When dental surgeon Dr Firoze Mirza started his practice, "the common man could not afford dentistry… The practice largely involved ‘remove teeth, put in plates’… The focus these days is to save teeth, to last a person for a life time,” he told us on August 26, 2021. The coming year, 2022, when he turns 90, will also mark the completion of six decades since Mirza, said to be the first to do so, began practicing dental implantology in India in 1962. "Don’t worry I am still young,” he stated, cheerily. The octogenarian practices privately in the Breach Candy area, "largely for family and friends,” with a staff of three. Mirza is also the "pioneer in porcelain technology” in dental work since 1970, noted prosthodontist and leading light of the Zoroastrian Dentists Organization Dr Porus Turner who highlighted Mirza’s many achievements in a detailed note to Parsiana. With a 1957 degree from Tufts University, Boston, USA, Mirza has six honorary degrees from various countries under his belt, notes his curriculum vitae.
The dentist stated when he was in the USA, he was offered a posting at McGill University (Montreal, Canada) as associate professor with an annual salary of USD 70,000 (Rs 51,16,300) with intra-mural practice allowed. "I turned it down as I had made up my mind to return to India on a mission to popularize modern dentistry.” The doctor and his wife Elinor "returned to India in December 1961 with eight large packages… containing dental units with all accessories and all the household goods.” A professorship at Government Dental College followed. "I got Rs 500 per month as a gazetted pool officer, class 1 from the central government,” recalled Mirza.
Above: Dr Firoze Mirza and wife Elinor; top: the Mirza family
With 30 years in active teaching of dentistry, Mirza is a former professor and dean of Bombay’s Nair Dental College. The founder president of the Indian Society of Oral Implantology and the Indian Prosthodontic Society, he was awarded the Outstanding Practitioner Trophy at the First SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) Dental Conference in 1992. A Rotarian since 1980, Mirza told us that their meetings are his second source of joy (after the practice of his profession). The Rotary Club of Mid-Town in their journal of September 2004 noted that during his term as president the Banganga cremation grounds were renovated and a polio eradication program was completed in D Ward, among other welfare works.
"Elinor has now retired after having worked for over 38 years with the consulate general of Germany,” he stated. The Mirzas met when Firoze was a student in the USA and Elinor was a Fulbright Fellow at Brandies University. Of their three sons, Dr Eric is a prosthodontist at Hinduja Hospital, Dr Darius, a liver transplant surgeon and Capt Heinz, a senior pilot with Emirates airlines.
"Brush your teeth after each meal…see your dentist every six months… get the slightest pain attended to immediately… Teeth can and must be saved,” were his parting words.