'It is difficult to think about becoming what you have never seen': Black students' reflections around a career in academic dentistry.

This opinion piece considers the national representation of the Black population in the United Kingdom in an academic career in dentistry and draws on engagement with Black dental students to see what their perceptions of this are. Black people are under-represented in dentistry as a whole and the number of Black academics who teach dentistry to an increasing number of aspiring young Black dental students is exceedingly low. Black dental students do not see themselves represented by their teachers and therefore 'it is difficult to think about [them] becoming what [they] have never seen'.