IN PROFILE: Canada fourth country for dental surgeon

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By Shetu Modi
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Hiran Perinpanayagam has travelled across the world to fix people's teeth.
 
He was born in Sri Lanka, studied dentistry in New Zealand, and moved to the United States on scholarship in his 20s.
 
At the end of August, Perinpanayagam and his wife, Meghan, sold their house in Buffalo. He is now a faculty member in the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, making Canada the fourth country in which he has lived. 
 
“I consider myself an American first," says Perinpanayagam. “Now, living in Canada, I feel like I'm really becoming a multi-national person."
 
Perinpanayagam has spent most of his life in the United States, as both a practising and an academic dentist. His first priority was to begin research in the division of anatomy and cell biology. Then, he plans to start a practice in Canada.
 
When Perinpanayagam was 10, his father, a civil engineer, was offered a job in New Zealand. The family was flown there from Sri Lanka, and Perinpanayagam's parents and physician sister still live there.
 
“Canada reminds me a little bit of New Zealand," says Perinpanayagam, who doesn't remember Sri Lanka well. “After all, we have the same queen."
 
Perinpanayagam grew up aspiring to become an engineer like his father, but after meeting several dentists and dental students at the University of Otago in New Zealand, he decided to study dentistry instead.
 
“I found it to be quite exciting because it has a nice degree of surgical involvement mixed in with other diagnostic aspects," he says. “Whereas in medicine, perhaps, if you are, say, a family physician, the amount of surgical hands-on work that you might do may be limited."
 
A scholarship from the University of Rochester brought him to the United States. He completed his master's degree in Rochester and then headed to the University of Iowa, where he earned his PhD in bone biology and specialized in endodontics - or root canals, as they are more commonly known.
 
“Many years ago people lost their teeth at a young age," Perinpanayagam says. “(Now) whenever there's a problem they want the dentist to do whatever they can to save their tooth."
 
Sometimes cavities reach deep into the tooth to the nerve, where they can cause an infection, and saving the tooth requires a root canal, Perinpanyagam explains. The dentist has to drill into the tooth to extract the infected material.
 
For the last few years, Perinpanayagam worked at the Women and Children's Hospital of Buffalo, where performing root canals on children was part of his job. Sometimes the children were given nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, during the procedure.
 
“A lot of the kids relax when they have it," says Perinpanayagam, adding that patients unable to co-operate during the operation, due to behavioural or developmental problems, were admitted to the hospital and given a general anesthetic.
 
“He was very compassionate and caring," says Perinpanayagam's wife Meghan, to whom he has been married for 11 years.
 
They met at the University of Rochester, where Perinpanayagam was a graduate student and Meghan a dental secretary. Meghan now works as an assistant to the director in the same school as Perinpanyagam.
 
“It's nice because I get to see him during the day," Meghan says.
The couple has a young son and daughter. Perinpanayagam has not introduced them to many sweets.
 
On Halloween, the Perinpanayagams try not to give away candy, and on occasion, have handed out toothbrushes instead.
 
“As (the children) grow up, they will experiment and try out different things," says Perinpanayagam, who does not have a problem with this development in their lives. After all, even he has a sweet tooth for chocolate.  
 
The writer is a graduate student studying journalism.  

Background

Area of work: Dentistry
 
Specialty: Endodontics (root canals)
 
Interests: working out at the gym, kicking around a soccer ball in the park with his kids
 
Past feats: He has run a few marathons and been skydiving
 

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