Dr. Sahil Pawah is the Head of the Prosthodontics Department at Sudha Rustagi College of Dental Sciences and Research. He holds an M.D.S. degree from the KLE Institute of Dental Sciences, Belgaum. He has done extensive research in removable prosthodontics related to neutral zones in complete dentures. He has a keen interest in full mouth rehabilitation of mutilated dentition, implants (especially immediate loading using basal implants). He is a life member of the Indian Prosthodontic Society, Indian Dental Association (IDA), Indian Prosthodontic Society (IPS), Haryana, and Association of Oral Implantology (AOI). He has published 25 papers in national and international journals. He received the Best Student award in MDS –batch 1998-KLE, Belgaum, Karnataka, and got the best paper for his presentation in IPS in the year 2009 in Thrissur, Kerala.

Sudha Rustagi College of Dental Sciences and Research

Being the HOD, what are your roles and responsibilities towards the students?

Primarily, when you become the head of the department, the level of expertise matters less, administration becomes more and the final guidance is important. For example, I have good staff under me. So, to guide a student is very easy on their part, but then I also participate kindly with other students, mostly postgraduates and undergraduates, to just keep in touch and also in case there is something which is lacking to be given to them in terms of learning. Adding to it I primarily focus on how to go about conducting classes and how to schedule and manage a case. In totality, if you say HOD, the main part becomes the smooth conduction of the entire curriculum in the department.

How do you try to bring a practical approach to the subject and how do students get the practical experience from studying the subject?

We are a clinical department and prosthetics are an artificial replacement for missing oral structures. So we get a lot of patients who want to get treated. We start with giving demonstrations to them initially when they don’t know and when they gradually start knowing, we even help them out by standing behind them. They are working and if any correction is required, we are doing it simultaneously. For example, if there is a case that has to be done so obviously to do it practically you should know the theory behind it. Until and unless you know the theory, you will not know what you’re going to execute practically, and if they’re going wrong, we are there to help them out.

How do you help your students to cope with the competition so high in the outside world?

It's not like I don’t see outside, if I make my product good, automatically he or she will stand out. So I aim to look at my thing, how I can go ahead? Yes, but I ask my students to go attend conferences, learn more, and attend some courses where they can get educated. Different people are quite good at certain aspects of prosthetics. So I keep telling them to go attend their courses, learn online courses are there, and sometimes online webinars are there.

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What do you see as the department’s greatest strength and how can it be enhanced?

I have my staff who’s been working for a very long time and they all are quite clinically, very competent people. I have one or two good professors who are doing a lot of clinical and they have very good clinical expertise. The best part about my department today is that there are a lot of professors who have been here since when they were lecturers. 

What valuable advice would you like to give to the students for they to have a prosperous career ahead?

According to me, field knowledge is the utmost. A knowledgeable person who reads, and knows about his or her subject is considered knowledgeable. So in case, if you are knowledgeable, if you are reading about your subject, you are understanding your subject, and you are making it a passion to understand what you are doing. Probably in the future what is going to happen, is you will be acknowledged by people and people will come to you, will learn from you. So make yourself as knowledgeable as possible in your subject at least. People will appreciate your intellect.

What are the best practices offered by the department to the students that help them gain the necessary skills?

We have an organized curriculum as when a new student comes to my department, we train them practically, that is on the models and we give them the understanding. We ask them to read the theory and once they are reasonably comfortable with that, then we start giving them patients and patients also the simple patients first, easier cases, and then we increase that so that in this way it is very organized and good amount of learning is provided to them. Everything in the organization is very organized, and the students are guided in every case by the staff.