Meet Our Dental Care Team

Dr. Raymond Khong

BDSc, LLM (Health & Med Law), FPFA, FDipMus

Raymond graduated from the University or Melbourne win 1994, the university that we was invited back to teach and act as clinical consultant for final year dental students several years later. He has been a dentist in Diamond Creek since then as is known throughout the area for not just his honest and ethical dental clinic, but also for his professional engagements as a singer and his highly regarded international charity work in dentistry. He has received an Australia Day Award for his organising and leading of dental volunteer missions to such countries as Peru, Cambodia, Nepal and the Solomon Islands. He has successfully setup a volunteer clinic in the remote Andean village of Pampachiri in Peru. For this the international Pierre Fauchard Academy awarded him a Fellowship. He has also achieved his Masters degree in Law majoring in Health and Medical Law, from the University of Melbourne, as well as his Fellowship in Music, majoring in Classical Singing, awarded to him by the Australia and New Zealand Cultural Association.

He continues to teach and mentor student and graduate dentists in areas of ethics, to always put patient welfare before profits, and is well supported by his highly trained staff and also the equally motivated, skilled and ethical dentists who works with him. He has four children and has always said that "having your own children certainly helps when you are treating children in general!”. His interests are very broad - aside from music, he is a self confessed petrol head - often racing his cars around circuits and chugging along on his Triumph motorcycle. He is now working on achieving his pilot’s licence.

Music & Singing

Raymond’s passion outside of dentistry is music-or more precisely, singing. Raymond is trained operatic tenor and has sung with the Australian Opera, the Victoria State Opera and various local opera companies. In 2003 he was nominated for a Green Room Award for Best Singer in a Principal Role for his stirring performance in Chamber Made Opera’s worldwide premiere of The Possessed, an original Australian opera. (Review in The Age). Though trained in opera, Raymond is known for his talent as a “crossover artist”, singing in variety of styles from opera to musicals to modern ballads. These days he is in demand on the concert and cabaret circuits, after establishing a name for himself over the last nine years in touring shows. He has written a few shows himself which enjoyed successful runs.

Raymond has released two CDs to date and is gearing up for his third. In 2004 “Voices for Hope” was released (now sold out and only available on special order) and then in 2009 “Voyage”, both on the MOVE label.

Read more about "The Singing Dentist"

Charity Work

Raymond has always wanted to give back something to the less fortunate communities and in 2011 he joined a team of dental professionals to Peru to treat the local children in the very remote township of Pampachiri, high in the Andes. These children had never seen a dentist before and the experience was certainly unique and eye opening. Aside from the dentistry, the team is also instrumental in establishing a community kitchen for the village women.

In 2012 Raymond went solo to Cambodia on a similar mission, joining up with an international team when he arrived there. The work consisted of acute care of orphans and also oral health education for preventative care.

In 2013 Raymond returned to Pampachiri in Peru but this time as Team Leader. The team of ten dentists that he co-ordinated saw just under 1,000 patients in just one week! The tricky part of this was the language barrier, with Raymond having to learn basic Spanish and Quechua (Inca dialect).

Dr Raymond is one of a handful of clinical consultants invited to consult in The University of Melbourne’s private clinic programme. In 2012 the University of Melbourne built a new clinic named Melbourne Dental Clinic, designed for the purpose of giving dental students experience of working with private paying patients, instead of public non-paying patients they already saw in the Royal Dental Hospital. The professor in charge invited Dr Raymond to be one of only a handful of private dentists to consult and advise final year students. He was very happy to take on this role as he has always felt a strong need for the proper education and training to upcoming future dentists.