Life outside the office
By Allan Britnell
It takes passion for the work to succeed in dentistry. Not surprisingly, many dentists bring passion to their life outside of the profession too, one often impacting the other. We know many of our alumni have become incredibly accomplished with their hobbies. We caught up with three from our featured reunion years who happily shared their after-hours skills and accomplishments.
Jackson Wong 7T6: The dancing dentist
Celebrating his 45th reunion year
Jackson Wong’s hobby has impacted his life on multiple levels, from improved fitness to a side career as a professional dancer.
After about a decade in practice, Wong says, “I found my waistline beginning to bulge from all the sitting and lack of exercise.” So, he visited a local community centre where a ballroom dancing class – and an accomplished teaching assistant – caught his eye. “I enrolled the next day.”
His first foray into competitive dance was a bit of a failure: “I was kicked out in the first round. But I craved repeating the experience. I liked the atmosphere, the dressing up, the cheering of the crowd. In short, I was hooked.”
With that teacher’s assistant as his dance partner, Wong practiced and entered as many competitions as he could, climbing the ranks in Dancesport – the official name for competitive ballroom dancing.
He got so good that in 1998, at the age of 50, he hung up his dentist’s smock to focus on dance. Over the course of his amateur career, he was a four-time Canadian Senior Standard Champion (with two different dance partners) and represented Canada three times at the World Championships. He later turned pro, teaching others to dance.
In 2008, after a decade-long hiatus, he returned to dentistry. The dance experience definitely had a positive spillover effect on his practice. “I am used to smiling on the dance floor to show control, enjoyment, and confidence,” says Wong. “I apply this to greeting every patient and they comment on how relaxed my smile makes them feel.”
Jackson Wong welcomes fellow classmates getting in touch with him directly by email to reconnect and reminisce.
Katherine Zettle 8T7, 9T5 Dip Paedo: Material artist
Celebrating her 35th reunion social year
Katherine Zettle first got a taste for what would become lifelong hobbies at her grandmother’s side where she learned to knit and crochet. Later, she guesses “about 30 years ago,” she developed a passion for quilting and cross-stitching.
For those not familiar with the craft, “With cross-stitching you follow a pattern and create an image using different coloured thread,” says Zettle. It’s a very portable hobby, says Zettle, “I can cross-stitch anywhere.” Her finished works are framed and used to decorate her office.
Quilting, by contrast, requires a dedicated space to lay out the pieces of fabric to be sewn together, along with bulky equipment including a sewing machine and iron. A queen-sized quilt requires hundreds of pieces of fabric that she first lays out, then steps away for a day or two before she finalizes the pattern based on how the colours flow together. Start to finish the process takes about six months to complete.
She admits that her hobby is such a core part of her life that, “Whenever I travel, I look for different fabrics or patterns.” The pediatric dentist also notes that her finely detailed focus required for stitching has had at least one workplace benefit. “I can gauge crown sizes by eye.”
During COVID, her diversion has also proven to be therapeutic. With several projects constantly on the go, “When I finish a project, I feel like I actually accomplished something. Otherwise, one day just blends into the next.”
Waji Khan 0T1: Treating with decor
Celebrating his 20th reunion year
The first thing patients notice when they enter Waji Khan’s office is that the décor is a bit different from what they’re used to. Each room is built around a particular theme – one is filled with Toronto Maple Leafs memorabilia, another features electric guitars hanging from the wall, and another is baseball themed, with bats, balls and jerseys on display. In all, he has 14 different themed rooms at his practices in Toronto and Kingston.
“It gives patients a chance to learn about you. It brings in a human element, which is missing sometimes in the clinical relationship,” says Khan.
The theme rooms started out of necessity, in a way. “When I bought my first house my mom called and told me to clean out all the stuff I had collected and stored at her house.” When he got to the new digs: “My wife met me at the door and said, “You ain’t bringing that junk in here!” And so, he took the stuff over to the office and the themed rooms were born. A hobby he has enjoyed curating and cultivating since.
His other hobby is cooking – he makes a mean tandoori salmon. Early in his career, he served as a dentist in the Canadian Armed Forces, where he also learned how to cook and spent time with kitchen staff. “I realized why these cooks had the worst teeth. They were basically placing cariogenic substrates in their mouths constantly over seven-hour shifts with a lack of rinse or brush stations,” he says. He helped his colleagues in the service implement preventative measures. They helped each other – Khan finding a love for cooking – he makes a mean Death by Chocolate flourless torte and they, armed with new information to protect their oral health.