There’s a hidden world in dentistry – the world of expat dentists.

These are those clinicians, who for one reason or the other, decided to move to another part of the world, after completing their dental education and likely practicing for a few years. However, it’s not a straightforward path for clinicians once they cross borders.  Complicated requirements per country often make the access to clinical practice complicated and expensive.

Many dentists have found themselves questioning their purpose once they decided to move countries.

Compared to other professions, medical fields are the most scrutinized professions when it comes to crossing borders. Education needs to be redone, exams need to be re-passed, languages need to be learnt and permits need to be regained in order to become financially independent again.

This is LONG process and not all dentists have the patience to wait years to earn again. Many succumb to other options of employment, and that is complete loss of dental talent – plus a slow and steady breaking of the soul of the practitioner who saw themselves serving their community for their entire lives.

Given the challenges that surround a dentist moving countries, one must be aware of the requirements in today’s day and age of setting up a career roadmap.  Dentists are not taught how to create a career, they’re only given skills to diagnose & render clinical treatment. Many assume that years in clinical practice automatically leads to true mastery and confidence. Most dentists, GPs and specialists alike, can gain sufficient confidence to perform 90% of the day to day cases that they have in their clinics within 2-3 years. And if one works in a high intake hospital or office, then the time can be even lower.

I, for example, at one point in my career was working at a government hospital in India where the team was getting anywhere between 80 and 120 cases in OPD hours, which spanned from 8am to 12pm. The highest single-day patient intake we got was 180 patients.

We were a team of a few highly efficient practitioners, GPs and specialists a few assistants and admin staff delivering treatment and maintaining order in a very busy environment. Though one may immediately assume that such high intake, should automatically translate into poor quality of treatment rendered, I can assure you that this was far from the truth.

The patients that came to this hospital were mostly from the lower socio-economic background as government hospitals in India offer treatment to the public at far reduced rates (almost for free), compared to private clinics.

And that opportunity was a holy grail for learning skills to any young dentist working in these spaces. We listened intently to each of our patients, built trust, did all preliminary assessments, completed the case history (which was optimized to manage the flow, yet keep up to standard), and depending on what the patient needed, we worked seamlessly as a team to render treatment or reschedule it not more than a few weeks later (we never had 3-6 monthly waiting lists – in dentistry, that makes no sense).

Cavity fillings, extractions, dental impressions – you name it. We were doing it all and the level of experience I was gaining as a young dentist was at least 10 times higher than any clinician in Europe or the States. Our department was well known for how little re-treatment cases we received. I never had a patient return to me for a failed treatment that I had rendered. They all came back for their follow ups and I found that the poor patient is far more loyal and adherent to instruction, than a rich one. We couldn’t let them down, because we knew how hard our patients worked to put food on the table. Returning the favour is only fair. And that means something to me, as it does to all dentists who take pride in their job and their purpose.

My afternoons, in contrast, were very calm, exclusively dedicated to Root canal treatment (RCT) cases. RCTs have a notoriously bad reputation in dental colleges, at a global level, as not being a priority training within the curriculum. A lot of dental graduates fresh out of university don’t know how RCTs are done. I had performed so many successful RCTs at that hospital that I became a mentor for other dentists joining our team, PLUS, successfully converse with endodontic specialists on complicated cases. I was being referred cases left and right. In the western part of the world, I became what one may call a Super-GP. But all great things come at a sacrifice – it was an unpaid engagement.

The Indian government had a specific process to its hiring protocol.

Official positions had to be published in newspapers (back then) and hundreds of people interviewed. The process took months and one had to wait years before an official position opened up. In the meantime, the high rate of patient intake was not going anywhere. People like my boss knew that she needed a way to take on help to serve her community effectively. She took permission to allow honorary positions to dentists through a program that she had created. She told me clearly that she can’t pay me, but what I’ll learn within a year in that hospital was unmatched, even to the most leading institutions anywhere in the world. I was In.

I continued living with my parents to save costs, woke up at 6am, left home at 7.30 and returned back at 9.30 pm everyday except Sundays. These routines were the cornerstone to my professional career. In the evening hours, I attended a private clinic in a posh Delhi suburb. My evening practice was much more calm and the patients came from affluent backgrounds. They were more self aware, had googled most of their symptoms and came to me to not just get a treatment, but an experience. I absolutely loved this contrast of patient types from morning (at the government hospital) to the evening (posh patients).

Having said that, I wasn’t burn out and my work environment played a massive role in that. I was well respected, despite the fact that I was less than 5 years into clinical life. I had mastered pretty much every treatment that a dentist delivers on a daily basis.

Fast forward a few years. I had moved to Slovenia and underwent standard regulatory needs to get my dentistry title recognized officially.

It was a marvellously slow process for someone like me who’s used to a fast paced environment. The professors took a fantastically long time to give me a slot, to take a test, sometimes months apart. I took on a volunteer job as a Bollywood dance teacher at the British International School. I loved dance and I love kids. I also volunteered as a dental assistant at a multi-disciplinary private clinic, plus sat in on dental workshops at the University of Ljubljana. I got to see first hand how dentistry is practiced in Europe.

After I passed all tests, I was finally awarded the title of Doctor of Dental Medicine (dr.dent.med), something I already was – but now I had some stance in a social space in Europe. It’s fascinating to me how the world treats you differently the moment you hone titles that it’s comfortable with. But that’s how the world works and we navigate our way through it smartly.

Slovenia didn’t let me practice clinically though, they needed me to pass advanced level Slovene language test and another exam in Slovene (all the other tests were in English till then) before I could render treatment.

I had already found the man of my life by then, who lived in Switzerland, and I knew that this sacrifice of learning a language that’s not used anywhere else in the world – isn’t worth it for me personally. I knew I would probably need to learn French or German anyways – and those 2 languages can still open doors.

Then I moved to Switzerland post marriage, and here life was not so forgiving. I was asked to repeat all of my dental education from scratch to get a chance to practice again, that too in French. I had innocently assumed that my hard work from Slovenia would translate well to this country. It was a bitter moment of realization that I had to make a choice yet again. Another 6 years of education for something I already know, no transparency in the system, plus 5 years of trying to get my foot back into the door of a clinic, was it really worth it? I knew then that I had to shift my career.

Did you know that in Switzerland, for a clinician to re-enter university, either one has to be living in the country for 5 years or one’s spouse should be living for the same period, to even be considered to join dental university – all of this to re-do their education from scratch and get a work permit? That’s 6+5 years in total. I was a fantastic dentist but nobody in this new world wanted to recognize any of my work. It seemed like a system designed to negate any foreign clinician from practicing. Interestingly, if one is a European citizen, no such requirements were requested. So a dentist from Greece can come in Switzerland, work for 6 months and leave and live like a king back in Greece for another 6 months – on rotation – every year – and nobody had a problem with that.

This is the story of every expat dentist who exists in the world, and it’s not ok to excuse this massively skewed system to a singular statement such as – “this is how the world works, why don’t you go back to your own country?” Note that one of the most common problem in European nations is the long waiting times that regular people need to go through to get an appointment. Despite the constant stress, the system will not allow foreign dentists to come in and ease the load. The UK has now, finally eased up their requirements, following the NHS dentistry disaster.

It’s surprising how most developed economies in the world are comfortable taking in global talent when they deem it fit, to help run their multinational organizations, only to keep the power to say goodbye to them when they don’t need the help anymore. When it comes to giving permanent jobs or residency, especially in the healthcare space, the attitude shifts quite dramatically.

Anyways, I decided to enter MedTech as a result of all this ridiculous waiting. I was back at step 1 in my career – a new space, a new environment, and I had yet another steep growth curve in the following years to come. But don’t be fooled, getting my foot in the door within the corporate space was far from a piece of cake. I had a very dental CV and I was applying to whatever positions that made sense to me left and right. I was ready to say yes to anything – as long as there was some use of my medical mind – be it pharma, medtech, or communications. All I wanted, was to be financially independent again.

None of the online applications were working. I kept applying and applying and wasn’t getting called to any interviews. I applied to non medical masters degrees at university like Masters in Global Health something (can’t even remember now), Masters in Medical Biology, Masters in Dental Medicine, Masters in clinical research – anything that would let me get busy again. It was a clear no. I tweaked my CV and kept iterating, changing and adapting on the go. I kept getting better at writing cover letters but I kid you not when I say that online applications 15 years ago was by far the most ridiculous experience for any human to go through. Re-writing my CV in individual sections in multiple forms, multiple times a week – and not getting called for an interview – made absolutely no sense to me.

My sense of self was slowing diminishing. It had been years of struggle on end by this point and my personal life started taking a toll too. Through no fault of our own, my husband and I were bombarded with tragedies left and right. I distinctly remember one Christmas when I sat with my husband and said “Nothing happened?” It had been a while since we had had a normal Christmas with no tears.

Life seemed like it was falling apart. I was nowhere. I also realized that I was not talented in language. Ask me anything about dentistry, any concept, any logic, anything clinical or non clinical or in MedTech, anything around product development, regulatory and clinical research – but don’t ask me to learn a language. That was not my strong suite. And even embarrassing to a certain extent, considering that I was the daughter of a diplomat and was raised in multiple countries growing up. I kept on trying to learn French and the only real way to do that was to work in an environment that spoke nothing but French. I knew Hindi, English, basic Slovene, and now basic French. But I never mastered French and it impacted the early days when I had to muster up mind-boggling levels of confidence, just to go outside and buy groceries. It was a complete destruction of the self. Whatever I touched, did not manifest. Whether it was work, education or starting a family. I was self identifying as a complete failure and I was close to break down.

But the other side of the equation was being a housewife. My husband was doing his best to support me with my endeavours but in all honesty, this was my journey and I was grateful to have him, however, I’m not the kind who feels comfortable being dependent on anyone. It was my path and the universe was not making it easy for me on any account.

Life as a housewife revealed to me a different level of stubbornness and motivation. I knew that I wanted to be anything but a homemaker, mainly because of how bad I was at that job.  What happened as a result of this absolute monotony after filling the dishwasher for the 500th time was an explosion of my inner being. I have a small space in my house where I pray. I walked straight up to God and unleashed upon him a wrath that I had never experienced. I was questioning his authority and demanding answers for how a person, who’s pure of heart, hard working, could never hurt a bug, let alone a person – how is it that she was being put through the most trying of tests – in quick successions – with barely any time to come up for air.

“What have I done to deserve such pain?” I challenged Him as I’m sure every one of us does at some point in our lives. I couldn’t start a family either no matter how hard we tried – we were already mourning the loss of our 2 babies by that point. I had the ultimate stand off and it was so unlike me as I’m a calm person in general, yet here I was – having an absolute standoff with the Divine, not batting an eye, chin up, head held high – because I had a clean conscious.

At this stage, a lot of people walk out of religion because it’s the acknowledgment that being a good person doesn’t mean that bad things will not happen to you. I was shattered, unable to make sense of anything. I was undergoing what the spiritual world calls a process of complete surrender – A dark night of the soul.

And so is the story of most expat dentists – a Shakesperean tragedy complete with pain, suffering and grit. But my story was nowhere near over, rather it was an absolute tsunami of more challenging events that unfolded in due time. Every new challenge was forcing me to re-version myself at alarming speed.

After the horrendously slow process of waiting to get called for an interview, I changed strategy and hustled like crazy. I printed business cards and started hitting conferences. Finally I got myself a job at a consulting firm and I quickly upskilled myself. Family wise, we were blessed with a boy. I studied on weekends and worked hard. A bit too hard perhaps because corporate dynamics is full of people, who don’t like to be surrounded by other capable people. I was seen as a threat in these environments owing to how easily I got things done and how fast I would deliver. It’s embarrassing to be part of environments where people who are old enough to be your mentors, reek of envy and ensure that you don’t grow. I was not getting a break but I was becoming strategic as I grew. I changed jobs when I had to and I quickly learnt skills like negotiation and technical know-hows. All by myself. And I did well. Now that I look back at the absolute thunderstorm of events spread over more than a decade, I feel proud of who I’ve grown into.

There comes a moment when we are being put through difficult experiences by the universe, when one questions what they have done wrong. “Is it me?” “Am I doing something wrong?” This is a very wise question and one should spend ample time deconstructing it, either in silence through meditation or through the help of a therapist.

In my case, I chose meditation and had a shift in my mindset the moment I was able to answer “No – It’s not me. I’m kind, I’m respectful and I’m brave. I have more courage than most and I’m diplomatic with my speech. I don’t behave in a way so as to threaten anyone, yet that is happening as a result of simply being me. I have not done anything to deserve these experiences”. Yet for some reason I was still being put through them.

Unlike my bosses during my clinical career, my corporate career never presented me with secure, mature bosses. I was being given the most toxic of the lot and I had no clue what I was doing wrong. I did however, have great colleagues. I absolutely loved working with my team and running projects. The projects I’ve worked on over the years are some of the most important projects of the century – in the spinal device space, in cardiovascular, in orthopaedic and in dental. But the leadership was toxic. I had to protect my team members from that unbelievably inadept leadership. I’ve been through it all. Bosses who had rage outbursts, shouting at the top of their voices to the staff, all the way up to cunning covert narcissists who confuse you in to believing that you’re the problem. Thankfully I had a good head on my shoulders and valued strategy over revenge and removed myself quickly from these environments.

Perhaps my role, was to show the other side, what real triggers they had within themselves, so the universe could see if they changed their ways or not. Maybe, simply put, I was merely the messenger to a divine test for the other. I will quite frankly say this, it’s rare to see toxic people change. It’s who they are so instead of complaining and spending so much of your energy on what they did wrong today, remove yourself from such environments, no matter the cost. Because, if you don’t, you will absorb their energy, the bright in you will fade and you will become them. There is no other ending to this story.

I was clear that I must navigate this journey alone and it must come from me. The cosmos was making a clear statement there. “You’ll have to figure it out all by yourself. I asked “why?” and I heard “you’re being prepared for something important”. That was all I needed to understand.

The act of complete surrender to the universe, is a profound moment in any individual’s  journey. It is a purely spiritual experience. And once you’ve been through multiple renditions of it, you become marvellously at peace and in sync with the universe. I continue to grow and now I use my time to help all those who need support through my business.

I now work to be the boss that I never had.

I now guide teams, to help them thrive in their projects.

I now help people, from my niche of dentistry, by making sure that they are well taken care of. Good advice, honest insight and strategic advantage are my strengths and I never say no to anyone who comes to me asking for help.

Maybe that’s why we go through what we go through. To understand how strong we were the entire time. And how important the act of complete surrender is and not becoming cynical or a victim, rather remembering your strength and owning up to some foundational principles. Whether it be business or life, your principles are what will guide you through it all.

Advice for expat dentists, moving into MedTech (what actually helps)

• Map your clinical strengths to MedTech functions. Clinical affairs, regulatory, quality, medical marketing, PMS/vigilance, customer success, clinical education, and product management all value hands-on dentistry.

• Translate your CV into corporate language. Keep procedures and outcomes, but add keywords: clinical evidence, risk management, KOL engagement, complaint handling, CAPA, ISO 13485, GxP, GCP/ISO 14155, MDR/IVDR awareness, usability, UDI, PMS/PMCF.

• Build proof quickly. Create 2–3 mini case studies (slides) showing a problem → your method → measurable outcome (complication rates, retreatments avoided, patient throughput, training delivered).

• Earn targeted certificates. Short courses in clinical research, regulatory basics, quality systems, or medical writing help recruiters place you – especially if language is a barrier.

• Network with intent. Conferences, local MedTech meetups, and alumni groups beat online applications. Carry a simple card (“Dental clinician transitioning to MedTech – Clinical Affairs/Regulatory”) and ask for 15-minute informational calls.

• Interview fluency. Prepare 6–8 STAR stories: high-volume care, cross-functional teamwork, tough patient communication, root-cause analysis, and learning new systems fast.

• Start where language dependence is lower. Regional or global roles, back-office functions, or project-based work let you ramp while improving the local language.

• Protect your identity. Your clinical past is an asset – not a gap. Pace yourself, choose environments that value competence over politics, and keep moving.

If you want structure, accountability, and insider guidance, I invite you to join the Premium Dental Advisor Program – built exactly for clinicians who are seeking paid opportunities in the MedTech space to be back on their feet and create more choice for themselves, rather than be stuck in difficult situations: https://namnrpro.org/premium_dental_advisor/