A lived experience

Dr Zena Ibrahim says she started volunteering during her final year of Dental School – and the impact was profound. “We did a couple of Dental Rescue Days at OHCWA and that is where I got a taste for volunteerism,” she recalls. “A lot of people know about my story personally. I went through a bout of living instability a couple of times during Dental School and there were some days I couldn’t afford fresh fruit and vegetables, so dental care was on the back burner.

“When struggling that way, you don’t want to get out of bed, you don’t want to shower, let alone brush your teeth if you are worried about where you are going to put your head that night, so it becomes difficult to prioritise self-care. I saw what we do as a job through a very different lens after going through that and that set me up for wanting to do volunteer work because of that lived experience.”

Rockingham Dental Centre

Being part of the team at Rockingham Dental Centre has given Zena the opportunity to work at a practice that has a strong volunteerism culture.

“I originally started at Rockingham Dental Centre when I was a new graduate and I am now back there again,” Zena says. “The practice has a strong culture of hosting Dental Rescue Days and volunteer work, so it was easy to slip into it because I was part of such a supportive practice.

“It is refreshing and comforting to know there is a practice out there that wants to give back and Rockingham Dental Centre is so community focussed,” she adds. “They are involved in the basketball team, (the Rockingham Flames), and they are really thinking about their role as a practice, not just making ends meet as a business but their impact and how they can give back to their community. They are doing incredible work there and I am so lucky to be back. Since working in other practices, some are not necessarily set up to do pro bono work or might be hesitant because the cases can be complex, and the lab work can be expensive but with everyone chipping in, including Oceanic Dental Laboratory for Healing Smiles and the ADHF, it all goes smoothly, and it has been wonderful to be a part of the volunteerism opportunities at
the practice.”

Zena says her own experiences have led her to be more relatable to patients she treats at Dental Rescue Days. “So many people say: ‘I’m sorry my mouth is so bad it is probably the worst you have seen’ and I say: ‘Trust me I have seen a lot’.

“I find sometimes sharing my own experiences humanises the experience for these patients and they look at you like another human being rather than as a dentist or someone in a position of power that is scary and unrelatable."

“You can see them relax or let a breath out,” she adds. “There are people where I have chatted about my experience very briefly and they say: ‘Oh, if you got through it maybe all hope is not lost’.

Healing Smiles

Zena says after a break from volunteering with Healing Smiles (she was previously working somewhere that didn’t quite line up to make volunteering with Healing Smiles work) she is excited to be able to volunteer with Healing Smiles again to support survivors of domestic violence by providing pro bono treatment.

“Now I am back at Rockingham Dental Centre I can volunteer for Healing Smiles again, which is really lovely as it is a cause that is very close to my heart.”

“The things that some of these women have gone through are unimaginable. When we talk about what a new smile will mean for them, often it means a new lease on life – they are able to get a job, they can start to rebuild. The thing I hear a lot from these women is they are afraid to even drop their kids off at school because they don’t want to be judged, so giving them a new smile is lifechanging.

“I really like volunteering with Healing Smiles because it is ongoing,” she adds. “You get assigned a patient and you get to follow them all the way through. It is nice to see someone through from their journey from beginning to the end.”

Support from the profession

Zena says volunteering has also been an amazing way to build interprofessional networks with specialists. “We are lucky that many specialists in WA are open to having a chat. I can shoot off an email or pick up the phone and chat to them outside their office hours. They are
not charging for that. They are talking to you out of their good will. They give good advice or resources and papers to read and so that is nice to have such a supportive community.

“The patients you see can be quite complex and have nowhere else to go so you have to find the best way to make it work between everyone on the volunteerism team.”

“If you have an endo that is hard for example, there is an endodontist you can refer to within the Healing Smiles team or you can call someone to have a chat to help
guide you through it. Even in my workplace, although they don’t work with Healing Smiles because we only have female practitioners working with female patients, if I was to bring up a case with (Rockingham Dental Centre’s) Drs Hari or Vilas they are so willing to treat everything as a learning experience and go through things with you. They are mentors, not just clinically but also personally. Particularly Dr Vilas has been instrumental in my emotional growth, not just as a person but as a practitioner, and has helped with my outlook on things and perspective and has almost taken me under his wing and I am very grateful to him because I don’t think I would be
where I am without him.”

Rewarding moments

“When you help someone go from not being able to smile to beaming from ear to ear there is a fulfilment you get from that,” Zena says.

“I remember a lady who had no teeth on her top arch or maxillary arch for 20 years and she had very few bottom teeth. Her treatment involved treating the remaining salvageable bottom teeth and providing a full upper denture and partial lower denture. She went from not being able to chew, talk, or function very well to having a mouth full of teeth. Seeing how emotional she was at the end that will stay with me forever."

“A lot of these patients are so ecstatic that someone wants to help them. There is a lot of gratitude there, which is beautiful to see.”

Avoiding burnout

Zena says avoiding burnout is a hot topic for her and as such, four days of clinical dentistry is enough to allow her to fit in her volunteer work with Healing Smiles and Women in Dentistry (as their secretary) without overloading herself.

“You can’t pour from an empty cup,” she explains. “When I first graduated, I was burning the candle at both ends, trying to work five or six days a week and trying to add volunteering into that – and that is diminishing returns at that point because you feel you are helping everyone and pleasing everyone, saying yes to everyone but then you are not looking after yourself.

“If you crumble, everything else crumbles as well,” she adds. “I have learned sometimes saying no to that extra day of work is a good way of making sure you are sustainable in the long run. I am regularly in therapy because if I am not in a place where I can process what I see then I can’t be there for my patients so
it is not only for people who are struggling or anxious; I think everyone could benefit from therapy. I also have a regular date with my physio. I go for dry needling and remedial massage. There is financial privilege to be able to do that for yourself, but doing what you can to safeguard your body and your mind is going to make things like volunteering or extra work sustainable.”

Advice to others

To other dentists considering volunteering, Zena says her number one tip is a supportive workplace. “Definitely my number one tip
is a supportive workplace,” she says. "If volunteering is important to you, you want to make sure your employer is on board and
that you are working towards the same end goal.

"You might need to take some time here or arrive a bit later there or take an hour in the chair, so you want someone who is supportive that you do that.”

There are also various opportunities to volunteer outside of dentistry. “For me even volunteering for things like Beyond Blue or working with Centre for Stories (which is a local storytelling and creative hub), all opened my eyes to how many different experiences they are,” she says. “I grew up very sheltered in some ways and going to university and Dental School, you are in this little bubble of the very privileged and you can sometimes not realise how bad life can get for people. Doing other things
and broadening your perspective, whether it be through travel or other volunteering, allows you to be open to what other people are going through."

"I am in a position of privilege, and I can use that to help and uplift others in my community.”

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