Salmiya

The first batch of dental students in Tromsø exercising periodontal surgery and suturing on the sheep model which had been developed in Kuwait .

Ahmed Shafiq Abdulkareem Al Tameemi (not in the picture), presently 4th-year student at Kuwait University FOD and Chief Editor of the Kuwaiti Dental Students Society (KDSS) Magazine wrote : “Finally, one of the biggest hurdles in my dental education has been passed, literally passed. Next year, I’m off to fourth year, seeking higher education, which, according to the Monthly Dose (all rights reserved) leads to a faster mental decline. Well I’m willing to take the risk. What ever happened in the last three years of my “higher education” already did its damage. What happened exactly that led to my “mental decline”? First of all, entering this University a year earlier started it all. I should have taken that extra course of physics in my school. Then maybe I would have gotten a C+ instead of a D+. Or maybe it was the fact that I really never had anything as hard as a college course. In school, all we had to do is answer all the past papers from 1988 to 2004 and you can guarantee yourself...

When Kuwait University Dental School was established there was soon a demand for a special animal teaching model for oral surgical methods. Dental students throughout the world are frequently trained in different flap designs and suturing techniques by using mandibles of freshly slaughtered pigs. But they were, of course, not available in an Islamic country. What is available and can be seen hanging on hooks in the numerous butcheries in Kuwait are sheep. Arabs love eating mutton and lamb. I quickly learned that the animals were not slaughtered in these places. Early in the morning the butchers are supplied with the slaughtered sheep by the local slaughterhouses. But where are those? Not being able of reading Arabic signs, I was too new in Kuwait, as to be able to find easily every place in the vast industrial areas where I assumed the slaughterhouses to be. Somebody had told me that the main slaughterhouse of the State of Kuwait is located in Shuwaikh, close to the main fire station o...

The recent riots of Bagladeshi cleaners in Kuwait have been reported world-wide in the media. Teargas, batons, and the threat of deportation of 'troublemakers' (strikers) badly reflect on a state implementing laws which are not protecting those who are effectively running the country. The 250'000 or so Bangladeshis in Kuwait apparently belong to the lowest social class. But when they are cheated on their 40 Dinars salary (about € 100), when 18 Dinars per month in fact are left (€ 45), that should in fact be regarded as theft. And that is happening in one of the richest countries in the world! I want to dedicate this posting to a secretary from the Philippines who I learned to know about five years ago. Her talents and capabilities, competencies and skills were so manifold that any of her superiors in FOD at Kuwait University and the whole staff immediately noticed that a job as a secretary would not really challenge her. So, her responsibilities were upgraded again and ag...

Students represent usually the least problem in a new college. Twelve years ago, Kuwait’s Faculty of Dentistry had been founded by Amiri Decree. Together with the Faculty of Pharmacy, FOD was the last Faculty to be established at Kuwait University. An international staff granted, from the very beginning, an extraordinary level of dental education. In fact, in my rather long academic career, I have not seen a place where professional discussions of teachers from all over the world were so impassionate. While everybody of us almost affectionately cared for our ‘guinea pigs’, the first batch of eleven students (ten were female), who graduated in 2005, we became more and more demanding in teaching and training the next batches. Students presented their ongoing cases in weekly seminars and the presence of all teaching staff was mandatory for discussing certain solutions and alternative treatment plans. While heavily animated powerpoint presentations of the students dominated in the beginni...

Certainly not! Kuwait University has still a strong vision and enormous capabilities and facilities for developing and maintaining its status of a real frontrunner institution in the academic world of the Gulf States. Founded already some 40 years ago, there are now about 20’000 students who are taught in 13 Faculties. A new project is the University City which is located in Al Shadadiyah, about 30 km south of the Capital in what is so far desert. There will be also a University Hospital which is urgently needed since the old Mubarak Hospital in Jabriya with its limited space and facilities is not very suitable for the growing numbers of Medical students in Kuwait. Working at Kuwait University as a teacher with a Western academic background may be a challenge. It has led to mixed if not ambiguous emotions. The exotic place cannot be compared with highly effective and productive Academia in, for example, the USA or Europe, where teaching is well-organized, standardized, streamlined, an...

It was exactly one year before the abject, world-shaking September 11 attacks of Al Qaeda on the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers and the Pentagon, in September 2000, when I stumbled over a large advertisement in one of our professional journals which told me that the new Faculty of Dentistry at Kuwait University was seeking applicants for academic positions. I have to admit here that I had never ever considered moving to an Islamic country, in particular not working there. But that was entirely due to lack of information at that time. What Islam meant was not clear to me at all. I was not even interested very much. A quick check on the internet told me that this was a project mainly engaging well-known international academicians, most of them from Scandinavian countries, with a quite good record of publications. So the question came to my mind, would I fit in that environment? I read Kuwait was the hottest place in the world. But a dear friend who had been traveling in the Middle East...