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Dr Alex Khominsky is on a mission to help dentists take better control of their career paths through a new approach to skills training, with a focus on guiding general practitioners from beginner to expert. By John Burfitt
There was one period, after Dr Alex Khominsky finished his dental studies in 2017 and settled into the routine of working at a practice on the frontline of patient care, that clearly had a profound impact on how he has directed his career ever since.
“There are problems within those first months and years of dentistry in how a new practitioner builds their career with enough development of new skills to take them forward,” Dr Khominsky says.
“If you don’t have a good mentor, a good support network or the right opportunities to learn, then that can significantly set you back. Many graduates think when they land their first dental role, they will learn everything they need in one place, but that’s so unrealistic.
“It’s more a case you need to take your career into your own hands and while many want to do that, many also have no idea where to start once in the workforce.”
This quest to carve out a place in Australian dentistry is what has driven Dr Khominsky since his studies at the University of Adelaide.
He graduated in 2017 as dux of his class, earning such accolades as the Pierre Fauchard Academy Award and the Moore Medallion. His research interests also led him to complete a Bachelor of Science Dentistry in Craniofacial Biology, and later to specialise with a Doctorate of Clinical Dentistry (Periodontics).
Dr Khominsky, who works as a periodontist at Melbourne’s Perio Centre across Malvern East, Blackrock and Wodonga, admits he’s always had a passion for education.
“After graduation, I still felt there was so much I wanted to discover, and that was when I landed a graduate position at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, where I was working with immunocompromised and transplant patients, and that opened my eyes to a whole new realm of dentistry,” he says.
As good as many of the weekend workshops are, there is not a single program out there that does what we do in offering a comprehensive and structured approach. And from the reaction we’ve had, it’s clear we are answering an important need.
Dr Alex Khominsky, co-founder, General Dental Residency
“Those early years made me recognise there are two things I really love—working in dentistry and learning through education. Combining those passions seemed to be the next logical step for me.”
Education at all levels
In 2019, Dr. Khominsky co-founded with Dr Daniel Maryanovsky General Dental Residency (gDR), an education company offering a range of career training modules for recent graduates as well as mid-level dentists and oral health therapists. Melbourne-based gDR has worked with thousands of dentists, both in person and online, around Australia, and this year welcomes its first enrolment from New Zealand.
gDR courses include Periodontic Essentials and Master Dental Photography, and there are Study Clubs for a range of issues as well as free webinars. gDR’s core offering is the Dental Residency program which offers over 21 education modules and a structured mentorship schedule to guide students through the yearlong process, and the recently launched Diploma in Advanced Restorative & Aesthetic.
In its marketing, gDR claims it is ‘dedicated to reshaping dental education for general dentists’ and there is a mission statement ‘to take dentists from beginner to expert with comprehensive and evidence-based education designed by our team of specialist leads’. Courses range from free to over $13,000 for the full year residency program, and more for the advanced diploma. Completed programs and courses also count towards CPD points.
Dr Khominsky believes offering graduate dentists a clear training pathway can be far more effective than just relying on in-clinic training and mentorship for skills development. He says the first five years after graduation require a commitment to skills development in order to excel in the profession.
“No matter how good a practice is, none of them have someone who’s an expert in every field of dentistry, who can take you to the next step of becoming an excellent dentist,” he says. “Our programs offer up to eight different specialists and five regular expert speakers.
“As good as many of the weekend workshops are, there is not a single program out there that does what we do in offering a comprehensive and structured approach. And from the reaction we’ve had, it’s clear we are answering an important need for a large cohort of early career dentists or those trying to reimagine their career at a later stage.”
The value of a guide
One of the key components Dr Khominsky believes makes the gDR program so valuable is access to mentorship from senior dentists.
“Most workshops don’t offer an ongoing mentor who will be alongside you helping you understand how to then apply all that you are learning in the clinical workplace,” he says. “Having someone who is not your boss often means there is much more you can ask them without feeling self-conscious.”
If you don’t have a good mentor, a good support network or the right opportunities to learn, then that can significantly set you back. Many graduates think when they land their first dental role, they will learn everything they need in one place, but that’s so unrealistic.
Dr Alex Khominsky, co-founder, General Dental Residency
Although director of gDR, Dr Khominsky says he is not the institution’s main educator. “If anything, I am actually a learner just like all the other dentists,” he laughs. “We aim to find the best person to teach each aspect, and I usually am as excited by what is being presented as anyone else in the room.”
This year, gDR will have three cohorts with up to 90 dentists across the programs. It’s a long way from when it launched its first cohort in 2021 and attracted only 20 dentists.
“For the first few years, we were not profitable,” he admits. “We had only a few modules and that just didn’t work. So we scrapped that, started again and then COVID came along. So our model then became weekly webinars and that is when we really took off. Sometimes we had 1500 people watching and that was when we realised there was a demand for this.”
Looking ahead
It’s been in recent years Dr Khominsky has seen the results of the programs, exactly as he intended from the outset. “Speaking to people in the months and years after the courses, the word that comes up so often is ‘confidence’, as they undergo a mindset shift about what they can achieve,” he says. “Some people who weren’t doing crowns before are now doing them regularly, or they are taking wisdom teeth out and it has become a smooth process for them.
“We had a person who has been a dentist for over 15 years, and she said she’s having a more rewarding career now as she’s doing more comprehensive work that she would not have dared do years ago as she had just never been properly shown how.”
Today Dr Khominsky divides his time between working as a periodontist in the Perio Centre clinics and continuing to grow gDR. Expanding the current residency program is top of his agenda, with the development of the Certificate in Clinical Dentistry accreditation and recent launch of the Diploma in Advanced Restorative and Aesthetic Dentistry with three other specialist prosthodontists as program directors.
“We want to train people to have the skills to operate as close to expert level as possible,” he says. “We still have so much scope in what we can do in terms of adding to the education system to enable dentists to continue to move forward in their careers.”
Possibly the biggest insight the past six years of running gDR has given Dr Khominsky is how stressful the early years of dentistry can be. “And what is concerning is so many people don’t reach out when they need help, but what I have seen is when you are supported to succeed, the changes can be major.
“My hope is the dentists who come through our program will find it has an impact on the way they perform dentistry, and that becomes a positive shift for our profession.”
