Oral ambassador

While re-appointing Dr Firoze D. Mirza of Bombay for another two-year term as part of its Ambassador’s Circle, co-chairs of the International Congress of Oral Implantologists (ICOI) Kenneth W. M. Judy and Carl E. Misch of New Jersey, USA, wrote, "As you know, as inscribed on (the) website of the Ambassador’s Circle, you ‘are a world leader in the field of implant dentistry who is taking the extra step to help promote not only implant education, but the other tenets of the ICOI’s mission.’” Their letter also extended an invitation to Mirza to attend ICOI’s XXIX World Congress in Orlando, Florida from September 20 to 22, 2012.

Dr Firoze D. Mirza: 50 years in the dental field

The ICOI is a world dental implant body on which 64 countries are represented, but being in the Ambassador’s Circle is a rare honor for India as very few countries are featured in this list, Mirza informed Parsi­ana via a letter. Tracing his personal career trajectory the senior dental specialist mentioned that he returned to India in 1961 after a seven-year stint in the US to "popularize oral implantology and upgrade the dental profession as a whole” in the country. He founded two societies, the Indian Prosthodon­tic Society in 1972 and the Indian Society of Oral Implan­tologists in 1989 of which he was founder president, nurturing both along with his colleagues. As a result of their efforts many dentists, including a number of Parsis, are today practicing and teaching dental science in India and abroad. In 1955 there were just seven dental colleges; their number has grown to 280 today, Mirza writes.
The implantologist will complete 50 years of active practice in the field on August 28, 2012. He has been professor and head of the Prosthodontic Department at the Nair Hospital Dental College for 25 years, where 62 Master of Dental Surgery students have earned their degree under his guidance. When Mirza returned to India in 1961, prosthodontics was a relatively new dental specialty dealing with teeth replacements and jaw functioning. Mirza writes that in 1962 he performed the first full mouth dental implant in India. Today this is a commonly done procedure.
The much traveled Mirza has over the past half century been invited to lecture on implantology at dental conferences in Europe and the countries of the Far East including Taiwan and South Korea. He has been to Sri Lanka 10 times in conjunction with Peredynia University during which he has completed 52 full mouth implants. Being the only foreign doctor there, Mirza was given temporary registration to practice in Sri Lanka, he notes.