Rate My Professor Daniel Sundaresan

Dr. Daniel Sundaresan serves as a Senior Professional Practice Fellow in the Special Needs Dentistry section of the Oral Diagnostic and Surgical Sciences department within the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Otago. He holds qualifications including BDS, GCHPEd, DSCD, DCD, MFDTEd, MSCD, and FRACDS(SND). He completed his Doctor of Clinical Dentistry at the University of Melbourne, where he undertook specialist training in Special Needs Dentistry. Earlier in his career, Sundaresan was a BDS student at the University of Otago, where he received the Pat Cragg Summer Student Prize from the Otago Medical School Research Society in 2012 for his project investigating the oral bacterial diversity of Dunedin children. He has also been awarded first prize by the Otago Medical Research Foundation in 2012. His professional experience includes roles as a Consultant in Special Needs Dentistry at Fiona Stanley Hospital in Perth, a Clinical Senior Lecturer at the University of Western Australia, positions at Waikato District Health Board in Hamilton, and work in London. Currently based in Dunedin, he practices as a Special Needs Dentist.

Sundaresan's research focuses on Special Needs Dentistry, encompassing patient complexity assessment, management of patients with bleeding disorders such as haemophilia, palliative care applications like palatal lift prostheses, multidisciplinary head and neck cancer care, and hospital-based dental service funding models. He has authored or co-authored 14 publications, accumulating 27 citations and over 1,050 reads. Key works include 'Development and pilot use of a novel complexity checklist for patients with special healthcare needs in Australia and New Zealand' (2025), 'Frequency and Severity of Post-Procedure Bleeding Events Following Dental Extractions Completed in Patients on Heparin Therapy' (2025), 'Assessing patient complexity in Special Needs Dentistry in the Australian and New Zealand context: a qualitative study' (2025), 'Inequalities in public funding: Are hospital-based dental services funding models in Australia logical?' (2024), and 'Special needs dentistry in multidisciplinary head and neck cancer management – characterizing scope and complexity of patient care' (2022). He contributes to education through webinars, such as the New Zealand Dental Association's Young Dentist Webinar Series on Special Needs Dentistry.