ADA member spotlight: meet Scott Santarossa

This article was first published in the ADA's News Bulletin, November 2022. To access the article on Smiling Signs, visit "Smiling Signs: Oral health resources for the Deaf community"
 

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF, AND YOUR STUDIES SO FAR?

My name is Mr (soon to be Dr!) Scott Santarossa. I am a final-year student in the Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD) at the University of Western Australia and will graduate in December this year. I grew up in Melbourne, where I completed my Bachelor of Science at the University of Melbourne in 2016, as well as completing a Certificate 2 and 3 in Auslan at Melbourne Polytechnic in 2017.
 

HOW HAVE YOU FOUND DENTAL STUDENT LIFE, AND DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS FOR FURTHER STUDY?

Only a few weeks to go! Dental school has been a challenge, especially with COVID-19 interrupting much of our studies, but it has also been extremely rewarding and enriching. Thanks to COVID, I was able to spend a lot of time focusing on my research project, which was about dental anxiety within the Australian signing Deaf community. It has been a really fulfilling experience to be able to blend my interests for dentistry and Auslan. I was really lucky to have a great team, especially with my research partner (and fellow final-year) Anooshree Katwe, and supervisor Dr Omar Kujan. I think I’d need some time away from university (this is my ninth year full-time at a tertiary institution), but I always have an itch to do more because I just enjoy learning. Maybe there is a PhD on the distant horizon?
 

DO YOU HAVE A ‘WISH LIST’ OF WHAT YOU’D LIKETO ACHIEVE AS A GRADUATE?

I would like to stay in beautiful Perth for some time and build up my experience. I am excited to hone the skills I have learned and to really improve my dentistry. I would also like to complete my Auslan training to be able to provide a complete service to my Deaf patients.
 

YOU’VE ALREADY BEEN AWARDED SEVERAL GRANTS AND AWARDS – CONGRATULATIONS! HOW HAVE THEY CHANGED YOUR TRAJECTORY?

Thank you very much! This year has felt like a whirlwind, but in reality, everything has been a work in progress for at least the last three years. The first grant our team won was the Australian Dental Association’s WA Branch DMD Student Grant from the Australian Dental Research Foundation (ADRF), which really helped elevate our research project into something bigger. We then applied for the Healthier Smiles Community Grant (from the Australian Dental Health Foundation and Mars Wrigley Foundation), which we won in 2021. We applied to produce an oral health resource for the Deaf community, which we called Smiling Signs. We partnered with the ADA and Deaf Australia on this, and we have (slowly but surely!) been producing Auslan YouTube videos about dental treatments and oral health. This grant was also put towards organising a Deaf Awareness Training professional development event for dentists that was held at the end of October. In June this year, we won the top research award for DMD projects at the UWA Dental School, which gave me the opportunity to compete in the IADR (ANZ branch) Colgate poster competition in Melbourne, in September. I was not expecting to win that competition, but I did and am now preparing to compete in the international conference in Bogota, Colombia in June 2023!
 

HOW DID YOU FIRST HAVE THE IDEA FOR SMILING SIGNS, AND WHAT DOES THIS PROJECT MEAN TO YOU?

I spent a year learning Auslan full-time between my undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. I made a lot of friends through this course, and it made me aware of the lack of health resources in Auslan, particularly oral health. Not only is it important that access to information is made available in their preferred language, but they also have a right to that information. Our partnerships with Deaf Australia and the ADA have been so important in order to ensure the accuracy and quality of the resource is of a high standard. I would love to continue to work closely with the Deaf community during my career, both by directly seeing Deaf patients, doing research, as well as providing information to the wider community.
 

HAVE YOUR PROJECTS SO FAR TAUGHT YOU ANY LESSONS ABOUT THE BEST WAY TO ATTRACT COMMUNITY AND GRANT SUPPORT?

There are a few things that I believe helped me get this support. Firstly, find passion in the project – turn it into something that you enjoy doing and find a reason for why you think it will make the world a better place. It doesn’t have to be big; start small and work from there. Secondly, never say no to an opportunity when it presents itself. I saw an ad for the Healthier Smiles Community Grant, and so I applied on a whim. It took some work, but if I didn’t seize that opportunity, Smiling Signs wouldn’t have happened. Finally, don’t focus on what other people are doing. Try to find your own path and stand by your ideas and intuition.
 

YOU’RE NOT AFRAID TO HAVE A PUBLIC PERSONA, USING SOCIAL MEDIA TO SHARE YOUR PROGRESS AND CAREER (@SCOTTSANTAROSSA). HOW DOES THIS FIT IN WITH YOUR WORK?

I always gained inspiration from social media in the lead up to getting into dental school – to follow what students do and what dental school life will be like. As much as I’d love to keep it up, it requires a lot more time than I had anticipated. I might find more time once I graduate to pick it up again more consistently! It is also a nice way to learn from other people around the world – I made quite a few connections during COVID-19 with dentists based in the USA and UK whom I still follow and learn from today. I would also love for the dental community to support @smilingsignsauslan on Instagram and YouTube – who knows, maybe a reader will encounter a Deaf patient this week and our resource might help them!