For Doctor Ali Ukraine has become his native land

On November 2, 2023, the interview «Health begins with teeth» was published in Halychyna.Many readers were interested not only in the content of the journalist's conversation with the director of the Ivano-Frankivsk clinic DR ALI`S DENTAL CENTER Dr. Al-Budnain Ali, but also, in fact, in the personality of the 30-year-old dental doctor — an orthopedic surgeon. After graduating from the Ivano-Frankivsk National Medical University, he managed to start his own business in the Ukrainian city, and under his guidance the clinic is now successfully developing. So I met with Dr. Ali again and asked him to tell me more about himself, about how Ukraine became home to him, which is exactly what he claims.

— Doctor Ali, when did you first dream of becoming a dentist?

— Already in my youth, my choice of future profession was clearly defined for me. I was born and raised in the Republic of Iraq, an Arab country with ancient traditions of medicine, where in recent decades young people have begun to study it at a completely modern level. But he obtained the specialty of a doctor in Ukraine. I have great moral satisfaction that I chose the profession of a dentist.

— How was your life in Ivano-Frankivsk?

— I decided to stay and work here after graduating from the medical university in 2011, where I acquired a large amount of professional knowledge and mastered the practical skills of surgical dentistry. It was very important for me to dedicate myself, my work in this medical specialty, and to a large extent, my life to the city where I spent my student years. I consider this a peculiar form of partnership between me and the country that accepted and taught me, gave me the opportunity to use the knowledge, skills and acquired professional experience for the treatment of Ukrainian patients. And especially now, during the martial law in Ukraine, I felt their need even more for me as a doctor, as well as for the private medical institution that I head. After all, it provides a high level of treatment for dental patients, in addition, the creation and expansion of the clinic meant the creation of jobs for a considerable number of people who did not go abroad as workers, but stayed to work in their country.

Even at the beginning of the existence of our clinic in the dental community of the city, they said about me that I try to work with a creative approach to work. I was joined by other doctors — not with narrow-minded thinking, but those who sought to master new technologies in dental practice. So I managed to form a team of like-minded people in the clinic. Contrary to the skepticism of some of my colleagues from the environment of Ivano-Frankivsk dentists, it did not «fall apart», and this consoled me, I truly felt like a leader who is going in the right direction.

— That is, you, an ambitious young professional, speaking in terms of sports, have set a high bar for yourself — having mastered the profession of a dentist in Ukraine, becoming here not only a highly qualified doctor, but also engaging in entrepreneurship, starting your own business, which for a person in a foreign country, of course, harder than a native?

— At first, when I entered the medical university, my dream did not exceed the desire to simply become a good dentist, but in the process of studying, I wanted more. I wanted to have my own dental clinic in the near future, which would provide high-quality services and reach the top European level. Actually, this is what prompted me to build my life in Ukraine. I created a family here and thereby became even more rooted in the Ukrainian land. Further, I constantly work on my professional improvement — I read articles in foreign scientific journals, I familiarize myself with the latest manuals on surgical dentistry, which is my specialty. I am learning the best experience of dental practice at courses both in Ukraine and abroad. My drive to work for the benefit of the city community is stimulated by respect for the country in which I currently live, for the language of the Ukrainian people, which I speak with patients, friends and with my family and which I continue to study, plunging into its depths.

— So, your self-confidence increased when you, as the head of the clinic, felt that you were going in the right direction...

— I aspire to be, so to speak, the right leader of the team, a positive example for the clinic's employees. And this aspiration is not unfounded — not only I, but also they feel with every certain period lived that our medical institution has taken a step forward and in the right direction. They feel that the level of professional knowledge, qualification and motivation for effective work in the field of dentistry is becoming higher and higher among team members. I am fully aware of my role as the head of the clinic, whose duty is primarily to unite its team. Only then will it work effectively, constantly provide high quality dental services, and therefore, a long-lasting positive result of patient treatment.

— What do you personally specialize in as a doctor?

— I perform surgical manipulations of higher and medium levels of complexity in the clinic. And I also cooperate with other clinics of the city, our region and neighboring regions — they invite me to provide dental care to patients in particularly difficult cases. And even traveled abroad several times for this purpose. I was one of the first doctors in Ivano-Frankivsk to modify the bone reconstruction technique of the jaw. And now we are one of the first in Ukraine to implement a new method of implantation in our center — we put chipped implants in the jaws of complex patients instead of lost teeth. This is not a new method at all, but a half-forgotten method, it is quite complicated, but I am very interested, I want to modify it and implement it in modern surgical dentistry.

My narrow specialization is bone reconstruction, implantation, bone plastic, the latest techniques of which I offer to patients, among the few Ukrainian and foreign doctors so far: we do it even on those areas of the jaw, which, until recently, were believed to be generally impossible to carry out such manipulations. I also provide patients who, for various reasons, have lost or damaged their front and back teeth, such a service as smile restoration with the help of aesthetic veneers and crowns, so that the person's face acquires a new and natural appearance.

I am a member of the associations of implantologists of Ivano-Frankivsk, Prykarpattia and Ukraine, as well as the World Association of Implantologists (ITI). At dental conferences, I share with my colleagues my experience of using new methods in the treatment of patients. I also conduct distance learning with doctors, and not only Carpathian doctors, I give advice when they face difficult cases in practice. In our clinic, doctors not only from Ivano-Frankivsk and the region, but also from other regions of Ukraine and even from abroad borrow the methods of surgical dentistry that I have improved.

— It seems that you devote yourself to work one hundred percent, otherwise you would not have such significant achievements in this field of dentistry...

— I really love my profession, so I constantly sacrifice my free time for my personal life, I also work on weekends when patients need emergency dental care. And such situations happen often, in which I and my team test our professionalism. It is precisely such situations that test us, serve the professional growth of me and other dentists of the clinic. The prerequisite for such growth is an established system of their education, advanced training on courses — our institution spends a lot of money on this every year. But without it, we simply could not successfully implement the most modern technologies for the treatment of patients. Doctors must perfectly master the work on the latest equipment purchased by the clinic.

— But in order to gain energy for working days, to have a good physical well-being, you must still find time for rest. Do you have a hobby?

— My hobby is sports hunting. And also — you probably won't believe it — I recently became a biker. «Saddle» a sports motorcycle was my long-standing dream, which was strangely combined with the desire to overcome my fear of riding at what seemed to me to be insane speed. And he managed to overcome it from the very first time, when he got behind the wheel of the «iron horse». Now I ride it outside the region. I fell in love with high speed — it gives me confidence in myself and in life in general.

Ivan GAVRYLOVYCH spoke.