Volume 8 • 2021 • Issue 5

The Voice of Dental Students Saif Matti is the new president of the Federation of Canadian Dentistry Student Associations (FCDSA) Saif Matti Dental student (DDS 2022) at Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at Western University and president of the Federation of Canadian Dentistry Student Associations (FCDSA) Q What led you to become involved with organized dentistry as a student? Saif Matti (SM): Starting in high school, I’ve had the unofficial role among my friends and fellow students as a person that would advocate for others and help them navigate challenging circumstances. In undergrad, I was actually nicknamed “the lawyer.” People would ask me questions like, “How can I effectively and respectfully raise this issue with my professor?” and I’d try to help. In dental school, I found myself in a situation where I was advocating for a group of students with the school’s administration. One administrator sat me down and said, “I appreciate your intentions, but to do this effectively you should have an official position to represent students.” It was this encounter that motivated me to run to be a representative for Western at the FCDSA. Q Could you tell us a little bit about the FCDSA? SM: The FCDSA represents students in all 10 dental schools in Canada with a unified voice. We work to facilitate communication between the schools as well as to bring the concerns of dental students to a national level and work with other national dental organizations. Our board has 20 representatives, two from each of the Canadian dental schools. These reps bring the concerns of their local student bodies to the organization and communicate back to them about our work. It turns out that dental students across the country face a lot of the same challenges. And solutions 35 Issue 5 | 2021 |