Most patients have never heard of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology, and there is no reason they should have. It is not a household name. But if you are looking for someone to remove your amalgam fillings carefully, it is probably the most useful name you will come across, because it is the body that wrote the protocol most careful dentists now follow.
In September 2026, at the Academy's annual conference in Columbus, Ohio, I was made a Fellow.
I am the only active Fellow of the Academy in the United Kingdom.
The Academy has levels. Member, SMART Member, Accredited, Fellow, Master. They are not honorary. You do not get one for turning up, and you cannot buy one.
I joined the Academy in 2015 and achieved Accredited status in 2023. The Fellowship sits above that, and it asks for three things.
Five hundred hours. Credit earned across research, education and service to the Academy. Lectures given. Courses taken. Time spent teaching other dentists. Mine took years to accumulate, alongside a full clinical week.
An original scientific review. Not an essay. A formal review of the published literature, submitted to the Academy's Science Committee, revised on their comments, and put before the Board.
Approval by seventy-five per cent of the Board.
That is the whole of it. No shortcut exists.
My scientific review looked at the relationship between periodontal disease and diabetes.
It is one of the clearest examples of the thing that has occupied my whole career, which is that the mouth is not a separate country from the rest of the body. Gum disease and blood sugar control appear to influence one another in both directions. Treat one and the research suggests you may help the other. That is a genuinely useful thing for a diabetic patient to know, and most never hear it, because their dentist and their doctor have never spoken to each other about them.
The review passed the Academy's Science Committee in August 2026.
SMART stands for Safe Mercury Amalgam Removal Technique. It is the Academy's protocol for taking out an amalgam filling while keeping the mercury vapour and particulate that removal generates away from the patient, the dental team and the room. Rubber dam. High-volume suction. A separate filtered air supply. Full protective equipment. Specific sequencing.
I am the only IAOMT SMART Protocol Mentor in the United Kingdom.
A Mentor does not simply follow the protocol. A Mentor teaches it. When another dentist in this country wants to learn how to do this properly, or is halfway through setting up and stuck on something, the call comes to me. I take those calls. It is unpaid and it is one of the more satisfying parts of the job, because every dentist who learns it is another few hundred patients treated carefully.
I qualified from the University of Manchester in 2004 and have removed more than ten thousand amalgam fillings.
Honestly? Less than you might think, and more.
Less, because a plaque on a wall has never made anybody comfortable in a dental chair. What makes people comfortable is being listened to, not being rushed, and being told the truth about what is going on in their mouth. That is the part of the job I care most about, and no Academy anywhere confers it.
More, because when you are choosing between three or four practices for something like this, you are usually choosing in the dark. Every website says careful. Every website says safe. You have no way of telling from the outside who has actually been examined on it by their peers and who has simply written the word on a page.
The Fellowship is one way of telling. It is not the only thing that matters. It is just something you can check.
Many of the people who come to see me are not particularly worried about mercury at all. They are worried about the dentist. They have had a bad time somewhere before, sometimes years ago, and it has never quite left them. Those appointments are among the best days I have at work.
We are rated 5.0 on Google from nearly two hundred reviews. They are the honest ones, written by people who came in nervous and left having had a better time than they expected. I would rather you read those than anything I have written about myself.
My book, Heal Your Mouth, Heal Your Body: The surprising link between your mouth and your health, is published by Hammersmith Health Books on 14 January 2027.
It is about the same thing this page is about, really. The mouth as the front door to the body, and how long medicine and dentistry have managed to avoid talking to one another about it. It covers the heart, diabetes, the brain, the joints, sleep, and yes, amalgam.
It is available to pre-order now.
Come and talk to us
If you are thinking about having amalgam fillings removed, or you simply want to ask a question before committing to anything, message us on WhatsApp or send an email. There is no charge for asking, and no pressure at the end of it.
About the dentist
Dr Daniel Sutcliffe BDS
Bachelor of Dental Surgery, University of Manchester, United Kingdom, 2004
GDC registration number: 83256
Fellow of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology
IAOMT Accredited, 2023
The only IAOMT SMART Protocol Mentor in the United Kingdom
The Bespoke Dentist
28 Harley Place, London W1G 8LZ
info@thebespokedentist.co.uk
0207 099 6651
WhatApp 07545908174
If you are wondering what the term biological dentist actually means, I have written about that separately.
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