrolled on the diploma for sedation soon after, whilst doing surgical and restorative house jobs at Guy’s. Blessed to have been taught by the finest leading tutors in this field, including Meg Skelly, Derek Debuse, David Craig and Carole Boyle, I embarked on a journey as a general dental practitioner (GDP) whilst using my sedation skills in primary care.

Most of my career has been as a private GDP in London and I spent 15 years at the same practice, building continuous care with patients I adored. I noticed an increase in demand for sedation in primary care and wanted to make sedation accessible to more patients and dentists. I set up a peripatetic service so patients were able to have their treatments with their own dentist and I was able to utilise technology and the luxury of mobility to deliver a bespoke anxiety and IV sedation service for those patients and dentists. I did this alongside dentistry for a few years before deciding to dedicate myself full time to this exciting and growing field. I wrote a difficult email to my patients explaining my decision and in 2020 I put my proverbial dental tools down.

I now practise sedation in the south east of England for 40 practices and sedate around 250 patients a year. Alongside this, I am dedicated to teaching and learning and am tremendously honoured to be part of the faculty at SAAD. I also teach life support courses, mainly ILS, for dental practices. I am a sedation supervisor for nurses and dentists training in sedation and also an examiner for the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. I also undertake expert witness work in relation to sedation and engage in lectures and talks for dental associations both locally and nationally.

SAAD has been an inspiration to me throughout my career, and I am privileged and excited to have been chosen as a co-opted member of the SAAD Board. I hope to utilise my experience of peripatetic sedation services in primary care and continue to promote and expand this incredible area.

Outside of sedation, I consciously engage in anything culinary and travel-related. Living in the UK, we are able to travel for just a few hours to discover entirely different surroundings, people, language, food and wine. I absolutely love to travel in this way every few weeks and find this to be life’s natural sedative