13 minute read
Licensed to Drill
from 2025 RCSI Alumni Magazine
by RCSI
From September, successful CAO applicants to RC007 will make up the first student cohort of the new RCSI School of Dentistry. For recently appointed Head of School Professor Albert Leung, this is an opportunity to address the country’s shortage of dentists and to deliver an innovative primary care community programme
Of the 27 countries in the EU, Ireland currently has the second lowest number of dentists per head of population. Many people in Ireland have difficulty in accessing dental services, with the situation in relation to children particularly challenging.
Against this backdrop, the new Bachelor Degree in Dentistry programme at RCSI, supported by the Irish government, accredited by the National University of Ireland and endorsed by the Dental Council in Ireland, will welcome its first intake of students in September 2025.
For its Head of School, Professor Albert Leung, this will be a proud day. “RCSI has a long history of providing education in dentistry,” explains Professor Leung. “In fact, RCSI’s original School of Dentistry, established in 1878, was the second oldest dental school in Europe – the oldest was RCS England founded in 1860 – and RCSI delivered an undergraduate dentistry programme for 99 years until it closed in 1977.”
That closure came about because of a rationalisation of the three dental programmes then in existence in Dublin. Trinity, UCD and RCSI merged their programmes in 1977 into one at the School of Dentistry in Trinity. At RCSI, only the Faculty of Dentistry, for postgraduate dentistry, established in 1963, continued.
Fast forward a few decades and the shortage of dentists in Ireland has become a serious issue.
“For some time,” says Professor Leung, “RCSI had been thinking that it should establish an undergraduate dental school again, so that the University could contribute to overcoming the shortage of dentists. In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government began to indicate that it wished to have more dentists trained in Ireland. And even though there had been no announcements on capacity or funding, RCSI made a strategic decision to start preparing for this potential scenario and to be as ready as possible if the opportunity for a new dental school were to arise.
“In November 2022 the Government communicated – quite unexpectedly – through the Higher Education Authority, a competition asking institutes of higher education in Ireland to bid for increasing capacity in a number of healthcare disciplines including medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, physician associates, nursing and veterinary medicine.”
RCSI took part in that competition and emerged a winner in June 2023, when it was announced that RCSI would receive government support in starting a new dental programme. The University set about securing the approval of the Dental Council and NUI for its curriculum, which is in accordance with the National Oral Health Policy, and recruiting a skeleton staff.
“After a lot of very hard work,” says Professor Leung, “the Dental Council endorsed our programme to commence, and government funding was officially announced in October 2024. We will welcome our first students in September. We promised the Government that we would be able to start in 2025, and are very proud that of all the programmes approved by the Government, ours is the only one to launch on time.”
The new School of Dentistry will be the eighth health sciences school in RCSI and will offer a primary care community-based curriculum, because that is the area in which Ireland is most lacking in dentists. Currently, the two existing schools of dentistry at Trinity and UCC graduate about 55 EU students as dentists per year, which is insufficient to meet the needs of the population of 5.25 million, a figure that is rising rapidly. Another issue is that three-quarters of dentists coming onto the dental register in 2023 qualified outside Ireland, which Professor Leung says is not a sustainable situation.
“We are using a community-based curriculum,” explains Professor Leung. “Rather than have a centre of excellence dental hospital in Dublin’s city centre, we will have a number of dental education centres close to where patients live, and adjacent to where they receive primary or secondary healthcare. If dentists are set up there, patients are more likely to benefit from dental services. The Government’s community dental services scheme, and the HSE scheme for children, are completely behind schedule. We are addressing this by putting the capacity for treatment close to where the patients are. It’s very good for the student to learn in this environment as well because up to 95% of dentists operate in primary care practices. There’s no better way of training them.”
The curriculum is in line with the National Oral Health Policy because it is training dentists to be primary care practitioners, meeting both the current need and Government perceptions of what that need will be in the future.
“We train them to be team leaders and to be able to manage competently most of the dental conditions that a dentist will see in practice,” explains Professor Leung. “Our aim is to benefit society as well as educate our students, addressing the challenges faced by the current dental education system.”
The new School of Dentistry will be the eighth health sciences school in RCSI and will offer a primary care community-based curriculum.
The first dental education centre is in Sandyford, south county Dublin, located close to the Stillorgan Luas stop. This is an extensive facility with 55 clinical skills simulation units, 12 clinical surgeries, bespoke teaching facilities for students, and a dental laboratory. The centre is on time and on budget. Students will spend most of their first two years here, and also attend RCSI St Stephen’s Green campus for some subjects such as basic sciences for dentistry, and interprofessional education.
In year three, students will move to a brand new RCSI Dental Education Centre at Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown, which is currently under construction and is scheduled for completion in 2027. This centre will have more than 40 dental chairs plus teaching facilities, and is located next door to the new RCSI Education and Research Centre.
The Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) is a five-year degree programme in line with the European Union directives on dentistry training. Unlike other dental programmes, dental students at RCSI start clinical skills training in week two of their first year.
“We are giving them the maximum amount of time to hone their clinical skills,” says Professor Leung. “It’s very intensive because we start training them in what the dentist does right from the beginning. By increasing their clinical exposure and experience, we increase the amount of time they have to perfect their skills and acumen to achieve the highest possible standard of patient care.
“The students will learn basic sciences as applied to dentistry from day one. For instance, anatomy is a very important part of dental students’ initial learning in basic sciences. In our learning environment, when students learn any muscles or bones in the head or neck, they will straight away be related to clinical practice in dentistry. So whenever they learn about the function of the body, it will be related to how the dentist applies this knowledge to clinical practice. We are also very proud of the fact that they will be learning part of their anatomy programme side-by-side with RCSI medical students.”
The Bachelor’s in Dental Surgery (BDS) is a five-year degree programme in line with the European Union directives on dentistry training.
The faculty for the new school has been drawn both from within RCSI and outside. Given the shortage of dentists in Ireland, recruiting has been measured, strategic and bespoke. Professor Leung explains that, as Head of School, and prior to that Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry RCSI and Chair Professor and Head of Restorative Dental Practice at University College London (UCL), Eastman Dental Institute, he has taken a systematic approach to faculty recruitment.
Professor Peter Cowan, an Adjunct Professor of Oral Surgery at NYU, specialist oral surgeon, a former Dean and CEO of the Faculty of Dentistry RCSI, with over 40 years’ experience in clinical practice, is Professor of Oral Surgery and Dental Anatomy.
Professor Osama Omer, former Head of Restorative Dentistry at Trinity College Dublin, well known for his expertise in rehabilitating head and neck cancer patients, is Head of Restorative Dentistry and Clinical Director.
Dr Isabel Olegário, an award-winning teacher, researcher and scientist, is Senior Lecturer in Paediatric Dentistry in Primary Care Dentistry, and Dr Niamh Coffey, who also has an extensive research profile, is Senior Lecturer in Restorative and Primary Care Dentistry and will also head the Clinical Skills Programme.
Professor Leung comes to his role as Head of School almost 40 years after he qualified as a dentist from the University of Dundee. Born and brought up in Hong Kong, he attended an Irish Jesuit School for seven years and was taught by Father Joseph Mallin, the youngest son of Irish Republican Michael Mallin, then second in command of the Irish Citizen Army under James Connolly. Commander Mallin played an active role in the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, directing the St Stephen’s Green garrison when it occupied the RCSI building until he was caught and executed by the British. Father Mallin was two when his father was executed, and he became a Jesuit priest who spent almost 70 years in Hong Kong.
“It is such a small world,” says Professor Leung, “and I felt history coming full circle at St Stephen’s Green after more than a century.”
The young Albert Leung hoped to make a career as a classical pianist, but his parents sensibly persuaded him to pursue a more stable career and encouraged him to take up the place at Dundee Dental School when it was offered. He stills plays the piano to relax and “to keep the different parts of the brain active”.
After qualifying in dentistry in 1985, he was in dental practice for a few years before embarking on postgraduate education in dentistry and also a part-time postgraduate law degree. He took up a position as lecturer at King’s College London, where he progressed through the ranks to Deputy Director, spending 15 years teaching primary care dentistry and in pedagogic research. In 2013, he moved to the prestigious UCL, Eastman Dental Institute, where he was Principal Clinical Teaching Fellow, Deputy Programme Director, then Deputy Head of Department, Head of Department, Head of Continuing Professional Development and Programme Director of Restorative Dental Practice. He was awarded his Chair in 2017 and became Professor of Dental Education. During his tenure at UCL, he supervised over 100 masters dissertations with only two unsuccessful ones.
“Quite a good strike rate,” he says modestly.
Professor Leung was a recipient of the 2017 Association of Dental Education in Europe (ADEE) Excellence in Dental Education Mature Career Educator award. His main areas of research are in dental education and restorative dentistry. Throughout his academic career, Professor Leung has been involved with RCSI’s Faculty of Dentistry initially through gaining RCSI postgraduate qualifications by examination in the mid 1990s. He chaired the MGDS and the MFD exams committees and was elected to the Faculty Board for many years. He later became Vice Dean, serving as Dean from 2020 to 2023.
“It was in 2020 before the COVID-19 lockdown that RCSI Vice Chancellor Professor Cathal Kelly was thinking seriously of starting a new dental school and asked whether I would be interested in helping in the background,” recalls Professor Leung. “I remember him saying to me, ‘You have a tenured Professorship at UCL, so please do not give up your day job because we probably will not have a job here for you, the odds are heavily stacked against us starting a new school!’ But we managed to turn that around. In 2023 I became the Vice Chancellor’s strategic advisor in dentistry before the School was established. I retired from UCL in January 2024 and took up the position here some months later.”
Having visited Dublin regularly for many years, Professor Leung is now living in Dublin full-time. He says the welcome from his colleagues has been extremely warm and generous, and he finds Irish people very friendly and good at telling jokes.
“I’m really enjoying myself,” he says, “and while it’s a huge challenge for me I’m really looking forward to the first intake of students in September. Not many of my colleagues will ever have the chance to start a brand new dental school and I shall treasure this unique experience.
“We are very lucky in that we have a curriculum partnership with the Peninsula Dental School in Plymouth, the number one ranked UK dental school in 2024 and 2025, because they also offer a primary care community-based curriculum. We have collaborated closely with Peninsula and they have been brilliant partners in helping us to set up. Peninsula was the last major dental school established in the UK, in 2008, and they have shared with us the issues they encountered at the outset and we are extremely grateful."
This is the first new school of dentistry in Ireland since 1913. We hope the school breaks new ground in delivering dental healthcare to the people who really need it.
“I think the school is very exciting. This is the first new school of dentistry in Ireland since 1913. Everybody in RCSI is extremely supportive. The pressure is on me to deliver now. We hope the school breaks new ground in delivering dental healthcare to the people who really need it."
"For RCSI, this is hopefully filling the missing piece, as most major universities delivering healthcare education train both undergraduate doctors and dentists and RCSI should be no exception. We will be graduating dentists fit for practice wherever they are required as soon as they qualify. Although we are separate, we want to work very closely with our colleagues at the Faculty of Dentistry, so that we can offer students who come to RCSI a seamless education in dentistry from the day that they start, to the day they commence practice, to when they undertake postgraduate and continuing dental education throughout their practising life. That is an RCSI lifelong approach to continuing education which will produce the best dentists for Ireland for generations to come."
“There are lots of challenges of course, but they are very nice challenges to have. At the end of the day, I hope that we’ll be successful in delivering what we have been trying so hard to achieve, for the betterment of the oral healthcare of the nation.” ■
