[00:00:05] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts, Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:00:22] Welcome to Leading Ladies Part two. Our mini series combining some of the best parts of our conversations with inspirational lady dentists. Enjoy. See you in part three. Number 54. Lauren Sparkle.

[00:00:39] The fact that I do hold several media roles so frantically sort of trying to figure out what to advise members as well. So yeah, I think the first six weeks or so I was averaging about four or 5 hours sleep a night just trying to keep on top of, you know, meetings, constant contact, WhatsApp messages flying around and things.

[00:01:07] And you’ve got you’ve got your practice, you’ve got your kids. How many kids have your three? Three kids? You’ve put your brother and your dad and now you’ve got mental dental and now you’ve got all these BDA roles. Are you the type of person who just like says yes to everything and then works it out later? Or do you love do you love being in the middle of it or. You know what I mean? It’s a lot to do.

[00:01:35] Yeah. I mean, we’ve got confidential as well.

[00:01:39] A confidential thing.

[00:01:43] Yeah. My dad at my wedding, when my dad gave a speech, he called me perpetual motion. And I think that, you know, that probably that probably is right. I’d like to be on the go, and I like to help. So if there’s an opportunity, then I’ll take it, because I think that if we’ve got the option to help, if we’ve got the ability to help people, then we should. So yeah, if there’s if there’s an opportunity to help, then I will.

[00:02:18] Lauren, how would you squeeze it all in? What’s a day or a week in the life of your sort of activities like so with running the practice just one day, rather, you know, and then running all of these organisations and WhatsApp messages and stuff like that. What’s it like for you? Typical day, typical week.

[00:02:38] So I will wake up sort of at half, six, seven and just immediately check my phone. As unhealthy as that is, immediately check my phone, scroll through messages, reply to anything that has come while I’ve been asleep.

[00:02:57] While you’re in bed, you’re in.

[00:03:00] Bed. It’s like when I open, it’s like scrolling through and I’ll replace any immediate messages. Then get up, get kids up, ready for school nursery, sort the dog out, sort of cat. So chicken on the duck. So I’ll get the girls onto the school bus. Sonny comes with me because he goes to nursery just opposite the practice.

[00:03:29] How old are they?

[00:03:30] So Brooke is nine, Grace is six, and Sunny is doing well. And so, yeah, I managed to even be spaced out. My husband was joking a little while ago, was like, Oh, come on, now it’s time for the next one. They will be four more. We’ve done it three. We’re both really tired all the time. He still tries to come into bed with us every night. So. So yeah, he I mean, this is this is the reason I’ve got so much time is because Sunny actually has never slept very well. So I’m usually up so I can I can manage a lot from my phone. So that’s, that’s kind of what happens. So yeah, on a typical day, Non-covid, I’ll go in and see patients and, you know, replace messages, lunchtimes and then usually zip from the practice to get sunny, to get home to sort kids out, that sort of thing. And then, you know, like in between times I’ll be replying to messages, doing emails and that sort of thing. So yeah.

[00:04:36] Is it a mixed mix practice?

[00:04:38] It’s a mixed practice, yeah. So we’re about 80% NHS and that. It’s obviously we’ve been really, really fortunate to get some NHS funding in Wales. We’ve had 80% of our contract value initially. We’ve just recently gone up to 90%. So that is being helpful. But obviously the private side has died off really because the priority is being NHS patients kind of because we’re we’re so restricted about what we can do. We’ve really just tried to focus on getting everybody healthy. And a lot of the a lot of the private stuff I was doing was aesthetic. I got a small amount of patients who I’ve been looking after as well, but we’ve just we just mainly been focusing on keeping everybody healthy through this time.

[00:05:34] How many how many rooms is it? How many dentists is it in the practice?

[00:05:36] We were we were two surgeries. And then this year I was appointed as a trainer, so I just put in a third surgery.

[00:05:47] Goodness, you are busy, aren’t you? So tell us. Tell us about mental dental. How did it come about? First of all, for someone who doesn’t know, what is it?

[00:05:57] So Mental Dental is Facebook forum for UK dentists. We’ve allowed a couple of Irish dentists to join because there wasn’t something similar for Irish dentists and we thought that we would still have some crossover between our problems. But it’s mostly UK dentists, so we have close to 6000 members now and it was started really as a kind of a support group. So I mentioned earlier that my mother was the director of a charity when she was alive. She worked her way up to become the director of that charity, but initially was just a volunteer and she used to help to run support groups for people whose children had speech and language problems. And I remember that the support groups were super useful because it meant that people with the same issues and the same problems and the same fears could come together and share them and give advice and support and just hints and tips, but without judgement, because everyone was going through the same thing. And I just I thought, you know, we’re really, really isolated as dentists. We all say it all the time. We’re really isolated as dentists. It’s slightly better if you work in a practice with more dentists, but not always because you don’t always feel you can talk to your colleagues. Some people, you know are very private and I just thought that a Facebook forum would give that space quite nicely to dentists who are all over the country. I’d seen on some other forums that people were really suffering. Burnout is something that is really prevalent in dentistry. I’ve suffered from it myself. I had a breakdown in 2015 myself and I just didn’t want anyone to have to face that alone anymore. So I just wanted to make a space where we could come together and we could help each other.

[00:08:07] So when when you went through it yourself, did you find there was no one to talk to?

[00:08:11] I didn’t want to talk to anyone. And this was problem is that I had hidden this part of myself for so long that nobody had any idea that I was suffering. No idea till until it all completely fell apart. And it was manifesting even physically, because I spent about two weeks with just I was just shaking and vomiting and could barely move. So it was really, really I had affected me not just mentally, but physically, also.

[00:08:50] A lot on the outside. If I knew you passing by and all the rest of it, I wouldn’t have a clue, right? Yeah, I’d be blind to this, but something was going on inside until you exploded and it all fell apart. Would you mind just sharing what it was and what led to that? If you’re comfortable doing so, obviously, and then perhaps just sharing, not necessarily mentioning names, the typical things that you see in your group that perhaps somebody listening to this and is experiencing similar problems would feel comfortable reaching out and knowing that this helped.

[00:09:28] Okay. Well, for me, I think it was a combination of things. So it’s never just one thing in isolation that causes us these issues.

[00:09:39] Number 67 Shaadi Menu Cherry. The tick tock must take time. I mean, I was. I was. I was going through it last night. What do you do one day?

[00:09:52] Well, I used to do one, two, three, three a day. I think that’s the that they say one, two, three a day. Yeah, but you have to be relevant. You have to be out there. And that’s the thing with social media. I think you have to be consistent. You’re going to have off days, but you have to have content pre-planned. But all of this is pre-planned. So I film and do all of that. So if I have a filming day, then I will film as many videos as I can that day and plan it. But it takes a lot of time, especially if you want to do well. You know, if you just want to create videos for the sake of it, then that’s another thing. But if you actually want to spend time editing them, planning them, filming them, and it does take time.

[00:10:28] How many can you produce on a day? Like a whole day?

[00:10:32] Yeah. So if I have a day where I’m not at the clinic, I’m at home, then yeah, I’ll plan. I would have planned them from before. So whenever I get an idea, I dropped it down and then for that day I know how many filming. So for example, for that video that went viral, I think I created like 25 or something videos in that day. And that just happened to be one of the videos.

[00:10:51] Oh, really?

[00:10:53] Yeah. But you get you get you get good at stuff. And a lot of it isn’t like just me pointing to stuff. It’s reacting to stuff. So thankfully on TikTok, there’s a lot of videos that you can react to and just talk about what’s happening and people seem to like those as well.

[00:11:08] I’m a 72 Elaine Halley.

[00:11:11] We were the first in our area to put an ad in the Yellow Pages that actually, you know, we had a logo which prompt a print or someone came out with our cherries. Cherry Bank, Dental Family Dental Centre. And my start line was caring dentistry with a gentle touch. And we put we I guess we built a story at a time when people were just putting lists and their names and numbers. So we started off with a box and then we moved to a column and then we got bigger and then other practices started to follow suit, so we had to do other things. We also did leaflet. I mean, I went around with leaflets myself and put them through doors. I joined the Chamber of Commerce, I joined the business network. I made myself and as I said, as I explained, I talk and teach now, but I was that doesn’t never came easily to me. So I made myself join business networking groups and, you know, have to stand up and vouch for what I was doing. So I remember people saying, you know, most new businesses fold within the first 12 months, so I’d get to 12 months and write a few, and then it would be. But most businesses fold within the first three years and then most most don’t make it to five years. I can remember each of those milestones thinking, Oh my God, it’s like, when can I feel like I’ve made it? So yeah. Then you learn.

[00:12:39] Your three practices now. Elaine Right.

[00:12:43] And no, not quite. So I did open a second practice in Edinburgh and I have sold the majority stake in that practice to a group of practices in Scotland, the Pain Free Dentistry Group, and I work for them as a clinical director, so helping to mentor the associates. So I still have some ownership of Edinburgh, but I don’t work there anymore. So I had a brief dalliance with corporate, which didn’t go well, which I could have probably a bit like the I need to work for myself. So I realised this isn’t going to work, manage to get myself out of that by, by then selling to a dentist who who understands what it is to be to be a dentist. So I really enjoy balance in my working life. So I work clinically part of the time in my own practice in Perth, which is now back to being just mine, which is brilliant. And then I work Mentoring Associates for a pain free dentistry group, and then I also teach as well. So I love the balance.

[00:13:44] And so you said you’re a bit of a control freak. What are you like as a as a boss? Are you touchy feely, caring, sharing like boss? Were you a bit strict on that?

[00:13:56] You’re probably not the one to ask. I have three team members who’ve worked with me for over 20 years, so.

[00:14:03] That’s a good thing.

[00:14:04] I can’t be that bad. And yeah, I think. I. I don’t know. I don’t know. I try and be kind. I try and respect my colleagues, but I also know how I want things to be. And I think sometimes I have to remember to do the touchy feely stuff, you know? I think most business owners have a kind of mindset of getting the job done and making decisions. And yeah, sometimes you have to remember that people aren’t just they don’t can’t read your mind and they’re not necessarily just going to come with you. You might have to check in with them occasionally. So but my my core team, my team here in Perth, as I say, most of them have been with me for a long time. So they’ve figured out how to manage me. Probably more than you must have.

[00:14:50] You must’ve had some some periods of overwhelm, though, right? Because, I mean, before you had more, more practices, more associates, more staff, you hold back commitment. You’ve got how many kids?

[00:15:02] Three.

[00:15:03] Three kids. There must there must have been moments where. Where it was just like too much. What was your what’s your darkest kind of days in your professional life?

[00:15:15] I’ve had lots of moments where it’s been too much. I mean, I don’t think you get through life without, you know, without ups and downs. I think, you know, I’m very fortunate that I’ve been able to maintain ownership of my first practice. And I think anyone who started to swap practice, not anyone, because some people are very good at starting businesses and selling them and letting them go. But for me, you know, this building, this these people, these patients I’ve been looking after for for 25 years have been my rock throughout some of the other ups and downs of life. Absolutely. I mean, starting Edinburgh was an ambitious move. I try not to have regrets in life, but there were some pretty big moments where I really did regret stretching myself financially and emotionally. And I have massive respect for people that can manage multi site practices. I mean, I struggled with two, so I don’t know how these people do it that have have multiple sites. I realise that that’s not that was possibly an ego driven situation. I’m doing so well in Paris, I can certainly do it somewhere else. I think what they learnt about myself was I’m good at what I do, but growing scaling is not. That’s not what drives me. So yeah, I mean, I have three children. My first pregnancy, I had appendicitis in the middle of that pregnancy and was suddenly off like suddenly off for six weeks with a new practice. No associates. So lots of lots of ups and downs that life throws at you. Yeah, certainly don’t take any of it for granted, that’s for sure.

[00:16:59] I’m a 76 physio. Lakhan Osborne Without question.

[00:17:04] I definitely had a much more feisty. I think you’ve mellowed with age. I definitely had a much more feisty. Well, you put the barrier down. You know, I, I’m a great believer when people talk to me about barriers, I say to them the barriers in reality and the barriers in your head. And I think more barriers are in our head sometimes than in reality. And I am a person that if I want to do something, I’m either going through it, round it or over it, but I’m not going to go under it. And I fall down all the time. I fall down all the time. But the thing is, I am surrounded by a family that love me. Come what may, they are unconditionally at my side. I’m supported in by my friends. You know, I said about Corey, even Asha, you know, I have friends I’ve had for 30 years. And even when I fell down in the sense that, you know, I don’t know whether you will bring this up, so I’ll bring it up. When I got my GDC letter. Right, that was four years of hell. Hell, because you suddenly feel that everything has been swiped from under you and you suddenly start to believe that you’ve done something terrible, you’ve really done, you’ve hurt someone. And it’s appalling. And I remember Corey and Zacky coming to my practice on the day, and they sat down and read the letter and said, Right, what are we going to do? And it was always we. It was always the Three Musketeers, you know, And I and I hugely and I remember Corey saying, if they come for you, they’ll come for me, too. And so I was always really lucky because loyalty to my friends, you know, if any of my friends call me any time of the day or night, I will get in my car or walk there barefoot if I have to, to get to them, because that’s what friendship means to me. And I think that’s why I’ve survived this long.

[00:19:02] Really busy. Tell me about your patient experience, because from what I’m hearing right now, your whole life and everything is about loyalty, love, care and all of that. And so how do you how do you wrap that up in your in your patient experience? It seems to me you’re less of a businesswoman and more of a someone who’s there, as you mentioned, to serve to give that 96 year old the ability to bite into a steak for the first time in 20, 34 years. Talk me through your patient experience. What happens? A walk through the door? Who do I meet? If I pick up the phone? Who do I speak to? What is the experience like in your clinic?

[00:19:41] So usually a lot of my work is referrals, so it’s either referral from in-house patients. I think that’s a big plus for us. And also a lot of my students same work, But although we’re doing that work together a lot of the time or it’s just direct referrals. So for example, I take I have referrals from Uchenna and, and other people in the area that I work with, so they will ring and we will have normally had a letter before, so we’ll be aware. So my front of house will know straightaway that someone’s called and they. They will be welcomed and say, yes, we’ve got the referral. We’re going to send you an email. Would you like to send us back your availability? And we would normally say to them, we’ll call you by the end of today to get this sorted for you. Then they’ll come to me and show me that. And if I don’t know about it already, we’ll try to find the appropriate time. So for example, if the patient is 90, I’m not going to offer them a 9:00 appointment. I’m going to offer them an 11:00 to 2:00 appointment because they’re not going to get out of bed at seven know. So things like that I’m fairly attuned to then, depending on what it is, they will be called by my head nurse who looks after all my patients and she will get to know them.

[00:20:58] She will ask them if there’s anything they’re particularly concerned about. She’ll ask them how they’re getting to us, you know, just in case there’s any delays, all that kind of thing. And then she’ll follow it up by email saying, I’ll call you the day before your appointment. If you have any concerns, please contact me before. So that happens when you walk in. We’re ready. We know you’re coming. So my head nurse will welcome you pre-COVID. We would have known. We will have offered you a cup of coffee. Whatever you want. You will sit down and then they’ll tell me straight away and I will go to. To the waiting room or the waiting area and pick up the patient myself. I’ll then take them through and we sit in like a little coffee, an area and sit down and have a chat. So the first thing I do with my patient in that scenario is to sit down and learn something about them, learn what makes them tick, why they’re there, what their experience has been, what worries them, what makes them happy, what they’re concerned about today.

[00:22:00] Is it that away from the dental chair?

[00:22:01] Yeah. So we have a couple of armchairs, we have a coffee table, that kind of thing. Very simple. They might have a cup of coffee still in their hand. And then we’ll move towards the dental chair and I’ll say to them, You know, this is what I’d like to achieve in the next 45 minutes. We’re going to go through it in this way so they know exactly what’s going to happen before we move to the chair and then we get to the chair. So I will do full exam photographs. I tend to ask them what are the three or four things that they want to achieve? And I write them down in their own words. And I say to them, If you decide that I’m the person who’s going to help you, we’re going to come back and look at this at the end when I fit. So I know whether I did this right.

[00:22:44] Number 83 Sabre Shake.

[00:22:48] I think actually you’ll be surprised that a lot of it is in the is in the now. And I’ve learnt that being in the present is everything because that really shapes what’s going to happen. But I think that a lot of my head is in, in the, in the entrepreneurial growth of where I want to be, but actually from a day to day aspect, I’m not doing that every day. I would like to do more. But I think like we said before, Roo is still in its infancy, you know, and the team need me and I hope they need me more so. But, you know, the fact that, you know, having a short maternity and just getting back on my calls and being there, you know, that value add for me, I feel is definitely needed every day and wanted as well. I do see that that I am part of the brand and that the team need that it’s not just patients are so important and giving the patients that flavour of your brand and your quality is everything. But actually for the team, what they need from the brand is me, really. So I’ve got to do that every day in terms of that, that leadership, I think that’s so important.

[00:23:54] So how often do you have those conversations with them? I mean.

[00:23:57] So at the moment I probably structure runs where we now have we’re doing everything now over zooms as well as meetings, but we will meet with different levels of teams. So I would say managers meetings are weekly. Then you have board meetings with group level teams are kind of monthly, but actually group level members, I’m probably speaking to them three or four times a week. So it’s very informal there. We’re in too many WhatsApp groups and Re dental. We really need to relax with those. But you know, we’re always on, you know, in conversation with them. I think I have a really good relationship with all of them that it’s very informal. It’s like, Saba, we need you for this X, Y, Z, and I’m their number 85. Nina Wadia Yeah, I think it’s a completely different skill and I personally think this should be taught at dental school. I just don’t know why. I mean, I hope it changes in the next few years, but that skill of running a business, understanding figures, understanding revenue, all that kind of stuff is so important. It should be taught to everyone. So yeah, I had to learn it, I think so. Read books again, my mentors, business consultants, we went through all the metrics and all the things you need to know which you aren’t towards dental school and then. You learn as you go along. So you see what works. You see what doesn’t work and you change things. And I think everyone mistakes, but you come across things actually that didn’t really work around. Let me try this. So it’s a skill that you have to learn. I do think what I definitely had to was and I guess some people in built with that sort of business ethos, but I definitely wasn’t. I was very academic, so it was a completely different ballgame. But yeah, it was fun learning about it. And I think then combining both skills worked really well.

[00:25:44] Reno What are the best and worst things about running a business? So sometimes there’s things that you do in your business that you just do because you have to do, but you just don’t enjoy it. And there’s some things that you do in your business where you’re in your zone of genius. And if you were doing that 100% of the time, life would be great.

[00:26:02] Let me start. I guess the best thing about running your own business is literally the fact that you can do every single thing your own way using whatever equipment you want, spending however long you want with whoever you want, because you get to choose who your team are. And that makes all the difference in an environment you want to as well. So especially with the new clinic, it’s really made a difference to how much I always really enjoy everything, but it just magnified how much I enjoy going to work. So I think the best part is, and the thing is also working in a team is really fun. I don’t see my team members as I’m the boss. You’re the all. We all collaborate with each other, so we all bring different strengths and we try and support each other and build each other up. So that’s kind of the best thing about having your own own business. And I guess you’re in control of things. You’re in control of the future of your business and who you bring on to the team and things, treatments you might want to offer. So there’s a lot of you’re in charge, I guess, with all those kind of things. I guess the negatives are you just can’t switch off.

[00:27:01] It’s yeah, you’re you never know. I don’t really call it working for me. Well it’s like play to me. I just I enjoy it anyway. But you don’t switch off from your business. For example, you get an email or something happens and sometimes they’re very minor things, but you have to deal with them because it’s your business. So the way I’ve kind of tackled that before, actually in the first year or so, I got quite I tried to zone out work and play and I try to take I’ve done for the day and then I just get like patient emails or this and that and I get really stressed out. Then I realise quite quickly on if you want to do this, you just have to take a lifestyle approach. So and that’s how I work now. It’s more of a lifestyle. I don’t see it as work and play, it’s just a lifestyle. But that’s the thing. You can’t switch off no matter how much you think you can. You just can’t. If it’s a bad thing, it’s just something you got to be aware of. So I guess that’s that’s the hardest bit for sure.

[00:27:53] And so how, how different is life now? You were talking about studying for your specialism. Wake up at 5 a.m., go to bed at midnight. Does the business of dentistry live with you during those hours as well? The first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is check your phone, see, see, see what you’ve got on or whatever and so on and so forth. How how is it now that you’ve moved from studying to having your own business and the integration of the business into your life?

[00:28:23] Yeah, I think it’s quite different now. I think in terms of hours of the day, I still wake up very early. I still probably wake up at five, 530 every day, wake up. I’m quite religious, so I do some meditation in the morning. I actually don’t check my phone till I start having breakfast because I don’t. Personally, I think your first hour of your day is that’s when you have your best ideas. That’s when you want to be fully focussed. I don’t look at my phone, I don’t look at emails the way I see emails. Emails are just like a to do list, like someone’s telling you what to do. You want to just I personally zone that out for a later time in the day. So yeah, the first I think the hours are the same, but my day is far better balanced. So I have time in the morning where I don’t work and then I walk to work. So I have 20 minutes where I listen to a podcast or listen to some music, depending what mood I’m in and just think about my day ahead. Then I get into work. That’s when I turn of career mode on and then I look at my day. I have to say through the move, obviously I’ve been building the new clinic. It’s been stressful, so my hours have been longer, but on an average day, probably start work at around 830 and finish about six, 630, 7:00 sometimes.

[00:29:34] So it is a long day. But, you know, make sure I have a lunch break. It’s a quite nice paced day. And then when I get home I do try and do non dental stuff, which I think is quite important. Some days I’ll have like podcasts or webinars or things on, but I’m not doing that every single night. And I think on the weekend I definitely try and do some non not switch off but just do some non dental stuff, other things that re-energize me essentially. And also I’m not working, I’m not in the clinic, I don’t do, I don’t see patients every single day. So I’m working three and a half days in clinic and then I have a day of admin, which is quite nice and doing non clinical stuff as well. So I try to balance my week, not just my day as well. And what I’ve now set up is sounds a bit strange, but all my calendar on my iCal, I have a zone, my, my actual calendar, so I have anything that’s work related and read anything which is fun and everything’s fun. But anything that’s non dental, it is having blue and every so I try and make sure I’ve got my balance right, which really helps me actually. So I know if I’m just too much red in the diary and try to book in some more blue. So yeah, that that system seems to work for you now.

[00:30:43] I’m a 91.

[00:30:44] Gina Vega No, I am very happy with the way things are. I have achieved a lot. I have no plans to open another practice. I do still have a little bit of room for growth. Within the practice that I’m going to try to to I’m actually September trying to expand that part of the business. But I, I have always something under my sleeve. You know, I have like a moment on my speakerphone recently. Now I have done a few webinars. I’m going to do another webinar and soon. I’m also at the moment working with as part of the educational committee of the VA. And so for me that that is something that I want to explore a little bit more. So personally, I think the moment I only work three days a week at the Practice, I don’t have any more intentions to work four days at all. The fourth day is in my house doing my clean checks and doing my paperwork, my admin, and actually July is my first month that I’m not working on Fridays. I’m not even answering emails on Fridays anymore. I, I have decided to do that because after the pandemic we were working 12 hour days and it was killing us. So we have changed. And that’s why I think at the moment I want to need to be more of a work life balance. I want to spend a little more time with my family. I want to spend more time in my house because I enjoyed it when we were in the lockdown. So so now for me definitely is growing a few to maximise the space of the practice, but also growing my my name as a speaker, as a committee member, things like that.

[00:32:55] Tell us about the family, Gina.

[00:32:57] Well, I have two children. My husband Mike, as I mentioned before, and the kids are they’re amazing. You know, my son just finished his GCSE in May. I’m very, very proud of him because we tell him that he had to find that he was going to have a summer job and he’s embracing it with both arms. He is doing some gardening 2 to 3 days a week and he is loving it. So he has his first job and he’s yeah, he’s amazing. And my daughter Sophia, she just finished a senior school. Sorry, junior school. She just that was a last year junior school. She had her Leavers party and now she’s going to senior school. I can’t believe how quick time has gone.

[00:33:50] I’ve got 93 Hannah Woolnough.

[00:33:54] So I graduated. So I’d love to say that I’m really, really youthful, but that is probably just some of the boat stops talking. So I graduated in 2006, so it’s 15 years since I graduated and I think I first started going to things like Ldl-c meetings and getting involved with HIV about ten years ago. So and it started off quite gradual just attending the board meeting. But as I say, these things tend to snowball, especially if you live in remote areas where we find it really difficult to recruit somebody to come and do a job at the LDC, no one wants to hold a chequebook. So if you’re willing to get involved in any way, you sort of end up getting sucked into it and just being given more and more responsibility. Because if you’re interested and it is interesting, it’s not that you’re being lumbered with jobs that you don’t want to do. It is interesting stuff. It’s just finding people that have the capacity to deal with that. And I think in our profession there are lots of people who are really, really worn out with everything that they’re doing. And the thought of asking them to go to a meeting at the end of an evening of full clinic day and talk about dentistry even more, that that can be quite an ask number.

[00:35:05] 104 Shazia Ahmed Now one.

[00:35:10] Hands are tied, hands are tied, limited. A limited time, limited.

[00:35:17] Materials.

[00:35:18] Materials, you know, and we’re supposed to produce the best, best outcomes.

[00:35:23] Yeah. So. So. So personally, for you, what made you stick at NHS Dentistry? I mean, did you not think, Hey, I’ll go private?

[00:35:34] For me, I’ve actually worked in high needs areas most of my life.

[00:35:40] And it’s even harder, right?

[00:35:43] Very, very difficult. Yeah, very difficult. And you know, when you’re a woman and you’ve got young children, yeah. Sometimes you have to take on a bad deal just to be there for your kids. Yeah, and I was one of them. I took on the harder jobs just so that I could finish work at 3:00 and pick my kids up myself. And the beauty of that is that you do become a very good dentist. You learn, you learn techniques, you become the best dentist you could be.

[00:36:20] Number 106 Slaney McGraw I guess you’ve been in and out of enough dental practices to see what’s going on, right? But I guess when running a bit different, being an associate, totally different. Being an associate than a principal though.

[00:36:36] Yeah. Yeah. And I think from a setup perspective, I mean, I’m lucky that I have been involved in the opening of a clinic before and from a Sikh perspective and all of that I’ve been involved in in the interviews. And so I’m I know that’s a lot of work, but I’m I’m not otherwise working at the moment.

[00:36:53] So but my my point isn’t that my point is, you know, when you and Kerry working at RU.

[00:36:59] Yeah.

[00:37:00] When you’re not the boss, there’s a different relationship with the staff. And when you are the boss.

[00:37:06] Right.

[00:37:06] Of course. And how that’s going to translate, What kind of boss are you going to be, what kind of post you’re going to be?

[00:37:12] I think there’s a line between being too close friends with your colleagues because then it or sorry, not with your colleagues, with your employees, because it then becomes very, very difficult if somebody is not kind of working at the standard that you’d like them to be. So I want to be very, very fair. I want to get on very well with my employees. But I’m also not going to be going out with them on a Saturday night and partying every week or with anybody else for that matter. And I’ve got two children and I can’t. But if I could, I might.

[00:37:43] Talking of that, we’re coming to Edinburgh in a couple of weeks, aren’t we. For And so I did. I heard that.

[00:37:49] There’s a babysitter in that job. Pardon.

[00:37:52] I was going to say Thursday the 11th. I hope you’ve got your babysitter sorted.

[00:37:56] I know I did actually have to message Susie because I have a babysitter for the Friday of I’m coming to see the money talking on Friday, but I just don’t know if my youngest will be able to stay on her own because she’s not great at feeding from the bottle. So I had a message, Susie, and was like, Can I take her? She was like, I don’t care what anyone else says. I like babies, become friends with the baby, but not on the Thursday night.

[00:38:23] I’m 108. Jasmine, would you tell your kid to become a dentist?

[00:38:28] Oh, that’s a really tricky one because I really want to say yes. I really want to say yes to that question. And I have to be honest, I think I would say no, because I. Chain, I feel like, and I hope it passes. I feel like we’re we’re going through a period in our profession, which in some ways is incredible. I think we’re so privileged to be in a situation where we’ve got great technology. You know, digital dentistry is phenomenal. We’ve got great material sciences, you know, the things we can do artistically, aesthetically, for patients without, you know, very minimally invasively. I you know, I get such a kick out of that side of things. I absolutely love it. So that side of things is amazing. But then you look at the kind of the litigious ness of the population that we’re living in. You look at the lack of support that we get, I believe, from our regulators the way that that all plays out. I just think it’s become quite difficult. And certainly I feel so lucky that I managed to kind of pave the way for myself within dentistry into the types of clinics that I’ve worked at because, you know, I read on these forums that the kind of the situations that a lot of associates working in very busy NHS practices are going through. And I just think that must be so hard. And we we need that to be going on because we need the NHS dental system to be working and we need patients to have access to that care. But working in that way within that system I think is really hard. And if somebody came into the profession now, they’d have to work through that first before they could get to a point where they’re not having to do that anymore. So that’s probably why I would have reservations, I think.

[00:40:12] I don’t know if if you’ve seen that British Dental Action Group.

[00:40:16] Have and it’s it’s a little bit soul destroying. And I read the post and I sense there’s such a kind of there’s a bit of a them on us between associates and principals and. Both sides seem to just so often see the worst in each other. And I’m sure there’s reasons for that. But I find that really sort of disappointing because ideally, if you’re in a situation where you’re either a principal or you’re an associate, it should be based on a place of trust for either your associate or your principal. And I think not being able to have that and feeling like. You’re kind of constantly being screwed over, for want of a better word. It’s just really sad and it’s a horrible kind of environment. It’s a bad energy to be working in, I would say.

[00:41:06] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts. Payman, Langroudi and Prav. Solanki.

[00:41:21] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing. And just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we’ve had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it. If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing and if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks. And don’t forget our six star rating.