Skip to main content

Dental School Strategy Team

Professor Justin Durham

Director, Health Innovation Neighbourhood. Professor of Orofacial Pain & Hon. Consultant Oral Surgeon.

Background

Background

Oral Surgeon

Qualifications (in reverse chronological order):

  • Postgraduate Cert. Pain Management, Edinburgh University.
  • Postgraduate Cert. Health Economics, Aberdeen University.
  • Diplomate of American Board of Orofacial Pain. USA Board examination for orofacial pain practice.
  • Intercollegiate Fellowship in Dental Surgery RCS Edinburgh. FDS (OS) RCS.
  • Doctor of Philosophy, Newcastle University - Ideologies and outcomes in Temporomandibular Disorders
  • Postgraduate Cert. Academic Practice, Newcastle University with Distinction
  • Membership of Faculty of Dental Surgery, Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) of Edinburgh. MFDS RCS(Ed)
  • Bachelor of Dental Surgery, Newcastle University. Distinction Paedodontics

Memberships

  • International Association of Dental Research
  • International RDC/TMD Consortium Network
  • Association of British Academic Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
  • Fellow of Higher Education Academy
  • British Pain Society
  • European Academy of Orofacial Pain and Dysfunction elected member

Honours and Awards

See research

Roles and Responsibilities

  • British Dental Association's Chief Scientific Advisor (2022 onwards)
  • NIHR Academy's Associate Dean for Dental Integrated academic training (2017 onwards)
  • Deputy Chair of NIHR's Development and skills enhancement fellowship panel (2022 onwards)
  • Chair of NIHR Research for Patient Benefit Panel (Yorkshire and North-East, 2017-21)
  • Deputy Dean of Clinical Medicine (2017-19)
  • Faculty of Medical Sciences' Director of Externally Funded Clinical Fellowships (2015-19)
  • Undergraduate clinical teaching lead for Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery (2014-19)
  • Finals examination committee and standard setting for all OMFSci finals questions – 2007 onwards
  • Training programme Director for Health Education North-East's Specialist training programme in Oral Surgery (2014-19)
  • Member of British Pain Society's working groups on: Undergraduate Health Professional Pain Curriculum (2011-16); Epidemiology and clinical coding of chronic pain (2013 onwards).
  • Chair of SAC working group for work based assessments for oral surgery core competency specialist training – 2010-12
  • Chair of working party for Undergraduate Education (Association of British Academic Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons) 2007-13


Google scholar: Click here.

SCOPUS: Click here.

Research

Google scholar: Click here.

SCOPUS: Click here.


Research Interests 

Temporomandibular Disorders (TMDs) 

Persistent (chronic) orofacial pain 

Quality of life 

Professional and Patients' experiences or perceptions of care

Current Work 

I lead the orofacial pain research group at Newcastle. Our work is multifaceted and has been/is funded by most major funders including NIHR, Wellcome and MRC. The group seeks to examine the complexity of pain processing, including underlying mechanism of acute pain, for example instantaneous fast pain when you have a cold drink on a “sensitive tooth”, persistent pain that persists following treatment of the identified cause and the transition from acute to persistent pain.

Pain itself is multidimensional and involves not only perception of intensity, but also more wider reaching effects such as how it makes you feel or act and therefore our research program involves many different disciplines including: clinical dentistry such as oral surgery, endodontology; clinical medicine, clinical nutrition, and clinical psychology; health sciences such as health economics, medical sociology; biomedical sciences such as neurobiology, neuroscience and physiology. We address both translational gaps: at the first translational gap we are looking to identify the factors that may predict transition from acute to persistent pain and how to address these factors in order to help prevent persistent pain; at the second translational gap we are looking to improve care pathways in both acute and persistent pain and develop new evidence-based interventions to prevent and alleviate both types of pain. We actively seek to ensure any wider relevance of our findings is realised through collaborations with groups working in areas outside of the orofacial region.

Current active projects include the following areas: temporomandibular disorders and novel interventions; biological and stem cell models of acute and neuropathic pain; evidence based interventions to improve care and care pathways; factors influencing and or remediating the evolution of persistent pain from acute pain.

Research Roles and Postgraduate Supervision: 

Previous supervisor of eight successful MSc theses (4 distinctions, 2 merits, 1 national prize), one succesful MPhil thesis and five successful PhD theses (3 with international prizes)

Currently supervising 4 PhD students. External examiner for two international universities for Masters' related to orofacial pain and also for a UK university at PhD level.

Esteem Indicators 

2022 onwards British Dental Association's Chief Scientific Advisor

International network for orofacial pain and related disorders: President 2019-20; President-Elect 2016-19; Honorary Secretary & Treasurer 2013-16

2016 Awarded King James IV Professorship by Royal College of Surgeons' of Edinburgh

2012-2017 NIHR Clinician Scientist


International Prizes: 

2010 - Educational Research Group Faculty Award. IADR, Barcelona, Spain.

Awarded by International Association of Dental Research  Educational Research Group 

2008  Outstanding Post-doctoral abstract award. IADR, Toronto, Canada.

Awarded by International Association of Dental Research  Behavioral, Epidemiology and Health Services Research Group 


Local awards:

2009 - Inaugural Vice-Chancellor's award for excellence in teaching and learning

Awarded by Newcastle University 

Personal fellowships: 

I held a prestigious NIHR Clinician Scientist award from 2012 to 2017 which funded the DEEP study - Developing Effective and Efficient care pathways in persistent orofacial Pain. This longitudinal cohort and cost analysis study has begun to produce data on the direct and indirect costs of the care pathways for persistent orofacial pain establishing their magnitude and using them as a proxy in order to predict treatment need and thereby provided stratified care.

In 2010 to be awarded the prestigious Lasby Fellowship from the University of Minnesota. This was awarded to allow me to perform collaborative research on Atypical Odontalgia (Persistent Dentoalveolar Pain disorder [PDAP]) in order to develop a screening instrument for this difficult to diagnose and rare condition using a well described cohort of patients at the University's orofacial pain clinic. 


Invited contributions to books: 

  • the Oral cavity anatomy chapter of the 40th edition of Gray's anatomy 
  • the Oral and maxillofacial surgery definitions of Harty's Dental Dictionary 
  • module on Pain pathways for NHS e-learning for healthcare
  • the chapter on Temporomandibular disorders and chronic orofacial pain in Principles of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery 
  • the chapter on Preparing the mouth for prostheses in Principles of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery 
  • the chapter on Acute manifestations of non-odontogenic pain in The Dental Emergency clinic 
  • the chapter on Temporomandibular disorders in the BDJ Book on Oral surgery 
  • the chapter on Oral and Maxillofacial Trauma in the BDJ Book on Oral surgery 
  • the chapter on Antral Surgery in the BDJ Book on Oral surgery 
  • the chapter on Self-report assessment in IASP book on Orofacial Pain
  • the chapter on Biopsychosocial aspects of orofacial pain in Springer book on Contemporary Oral Medicine
  • American Academy of Orofacial Pain's guidelines for assessment, diagnosis and management. Chapter on Neuropathic pain
  • USA's National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine's Temporomandibular Disorders: From research discoveries to clinical treatment. Chapter on Individual and Societal Burden of TMDs






  
Teaching

Undergraduate Teaching

The areas of the dental undergraduate course that I provide, or have provided, teaching input to, are:

Stage 1
- Head and Neck Anatomy course – previously demonstrating and lecturing
- Introduction to Dentistry course – practical teaching in suturing demonstration

Stage 3
- Course lead for Clinical Introductory Course 2009-2014
- Oral surgery block clinical allocation
- Dentistry, the Dentist and Public Health lecture series
- Stage 3 OSCE examiner
- Stage 3 In-course examiner
- Stage 3 Human diseases examiner

Stage 4
- Stage 4 TMDs and Differential Diagnosis of Orofacial Pain lecture series
- Stage 4 Oral diseases lecture series
- Stage 4 Human diseases OSCE examiner
- Stage 4 Human diseases In-course examiner
- Oral surgery block clinical allocation - Minor oral surgery teaching

Stage 5
- Oral diseases lecture series
- Finals examination lead for Oral and Maxillofacial Sciences 
- Pre-finals seminar program in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

I was also previously the clinical teaching lead for the Undergraduate clinical course in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery 2014-19.

Postgraduate Teaching:

- Examiner for Intercollegiate Fellowship in Oral Surgery (FDS[OS])

- Previous course tutor on Newcastle University’s postgraduate diploma in clinical implant dentistry

- Previous MFDS examiner for RCS (Edin)

- Previous examiner for Intercollegiate Membership in Oral Surgery




Publications