Dr. Ventseslav Stankov from Plovdiv is among the world’s top 100 after the Global Summit Institute put him on the 2020 World's Top 100 Doctors in Dentistry list. At 36, he is the youngest doctor on the list.

Knowing well that his profession makes dreams come true and shapes the future, it is Dr. Ventseslav Stankov’s job to bring a smile to people’s faces. Because he uses cutting-edge technologies in aesthetic dental medicine and is not afraid to cross boundaries colleagues of his stop at.

In 2017 the young dentist performed complicated surgery in Ukraine and there he was noticed by his future mentor – Eric Van Doren, an influential dentist from Belgium who helped him open many doors. Today Dr. Stankov has his own dental practice in Plovdiv, but also works at a dental clinic in Antwerp and elsewhere in the world.

His name was put forward for the top 100 by Dr. Behnam Shakibaie who takes care of the teeth of the President of Iran.

I cannot say I was selected because of one particular event, Dr. Ventseslav Stankov says. It was more like a series of small steps, victories and appearances at many international events, work with colleagues in several clinics in Europe. I also give lectures at universities abroad, I have won several international competitions and all this has made my name recognizable in the world. But the most important reason why I am on the list is, I think, that I work with a microscope and perform microsurgery with a bigger focus on detail.

The Bulgarian dentist is sought-after internationally most of all for his achievements in periodontics and implantology. He is to perform two operations in Paris soon which will be watched, live, by several hundred people – one for inserting an implant on a patient with congenital bone degeneration and the other for restoring the gum around the implant.

The most important thing in my work is to get to know the patient as everything connected with aesthetics is deeply personal, says Dr. Stankov further. That is why I try to find out what every patient regards as beautiful and to explain the limits of our abilities. But it would be wrong if I, or my dental technicians were to force our own views on them. We try to find out where we can meet – with regard to the materials or what the patient wants.

Once people thought corrections ought to be unnoticeable but now many people are insisting on a Hollywood-type smile – super white teeth, a sign that they have been making investments in their own self.

The tendency I like best is that we endeavour to obtain a good result with less trauma and less loss of solid dental tissue, less intervention, though not at the expense of results, the dentist explains.  Until 15 years ago we filed down teeth for dental crowns, destroying much of the tooth, but now we have bonding ceramic restorations, so a much smaller part of the tooth is destroyed. In other words we are growing more conservative.

There is one more Bulgarian doctor on the Global Summit Institute top 100 list – Dr. Pavel Krastev who lives and works in New York.

Photos: private library