Month: May 2022

[00:00:00] The thing is, if you want to enjoy your dentistry, if you want to actually like your job, I think you’ve got to go private. At my opinion, you really got to. Nowadays, I don’t think there’s any choice. The funding is just appalling, and I admire people who try and do it for feeling that they have an ethical obligation to it, feeling that they have a moral and more moral obligation to do it. Yeah, do it for a while. Pay back what you feel is your moral obligation. As I said, I did dentistry for 16 years in the NHS, so I think I more than paid back any sort of moral obligation to society on that. But as fast as you can, I would move on.

[00:00:48] 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.

[00:01:06] It’s my great pleasure to welcome Lyle Hutchinson onto the podcast. Nile is famous or infamous really for his red wine posts that he’s been doing lately practise owner principle and has lately set up a group that’s I think one of the most important groups in dentistry now is called not such a good day at the orifice where where we look at errors and things that didn’t go so well. And my sort of antidote to the Instagram generation where everyone’s patting everyone’s back and everyone’s showing off about the things that did go well. It’s lovely to have you now.

[00:01:42] Hi, Payman. Thanks for inviting me on.

[00:01:44] My pleasure. My pleasure. We thought it would be fun to do a red wine podcast. And I’ve got to admit right now, Nile, that the bottle that I’ve chosen I haven’t got because of my my wife’s Lebanese. And so I had thought I had a bottle of matzah in the back of my cupboard. But obviously, I think that some some somewhere along the line. So I’ve got I’ve got what I call my steak wine. It’s a Bordeaux. It’s a scent Himalayan thing. The main reason I like it is that it’s on Zap, so I can push a button and it arrives within 10 seconds.

[00:02:21] Oh, yeah.

[00:02:23] What have you.

[00:02:24] Got now out in rural Berkshire? We don’t have that, I think. I don’t think we’re ready yet. But I’ve got I’ve got it. I’ve got a Australian Shiraz with me here, you know, which is not bad. Yeah. I must admit I prefer the French red wines, but yeah, the nice shiraz is not bad at all.

[00:02:42] Excellent. My favourite thing about wine is this this sound here.

[00:02:47] Oh, yeah, I know.

[00:02:49] It’s the sound. Fine. I never get quite screwed up so I can say why they broke the lid. Because you don’t get a problem with being caught. But it’s not some kind of the cork satisfying side of the cork coming out. And you just that moment that you think, I’ve just got the wine, it’s fantastic. You know, it is. It is that you know, I think there’s a who as I said, we used to live in France for a year and the French taught me to appreciate a lot more wine. And that made me realise that I actually sort of moved as straight away to Chile and Argentina. I know they do very, very good wines. I sort of have gone back to French wines, but they really certain, you know, that appreciation of the whole thing about wine, not just the drinking, but the opening of the bottle and whatever else, you know.

[00:03:34] So, you know, we’ll get into red wine itself later. But I guess the red wine post is kind of a kind of a get out clause, isn’t it? Now, like, it’s almost like in this era of sort of political correctness, you can say something a little bit more, sort of, I don’t know, the controversial.

[00:03:57] And.

[00:03:58] A little more cheeky. And you can put red wine post on it and then it’s cool. We can we can all discuss it. And I think it’s been an excellent series.

[00:04:08] Yeah, it came eventually it came out of one evening. I can’t remember my first ever post, but it came out one evening. I was genuinely drinking a bottle of red wine and I was sitting there thinking really pissed off about something, you know, it was really irritating me and I thought, Cool. So it’s on ground. Grant Macquarie’s business marketing group. And I saw that I’m going to put this up and just hashtagged it because it was sort of it was an anti Instagram hashtag. It was a hashtag red wine post. You know, I’m not Twitter, Instagram, I’m not anything like that. But I thought it was sort of slightly ironic and I thought, you know what? And it just seemed to catch on. And yeah, it certainly divides opinion. There are a lot of people out there who think I troll with it and I’m just an irritating so-and-so. But the genuine questions, I mean, they don’t always hit the mark the way I want them to. But the genuinely r question, people say, Yo, actually you ask the elephant in the room, you ask the question that a lot of us have been wanting to know the answers to. And it’s interesting the way that I mean, sometimes I have a very definite opinion on what what I think on this thing. But quite often I’ll go, actually, I don’t have a really strong opinion on either side, but it would be just interesting to see what people think. And sometimes people pick up very valid arguments and I go, Actually, that’s a very valid point. I actually never thought of that as the latest one. I think. I don’t know if you saw it at the weekend.

[00:05:39] I did 200 responses.

[00:05:41] Yes, 200 plus responses. Yes. And why do we pay any attention to this red round poster? He’s a tosser or whatever, you know. Instead, he’s.

[00:05:51] Just.

[00:05:52] Basically he spreads hate and division of the profession. And I actually sort of I did post to that.

[00:05:58] I think I. Never thought that myself.

[00:06:01] Well, no. Yeah, but it’s an interesting sort of. I’m actually a great advocate of profession. I’m an older dentist. I’m 57 for any of you listening. And I qualified in 1987 when, like, your composite came in one colour, you know, and it was occlusion by IP. It was, you know, everything was nothing was like your nothing. You know, we, you know, we still did blacks cavities, we did all that sort of stuff. So it was all it was a pipe dream, all that sort of stuff. So I sort of look at it and I look at the profession today and I go, Is it taking a path that I am proud of? Totally proud of? And I would say, yes, I’m yeah, I am so proud of most dentists that are out there. But there are a few angles to where I think, are we really a profession anymore? Are we going down a bit more of a car salesman or whatever, you know.

[00:06:56] Yeah. So that initial post was it. This one is the religion. Will there be a second coming or will it still be funded by five? No, no.

[00:07:06] That wasn’t the original post. Yeah, that was so I wasn’t. Yeah.

[00:07:11] Which, which one was it. Half the.

[00:07:14] Way back. I’ve about 24, 25. It was way back last October I think it was. But yeah.

[00:07:20] Yeah I was in the group so maybe yeah. Maybe that’s what I’m missing. Yeah. What it was. I think we should answer some of these. I think, I think we should talk about some of these red wine posts I think is a good place.

[00:07:31] I mean, it’s a good point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look them up and we’ll we’ll see what goes on. I mean, okay, back to it. Right. Let’s, let’s go for the two most recent ones. Right, CPD.

[00:07:39] Yeah, go on.

[00:07:40] Right. Do. Why is there a sudden proliferation of CPD? Well, I mean, if you look.

[00:07:50] At it because. What? Go on. Yeah, go on. What do you think?

[00:07:53] Yeah. Since just nine years ago, right. Cpd when you had a few courses, section 63 type courses, you had a few courses here and there. Tipton was a bit of a novelty. Yeah, things like that was all. But no, no. For courses everywhere you look at, you know, everybody’s doing the bloody course. So one thing is, why are there so many courses? Is it the lack of education for undergrads nowadays? I don’t know. I mean, I don’t want to put that out there because that’s an easily thrown out thing against on the grounds of qualified say, oh, you don’t know as much as we did when we qualified back in the day. I think that’s too easy an accusation to make. Or is it the fact it’s easy money? You know, and I’m not saying it’s easy, easy money because I know there will be people going out there. How dare you say that? The amount of hours of time I put in working on these lectures and I go, I agree with you on that. You know, and it’s very it’s not something I ever want to do is run the course. And I can certainly see that for hours. Know you do put in hours of it, but equally well, it must be something in for it. Is it ego or is it money or what? Or is it the desire to teach? I don’t know. I mean, what’s your opinion on it?

[00:09:06] Yeah. There’s definitely a lot more than there was. One thing I hope you’ll agree with me now. When? When we were coming through. I mean, I’m maybe seven, eight years younger than you when we were coming through. There were no courses. No. I mean, I remember thinking as a as a young associate, I remember thinking, I want to learn something about private dentistry or I want to learn something about cosmetic dentistry. And there was nothing. There was. There was one course, I think. And so a much happier overall with too many courses than too few. Yeah. The reason of why is there so many courses? I think a big part of it is, you know, the younger dentists don’t want to do NHS dentistry.

[00:09:50] Yeah.

[00:09:51] They, they, they’ve got to build their CVS or they think they’ve got to build their CVS. And going on a course has become a CV builder. Yeah. And I think we both know, you know, it’s not it’s not what you do on the course. That’s the key is what you do after the course with that information. Certainly that’s that’s really the key. But as for the question of profitability, you know, I run several courses. I’ve got a I’ve got I’ve got a horse in the race here. One thing I would say about it is it’s it’s high risk. It’s high risk. Running a course and, you know, you can toss up whatever you want to toss up, but the risk factor is important. So we’ve got a composite course, which, by the way, we didn’t just start when it became fashionable. You know, we’ve been doing it for 12 years now. But but we for the first four years of that course, we were making a loss.

[00:10:47] Yes. No.

[00:10:48] With that. So. So. Don’t forget the risk side now. Is there. Is there money in it? There is a little bit. It’s a tiny part of our our bigger business, our bleaching business. But and I don’t teach the course. So so I’ve got to pay a speaker as well. But but stuff costs money that people don’t realise, you know, just shipping all the drills and things to the course just cost £1,000, you know? Yeah. And no one, no one thinks about that. And then we’ve got team and you know, there’s loads of reasons.

[00:11:22] Yeah. The reason it brought it up was two or three people pm me and saying you know, you know it’s fair enough because they’ll come on to the quality of courses as well. And do we need to have independent feedback courses in a minute? But some, a couple of two or three people pm me after that first one which was about quality and said what about the price? Of course because they really have gone up. I mean I remember the day courses used to be 299 quid, 250, 199 quid. There are now a standard 700 plus and certainly some of them are heading up that way. Not if that’s what the cost. That’s what it costs, you know. But I think there’s a little bit of cynicism from some that’s out there, as you probably pointed out, possibly quite wrongly. But and I have no strong opinions on it. I’m quite happy I’ve gone on many courses that I pay the best part of £1,000 for a day, and I’m quite happy to do that provided a good course. You know, I have no issues with that.

[00:12:18] And the other.

[00:12:18] Thing might be as to why there’s so many courses nowadays, and I think it was just poked as well by a couple of people going, oh, you know, going to mention the cost of these courses, you know, so I know what you mean. Multiply everything up and just get, oh, you must be taking this by the Monday in the day. That’s incredible. You know, so why why did you do a course? Why did you what got you into doing courses then?

[00:12:43] Well, we sell composite and the composite that we sell. You’ve got to learn how to use it. It’s a particular way of using it. Okay. But but but, you know, one thing I’ll say is, you know, the this same course, the same lecturer in Chicago is twice the price.

[00:13:04] Yeah.

[00:13:05] As the one we do. So, you know, and, and I’ve been to those courses in Chicago and in all over America and dentists come pay the price of the course and almost the whole room buys the materials. Right. And, you know, they they’re just they’ve got a different outlook. And by the way, they’re not just the very young dentists who turn up to the courses. You get all sorts of dentists turning up to the courses, trying to learn a new skill. Yeah, but, but I think, you know, it’s an important question. Of course, I thought the the troubling word in your post was profiteering.

[00:13:39] Yeah, I know. Do you know what? That was a clumsily used word. I said, to be honest with you, the reason why it was trying to link it in with yeah, I know it was a very tough thing and I think that created a bit too much animosity, to be honest with you. Yeah, I didn’t mean profiteering in that way. What I was trying to equate it with was quite a few people are quite quick to throw accusations at dental companies that this bit of plastic. Right which is a bit of. You are charging me 200 quid for a bit of plastic that if I went into it would cost me a couple of quid if it didn’t have to work for dental use on it. And so I was sort of trying to sort of play with that idea that it’s okay for it. So it’s okay to slag off dental companies for charging what you think is an X amount of money. Are you charging excessive amount of money is what I was trying to get at. I think I was. Yes, I wasn’t meant to be insulting. Mike, this is the thing about the red wine posts there. Never.

[00:14:36] Don’t worry about insulting. Don’t worry about insulting. You know, it’s a concept, right? But I mean, I do see some profiteering around around dentistry. So I’ll tell you where there’s profiteering, right? You can go to the IBS, show the world’s biggest dental show. Yep. And the cologne isn’t equipped to have that many people come descend on it. And the three star hotels suddenly become £500 a night.

[00:15:03] Yeah, and they’re pretty, pretty awful.

[00:15:06] And you’ve got no other choice but to go there and spend that money. And I think with PPE, there was a question of profiteering, you know, with it. But at the same time, you know, it’s you know, obviously I’m in with that side, too, right? I supply dental equipment, dental, dental stuff, and our stuff’s expensive stuff. Our stuff isn’t cheap stuff at all.

[00:15:28] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:15:30] But but you know, the comparisons that sometimes people make and dentists make with a piece of plastic, you know, there’s huge regulatory nightmares in in supplying dentists. You know, if, if I want to supply my toothpaste in India, I have to pay a compliance company over £100,000 just to say hello, you know, just to get into that country. Yeah, in in Russia. Well, before when Russia was the thing, you had to pay £1,000 per ingredient per product for regulatory compliance. And then, you know, there’s a competitive thing. And, you know, I don’t know, it’s one of those things that, you know, the market will decide and profiteering sounded like the wrong word for it.

[00:16:16] Yeah. No. And with with with hindsight, I wouldn’t have used that word. And I think that’s what went wrong. I mean, now.

[00:16:23] But let’s get let’s get to this question of, you know, as a dentist, let’s say you’re booked up 11 weeks ahead. Should you put your prices up or not?

[00:16:32] Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, it was it’s a it’s a hypocritical post. And asmuch as that, you know, your patients would look at me and what I charge and my hourly rate of which I average are about sort of 275 to £300 an hour. I work in rural Oxfordshire and patients would look at me and go, Oh Jesus Christ, you’re ripping us off, you know? And yeah, you do get accusations. I mean, I suppose I’m paying for your holiday and I’ll go, Yes, I actually do say no. Yes, yes. You are just a very, very small amount, you know, and if I know that they’re an electrician, but like if I got you to come on wire or something up in my house, I’d be paying for a very tiny bit of your holiday as well. But, you know, it’s, you know, don’t get so much.

[00:17:17] To recognise that dentists of our era had their thing about, oh, don’t, don’t turn up to work with your nice car.

[00:17:25] Oh, yes, don’t.

[00:17:26] Do the practise up that whole thing. But the younger ones, they’ve gone the other way, you know, they want to turn up in the Ferrari. Yeah. So that the patients think they are successful dentists you know. And that’s the kind of change in society.

[00:17:42] I’m not sure. I’ve got a Tesla and it’s parked outside the practise and they might have come on bloody Tesla going oh nice car. Ooh. And some of them are genuinely interest because it’s a Tesla and some of them are like you can tell it’s just angled. You know, the funniest one I ever had was when they took over this practise. Took this practise was like six years ago. This bloke came in for adjustment and his dentures and they go over visits and she said, Oh, what happens? They all dentists. And I went, Oh, she’s retired. And he went, Oh, I suppose he’s gone to a her holiday home in the Caribbean that she’s bought with my money, that I paid her twice over two separate visits. So I actually looked up on their say what they actually paid and they paid 800 quid over seven years. And I just went, Oh God almighty. But I mean, yes, you’re back to what you were saying. I think dentists and and this is partly why I was sort of bringing it up about the thing. I think dentists are very remiss. I’m actually a great supporter of all the dental companies, and I think they do an absolutely valuable job. You’re a company, everybody else’s company.

[00:18:51] We would not have the progression in dentistry if we did not have the companies investing in all the dental equipment. I mean, I use a company called RPA, Dental, Exxon and so on. Brilliant. Dental company best of every use. Not plugging them, obviously, but they are very, very good and the equipment they’ve supplied has enabled me to do much better dentistry. I mean, Saric, for example, I’m a big Saric fan. Saric is just amazing, you know, and you look at it nowadays, but if originally back in the day Simmons hadn’t taken on then, then I hadn’t taken on and threw a lot of money at it because Saric is quite often, you know, oh god, look at the price of £100,000 for I go, Yeah, but look at the value it brings to your practise at the end of the day. And the same with your enlightened equipment. Look at you have the best whitening stuff on the market, you have the best, you know. So the value is there and I think people do take cheap shots. So yes, it may have been a bit of a cheap shot that back to the CBD. Are you profiteering? You know, but it was meant to. Yeah.

[00:19:57] Anyway, back on debate and it did it stimulated debate. Right. That’s, that’s what.

[00:20:01] It was there it stimulated about. Yeah. I was, I went at one point nearly 200 replies wow I but, but back on and I have no no aversion to anybody charging whatever the market will stand for a dental course. But then back to what the previous week’s post was, what about the quality? I mean, have you have you been on dental courses Payman recently. Have you have. Yeah or.

[00:20:31] Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well I stopped practising ten years ago but but I’m at a lot of dental courses. Yeah, I’m at a lot of dance courses. And look, you’re right. Let’s talk about the quality of courses and the question of where is the review site for courses? Because you’re right in that you do tend to get a lot of back, back slapping, back, back that. What did they call that when when people are just only talking about the positives. That does happen and it happens more with some courses than than others. And I’ve always wondered about that. You know, is it is there some some way, as the course provider of making that virality happen, that make people talk about you more and want to be part of it, but you don’t hear the negatives very much. And what would you think the reason for that is? I mean, people don’t want to be seen to be that that guy, I guess. So the anonymization of it.

[00:21:27] Yeah, it’s a bit like the red.

[00:21:28] Wine is a good idea.

[00:21:29] Yeah, it’s a bit like I stick my neck out and people do say to me privately, So why do you bother to stick your neck out? You just get a lot of flack sometimes. Why do you bother? And I said, Well, I’ve got to that age in life where I don’t give a shit anymore. And but I’ve got that age in life where I basically go, You know what? Sometimes I’m not willing to stand up and just sort of listen to all the sort of back slapping and all the same people going, Oh, hey, brilliant course, fantastic or whatever, you know, all sort of. And especially for younger dentists nowadays, I think us older than this have a responsibility to younger dentists to make them realise what the profession is about. And it’s not about Instagram, in my opinion. I know some people will argue differently. It’s not about solely cosmetic online, it’s not about solely Invisalign. You know, it’s a lot more than that. So but. Well, so I do stand up for what you’re saying. So why are people sort of worried about giving negative views? Mainly because of that pack mentality? Some some course. And I’ve had personally experienced this. I have been blocked. All right. By someone who took exception to something I said on the dentistry top 50 for actually for putting the dentistry top 50 thing up. That’s another one to come on to. But I got blocked. And so there are people out there who would block you, who had bully you, who would actually just go out of their way to say, you know, you possibly do nasty things. So ultimately, I think a lot of people are very scared. And also there are a lot of people, again, are scared to say the counter opinion because there are a lot of if a lot of people.

[00:23:05] Oh, it’s a brilliant, brilliant course. Brilliant course. And you’re going actually, I didn’t think it was all that. You know, you’re the one that’s going to stand out, aren’t you? And I know. And the problem is all that feedback forms your hand back in that they at the end of the course it’s all named, it’s all GDC numbered. Yeah. No. Fine. Well who’s who’s written them. Are you going to write. Somebody said I think it was Jaz or Drew and when something went. All right. So a brilliant course, a genuinely really good course gets five stars, a crop course gets four stars. And I do think there it needs I mean, people came on and said, yeah, we’ve tried this before. It hasn’t really worked. Maybe there needs to be a consensus of reason. I’m not I’m not senior enough in the profession or well respected enough in the profession to be able to do this. But maybe, maybe people like through is not so keen on the idea. I know that it doesn’t seem so keen on, but guys like you, Payman or Jazz, I say, is a really decent bloke and you know people who are highly respected. To get together and say, we are going to start this and we are going to start some sort of independent review site for courses. And whether it works, whether it brings benefit, I personally you’re not going to get in theory at the GDC, you should be doing it. But they do everything else but the actual stuff that would be useful.

[00:24:24] Yeah, they.

[00:24:27] Do absolutely everything else. You know, I’m so mad. I mean, I come from the day you do you remember coming from the day when when you could just write exam ESP and that would be enough for your notes.

[00:24:39] Yeah. When I was a dentist, that’s what it was.

[00:24:41] Yeah.

[00:24:42] I remember. I remember, I think I remember.

[00:24:44] I remember showing an associate of mine. My old notes have notes from the I think it was the eighties. And I went and we counted the number of visits the patient had on the, on the old brown record forms, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And there were 24 visits, one side, 24 appointments on one side. And they’re all things like exam, ESP, upper left, six amalgam, no le or something like that. And that would be it, you know, that would be your notes and you’d get away with it, you know, oh go for those days. But yeah it is, it’s a changed field ultimately. But yeah, I do think so. Back to the the peripheral vision of course, is how do people tell what’s the good course, what’s of course now people have said to me or gets around in the grip, fine. Yeah. But only if you know people who have been on the course or, you know, the right people don’t ask or there’s something the other. So, you know, it’s surely it’s time that somebody has an evaluation of an independent. And I think it should be anonymous personally, because I think anything the way it would be done and this is the way I would view it would be done. You would people say, well, you could you could have trolls giving you bad reviews, just competitors giving bad reviews. Just Oh no you’d have to upload it wouldn’t it would be anonymous on the front but at the back end it would you whoever controls it would be saying, right, show me your cpc’s certificate. You’ve been on the course. Who are you? What’s your DTC number? Okay, that’s your opinion. We’ll post that anonymously, but we can verify you have been on that course. Yeah, but whether it takes off or not, who knows? You know, maybe there’s too many dentistry.

[00:26:25] Interesting one.

[00:26:26] Yeah, it’s an interesting one.

[00:26:28] Let’s move on to the next one. Let’s talk about that. What of you? You’re fully private now. The NHS one.

[00:26:37] Yeah, yeah. Is it religion? Is there going to be a second coming. Is that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:26:44] Probably private. Right.

[00:26:46] I’ve got small NHS children’s contract. Yeah. Which is. Okay. Cheers. My friends in the back side. Then they really is. The only reason we keep it on was whether my last practise, we went fully, fully private in 2006 and we lost loads of children, but we actually lost quite a few families as a result of that, whereas we would have kept them on and we kept the children’s contract, probably we kept the adults on privately. So when I took this practise over, it had a small children’s contract. Initially I thought, Oh, I’ll ditch it. But I thought, No, I don’t want I’ll just keep it. We ended up treating the children for virtually free in the last practise it was in, so I thought it better to get some money than no money. So that’s how we kept on. Yes. So I have a small so it’s not that I’m talking in case people think, oh, god, you know nothing about the health service. I was a health service dentist completely. I know. Or not under the UDA system. But from 1987 through to 2003, I was completely an NHS dentist for 16 years, so I know what it’s like at the sharp end of the NHS and it was bloody awful and it was actually my GP who advised me to go private.

[00:27:55] I went to them and she pushed a box of tissues towards me when I was in my early forties and I burst into tears myself in the consulting room and she went well and GP’s with next door to me where I work and she went now you know the number of my patients and she went, you’ve got three choices. You either have a nervous breakdown, that’s where you’re heading for, you either give up dentistry, but you’re too good to do that or you give up the NHS and ask. Gp’s are jealous of the fact that you guys can give up the NHS. And so that’s what we did. I gave up the NHS for others. Oh my God, that was the most stressful time in my life. But there we are. The abuse I got from patients like that, that was incredible. One guy drove up in his new series of five series BMW to say, you may want to be a millionaire son, but not on my money. I’ll never forget that. He walked in the room. He said, I’m here for a check-up for the habit. And I was just like, Oh, my God, there we go. That was unbelievable. But anyway.

[00:28:51] So there’s lots, there’s lots of people right now considering leaving the NHS.

[00:28:56] Yeah.

[00:28:57] What would be your advice?

[00:28:59] Yeah. To me obviously it’s a different we were sort of I wouldn’t say we were the frontiersmen because the, the true frontiersmen of going private were actually, funnily enough, reading what you call a moral mountain origin. And Stephen nor wasn’t it 1990 them plan where they they were the true frontiersmen. What happened was 1991 they had a fee cut of 7% and a lot of people went private. Then that was truly frontiersman charity. That was really, really unusual back then, though, we were still early on, reasonably early on to do it. All I would say is I think you’ve got a different scenario. I think patients are probably yeah, probably more appreciative of the fact that you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place as a dentist nowadays. You will still get them. Think. Oh yeah. Well yeah it was some plan for your bloody test side or whatever. You know, a certain neighbour was going private. I would not be parked my Ferrari outside the door but I would. I think the thing is if you want to enjoy your dentistry, if you want to actually like your job, I think you’ve got to go private. That’s my opinion. You really got to nowadays. Yeah. I don’t think there’s any choice. The funding is just appalling and I admire people who try and do it for feeling that they have an ethical obligation to it, feeling that they have a moral and more moral obligation to do it.

[00:30:22] Yeah, do it for a while. Pay back what you feel is your moral obligation. As I said, I did dentistry for 16 years in the NHS, so I think I more than paid back any sort of moral obligation to society on that. But as fast as you can, I would move on. But is it the problem with it? It back to the original question. Is it religion? Yes, it is very much in this country. It ended up in the bloody London Olympics opening ceremony. If you remember, they had whirling beds, this, that and the other. And I think I read the times at the time and said what other country in the world would put their health service in the Olympic opening ceremony? None. You know, so it is religious. It is a religion in this country and that’s what we’re fighting against. But NHS, I mean, dentistry has never been entered fully integrated into the NHS almost since 1950. I think it was charged upon start charge upon for treatment in 1950. So yeah, that’s the difficulty. Will it have a second coming. No, simple. They may try, but they just don’t have the money. They don’t have the. They don’t have the. What’s the word I’m looking for? They they don’t have the the the really the government aren’t really that interested.

[00:31:41] It’s all political manoeuvring. And it’s sad, actually, the way I mean, I think if they if I mean, my my personal thing would be if if you had it, we could have an emergency core service that was not tendered. I think tendering needs to stop. Right. Personally, would my opinion tendering needs to stop. I think it’s ridiculous situation. You know, I think then every dentist could offer every dentist may include probably could offer an emergency core service to help people out. That would spread the workload out a bit more evenly across the country. Stop this thing about. We’ve got a short what I love is the headlines. I’ve got a shortage of dentists. No, I couldn’t find a dentist. You couldn’t find an NHS dentist. That’s different. You could have gone privately. Yeah. You know, it’s all these head and it couldn’t find a dentist for three years. Did you try? You know. You know, but. So if the president said got rid of Tendring, we’re going to let everybody do have a core service. And then after that and obviously then you’re going to have to have income support, whatever it’s called, not as universal credit, not sort of area covered and run on those bases. And they’re covered for that. But beyond that, yeah, it’s really got to be a private, private service. But I don’t know. Yeah.

[00:33:01] So look, it’s interesting what you said about the Olympics because I’ve recently been using the NHS for medical services in the family and I definitely don’t want to lose that. No. As, as, as something that by the way even in medical it’s got loads of problems, right.

[00:33:24] Yeah.

[00:33:25] Issues and so on. But, but I definitely wouldn’t want to lose it because I also have been using private medical services a lot. My family has. And that has all of its own issues, a whole lot of its own issues over treatment issues and problems like that. But as far as dentistry, I mean, I did vet and I remember the moment it was was very near the beginning of it. I thought to myself, I’m never going to do NHS dentistry. I was completely pissed off with. I couldn’t believe what the situation was, you know, like what you had to do for what. And, and, you know, I also admire people who make it work. Yeah, I feel I feel like making it work. It’s almost a martyrdom thing where, you know, dentistry is a stressful job and you really need to pay be paid. I don’t know what the number would be. You’ve got to be paid 70, 80 grand to be a dentist because it’s a proper stressful job. Yeah. Yeah. And if you’re if you’re doing it properly on the NHS, you’re not going to make that.

[00:34:33] You know.

[00:34:34] And so, so you’ve got that choice of do you do the best for your patients or do you martyr yourself to the system? And I remember back then as the vet thinking, I will do whatever it takes to go private. And this was a long time ago when it wasn’t so fashionable to do that.

[00:34:53] Yeah.

[00:34:53] I found a guy who’d gone private and you said 91 was early found a guy who’d gone private in 68? Yes.

[00:35:01] Yeah.

[00:35:03] I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse and he took me on. And that was it. I’d never, never did an NHS after off the vet again. But now I see, you know, people, good dentists, people going on courses, people with good knowledge, working in the NHS. And I think the biggest problem for me is a lot of the work that NHS dentists do as far as learning is learning how to survive in this system. Rather than, you know, learning how to fix teeth. Yeah. You know, it’s understanding the bureaucracy of it. I mean, it’s such a and the funny thing, when you talk to NHS dentists who want to make the leap, a lot of them are worried that they haven’t got the skills or something. And I think to myself I could never have done NHS. Like you’ve got to be a very, very good dentist to pull that off. Yeah. The short periods of time to get people out and not coming back in with problems, you know. So my advice to anyone who wants to make the leap is make the leap. Make the leap. And and and private dentistry. Now, you’ve been in it for a long time now. I think the soft skills are just as important as the clinical skills.

[00:36:23] Yeah. And then the funding that’s going to come to you, I think if patients don’t judge you. Well the judge in a number of ways, but the probably the number one. Do they like you? You know, there’s I don’t know. There’s a classic story by the medical profession. I remember being quite a few years ago, you may have heard.

[00:36:43] This about who gets sued and who doesn’t.

[00:36:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s right. And the answer was nobody gets sued because they were all lovely. All right. And the guy wrote and basically went, thank you for all your care and attention. And you looked after me superbly. Well, I realise there were just one of those things that was very behind. And then what they conclude it was people don’t sue people they like. And that’s very true and very, very true in life. And it is the soft skills. I learnt that very quickly on my free for my I was the very first year of at Payman 1983, the very first year it was optional. In my year we didn’t have to do it. All right. Okay. I don’t forget. How many years did you spend at dental school? Were you four or five?

[00:37:26] I was five. I was I was the first five.

[00:37:29] I was for four years at dental school. I was and we were the Queen’s and Belfast was the shortest dental course in the UK by one week. Edinburgh was the second shortest by me and my first boss I went to. He was a superb dentist, but a grumpy so-and-so, absolutely grumpy so-and-so, and his practise was failing. I remember we used to have to pull people out of the sofas because the bottoms had fallen out of them and things like that. And I said to him, Why don’t you buy a chair? Why don’t you buy some new chairs? And he went, Oh, NHS doesn’t bloody pay me to buy waiting room furniture and Jesus sort of thing. When I moved out at the end of 80 and I went to a place and nearby a guy he had, you remember the Siemens em one chair, the really Rolls-Royce Siemens erm one chair. He had that himself and you still get crap equipment with associates but you had Siemens in one but he invested and he could talk the hind leg of a donkey. He really had the Blahnik, he wasn’t that good a dentist, but he had the blarney, as we say in Ireland, he was supremely successful. He had people coming from far and wide flocking to him, all that sort of stuff. I very quickly learnt that actually not not such a personable bloke, failing, really personable bloke, not such a good dentist succeeding immensely. And really that’s when I very quickly learnt the soft skills were vitally, vitally important and it’s still the same today, you know I think patients just go, was he a nice chap? And that’s the more important thing that they will forgive you a lot if you’re nice to them.

[00:39:04] Yeah. Yeah. But it, it, it doesn’t mean be nice and then mess up their teeth. It’s be nice and keep, keep it simple. Keep it simple. Yeah. And anything you can’t do, refer out.

[00:39:16] Yeah, exactly. And this is where I would yeah. This is where I would agree with ADC. If not don’t often. But yes. Speak within your competency. Don’t be afraid to refer. Really. So yeah. Just because you see so-and-so on the Instagram having done this, you won’t see the fact they’ve got nine of them that are a bit crap and they both know that. Yeah. You know, you know it is one of those things, you know.

[00:39:42] But Niall’s the guy, the guy sitting, let’s say, like you, he’s done for 16 years a bit much. Let’s just say he’s done, I don’t know, five years of NHS. Yeah. And now he wants to make the leap and very simple. Be nice, don’t hurt people, you know, painless injections. I would say the most important thing you can do and then as soon keep it simple, if you haven’t got super duper skills, if you’re not a full mouth dentist, don’t, don’t try and be. Yeah. Until you get the skills and then refer out. It’s as simple as that. I mean, any dentist could be a private dentist as long as they follow those rules, right?

[00:40:21] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:40:22] I don’t need special knowledge.

[00:40:24] Most patients just want straightforward dentistry. They don’t want total rehabs. They don’t want film with implants. I don’t want this. What they want is to have teeth that are functional. Don’t give them much problems. Look. Okay, feel okay. And that’s all they want. And they want a nice person to do it for them. That’s what they want. They want someone they can trust. My big thing would be intraoral cameras. If you’re going private, make sure you have a really decent internal camera. Show everything. It builds trust immensely if you can show them. Particularly if, as I say to my associates, I go take the patients on the story, particularly when you’re doing the treatments. You you say you’ve got consent. You’ve you’ve shown them at the exam and you said, see, this big crack filling here, you know, carries whatever. And they consent. They come by. Show them. Remind them why they’re in today. Then show them when the feeling is removed. Show them what it looks like underneath. They normally look pretty. Yuck. You know, shown when the care is removed, show them the various stages, take them in the story, show them the cracks. Show them that you build so much trust that the next time you say to them, actually, we’re going to crack, they’re there, you know? But ultimately, you’re right. I mean, it isn’t rocket science. But one of the things I would say to young dentists, they do tend to come out and just to be focussed. Some of them is and particularly if you’re working for corporate, I would actually take your time, do things properly, right when you’re starting off in your career.

[00:41:48] Don’t worry about the money. All right. Even if you’re I mean, most people, my son, being an example, has graduated with a master’s and whatever else from Lisa. And he’s on 30, 35 grand a year. 25. Now, a lot of dentists come out and think, oh, I should be heading sort of high. 60, 70, 80 ground. Most graduates don’t earn that at that stage. What I would be saying to you, be happy with your 25 to 30 grand, but build your skills now. Take your time. Use the rubber dom. Learn to do a filling. Learn to do the difficult extraction, etc., etc., etc.. Even if it’s onto the NHS, the corporates can’t complain because you’re doing everything by the book, you know. So you’re doing good dentistry. Just take your time and build those skills particularly well. As you said yourself, even if you haven’t done that, you don’t need a huge amount of skills to go private. It’s just been nice, as you say, being nice to people doing basic good basic dentistry. Yeah. And this is back to where people look at. I mean, I was talking to someone the other day who said, where are the associates, young associates nowadays who want to just do general dentistry. They all seem to want to do bloody bonding and Invisalign and you know, that’s all they seem to want to do nowadays. And I’m going, Yeah, I just find that weird because you know, most I would say 90% of patients, 95% of patients don’t want Invisalign or bonding. Yeah, they really not interest in it. They’re interested in good basic dentistry and plenty of money to maintain that.

[00:43:28] Yeah. As long as you’re charging appropriately. Right. And that’s another problem.

[00:43:32] No, exactly. And I think I think we’ve got to do is we’ve got that. You’ve got to start. You know, we’re worried about what people will think about us when we charge fees and all that sort of stuff. I think that’s, you know, that’s a whole different area of mindset of it. But somebody said to me once you think about Harrods, they don’t aim to sell every whatever designer dress to. They don’t aim to sell a designer dress to everybody who walks into Harrods. They’ll only be a certain amount of people will buy them. And that’s the same with your dentistry then, that you will find your market, you will find your people will. You’re not to be scared of your fees. Yeah, but.

[00:44:13] How often do you put your prices up in your own practise.

[00:44:17] And annual? Late January? We we do it routinely. I mean, if we need a mid-year tweak, we will do mid-year tweak. Patients don’t notice when you put your prices up, but you get the old one who does, right. Okay. You will get the old. I think there was a statistic that came out somewhere from Harvard Business School or somewhere that might be apocryphal, but 14%, you can put your prices up by 14% and no one will actually notice. And funnily enough, we stuck are not quite that high, but we stuck our examination fee and our hygiene fee up by almost 11% this year. Not we had one patient mention it. So yes, the fee increases is only in your head then they.

[00:44:56] Yeah. In fact that boss of mine, the one firm that had gone private in 69 or whatever it was, he had a thing about if the patients aren’t complaining about the prices, they’re not they’re not high enough. And he used to annually put the prices up. And I remember I remember thinking, that’s not a big increase. Why is it even bother? But then when I stayed, I stayed in that practise for four or five years and after four or five years it was a big difference. Yeah, if you get 12 12% a year after four or five years is a significant difference.

[00:45:33] Yeah, absolutely. But you’re right, it’s indirect. If you do them regularly, patients don’t notice. I think sometimes what happens is we had this issue when we first took over the practise, the plan prices hadn’t been updated for years, for years. So we had to bring them all into line with the fee per item. The fee per item. Prices had been put up, but the plan price has never been increased. So we had a real sort of backlash from patients going. What we want to put my plan price up from 12 to 17 quid a month. Yeah, well, you know, you’re on an absolute bargain. There are 12 months, you know, so it is doing it little and often and working your way through that. But certainly, yeah, I think turning the NHS, moving away from the NHS now it’ll be just interesting to see how over the next year or so what happens. I mean because I remember there’s an awful lot of dentists talking. They want to go private at the moment and I would encourage them to. But I remember back in 1991 we went to when there was a 7% fee cut by the NHS back on the old fee per annum service.

[00:46:36] We went a BDA meeting in Surrey where I was working at the time and I had just taken over my practise 25 and it was a dump and I was literally there six months and this fee cut came in. So I knew I couldn’t go private because it was a dump and I was just new to 25, new to the area. And but everybody in the room went and they sort of had to show hands who’s all going to go private and everybody stuck their hands up and barmy and a couple of others. Interestingly, I would say about half of those who stuck their hands up never did. So it’ll be interesting to see what happens. There’s a lot of bravado at the front end, but it’ll be interesting to see there will be how many actually do make that move. But it is something I think is much better on the other side. I enjoy my job much more. I am not a stressed yeah, etc. etc..

[00:47:26] Yeah.

[00:47:28] Let’s move on to our corporates. A force for good in dentistry.

[00:47:33] Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s an interesting one. What’s my view on that one? Yes and no. I must admit, when I when I come to sell this practise and I’m 57, so it’ll be a few years yet, possibly. But when I come to sell it, I don’t want to sell it to a corporate.

[00:47:52] Right ideologically.

[00:47:55] Ideologically and ideologically. I don’t want it. I think we need to have independent practises out there. I really do. All right. I think it’s sad that we’re all ending up as corporates. You know, there are good corporate, better corporates, less, by the way, than others. I don’t slag any of them off. I mean, we we are near Portman. And I have to say, I think Portman are run very well. They buy good practises. You know, they choose well, it’s run well then. Tax is an interesting another one that I just happen to notice that Hershey sold at the weekend to then tax you know I think that seems an interesting model I know I don’t you don’t know Jack and Deci and Rowling, do you at all, do you know? Yeah, I do. I do. Well, John’s a good man, was a good mate of mine, and he sold to Dan Tax and he’s recommended me Dan Tax highly, but equally well. I would quite like to keep it the independent sector because I do think it’s important for the you know, just what I mean if you’re a young dentist and you’re coming out today and you had no hope to own your own business, maybe, maybe a different mindset, I think. I mean, why did you do dentistry payment? Why? Why did you do Street?

[00:49:07] I was one of those. Didn’t know what I wanted to do. My parents said, hey, you know your uncle’s dentist, you like your uncle? So it was it was as terrible as that.

[00:49:19] Yeah, well, mine, mine, mine seminary. Terrible. I must admit, mine was a bit like I’m the youngest of five, and my two of my brother is much, much, much older than me. My eldest brother was 70, our doctors, and they both went, Don’t do medicine, it’s shit. And what they meant by that was they are not that time. I happen to have a very fun dentist in Northern Ireland who drove at the old quatre, went away on a skiing holiday once a week and had a 9 to 5 job and owned his own business. And that was what I quite like. They owned his own business and I went, Oh, I’ll be a dentist, you know? And that’s how I ended up doing that. But equally, equally shit reasons, you know, but it’s worked out for the best. And part of the attraction for me was the fact I could be my own boss one day. And I sort of think if it goes all totally corporate, I don’t think it ever will go all totally corporate. But if it did or if there was less opportunity for dentists, yeah, I just think it’s a sad, sad day. And if I look at some of the corporates you talk to, some of the youngsters, young professionals on the course are not youngsters. Young professionals are on the courses I made and they’re going, Oh yeah, I’m having to buy my own composite, I’m having to buy my own whatever, because the corporate will not buy this quality material for me. So I have to supply it all myself. And yeah, just.

[00:50:45] Just to be fair, lots, lots of independent bosses aren’t buying things as well.

[00:50:52] Yeah. So the red line post for another day came and that’s, that’s, that’s on the back burner actually. It keeps coming up and I think I’ll post that on this week, but it hasn’t come up yet. There’s other things that keep popping up. But yeah, that is a red wine post for another day. Yeah, you’re right. It isn’t exclusive to corporates. You’re absolutely right. It isn’t exclusive, of course. But I just think. Yeah, how are they forced for good? They’ve been a force for good somebody put out pointed out and the thing for practise owners Goodwill’s.

[00:51:24] For selling out.

[00:51:26] Yeah well it’s gone through the roof I mean back to what we were saying earlier when I first bought my practise, 1991, they were all sold through box yards in the back of the bdg and Frank Taylor was an auditor. Frank Taylor was actually Frank Taylor. He was an he had a little thing and practises were sold for the average of the previous three years turnover. Right. So the average of that on the third of that somewhere between 25% and 33% of the average of the previous year. Three is turnover. And so I bought my first practise which was turning over about sort of 180 grand for about 60 grand. Yeah, well, I know. Just mad, mad, mad, mad. And you know, it has totally changed. I mean, nowadays, you know, so so they have brought the corporates have certainly from the PRI, but from the associates point of view, I struggle a little bit more to see what they brought.

[00:52:26] Yeah, you’re right. On average, you’d probably rather work for a for a non corporate as an associate. My wife works for a corporate and they’re one of the better ones. They’re one of the better ones. Although when something goes wrong, the chain of command is just extraordinary. That’s one thing. And then another thing, you know, my wife is actually owns a quarter of enlightened. She herself owns a quarter of Enlightened. And you’d imagine the owner of Enlightened. Right. Could could make things happen from a whitening perspective in the practise. Yes. And the red tape they have to go through just to make a leaflet, you know, it has to be in brand with the corporates and so on is amazing as well. And then things like computers break and and don’t get fixed sometimes you know. Yeah. And you think this corporates got so much money why don’t they. Although although having you know, I’m talking to lots of corporates about bringing in light in in as well and it’s not a bed of roses running a corporate at all because it turns out the business model actually isn’t that lovely, other than they will then sell the whole thing off for even more bigger, even a bigger multiple. But but, you know, it turns out running these, you know, 300 practises, whatever they’ve got, it takes a whole team of head office and you know, that team needs paying for. And like anything when you grow it, I mean, you’ve got one practise, you know, but there’s several dentists. You’ve got, you know, way more than that. And they whenever they grow it, they find it very. Haunt keeping the thing as it was right. Keeping the culture as it was and and keeping everything going. And so they end up they end up exerting control with cash, essentially, sort of the easiest way for them to control. The thing is to say this is the maximum budget and you’re right in that dentistry doesn’t work well under those circumstances. No, no, that’s very true. I agree with you on that.

[00:54:30] Yeah, I’ve heard that story. And the reason why I didn’t I mean, I was quite interested in in in in the early days, back in the days of you remember Whitecross in London. What was it was yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:54:43] Mendelson.

[00:54:44] Mendelson, yeah.

[00:54:45] Just passed away.

[00:54:45] And I took a strong interest in sort of having a look at the courtroom, but I couldn’t see maybe it was just me how it would work. Because again, what you say that I want to have really good practise of patients treated really well. So my first boss had in Northern Ireland had four practises. He went bankrupt. This was back in the early nineties. He went bankrupt and he said to me and he sort of put me off. Somebody said, never run more than one practise. He said the main practise was doing really, really well. The other three branches, squats, fair enough, as branches grinned as money bankrupted them. And he started again. But what I’m saying is that. So that’s between the two. I just couldn’t see how it worked. But I remember back in the day when I wasn’t idea what was what was the idea to the average day when it was originally called? I can’t remember what was called back in the nineties somewhere else.

[00:55:42] Now it’s called something and now it’s called my dentist.

[00:55:44] My dentist. Yeah. Yeah. No, maybe it was always idea.

[00:55:47] It was like that.

[00:55:48] Yeah. But yeah. No, but I remember Whitecross in London looking at them and London and going, Oh, nice idea.

[00:55:56] Nice, didn’t they? And there was JD Hull, if you remember.

[00:55:58] Yes, I remember JD Hull. I mean, he was he was a character. Wasn’t a he was a character. He was a character.

[00:56:06] He started out in South Wales, I studied in Cardiff so. So I’ve got some of his.

[00:56:11] Yeah, yeah. No stories character. He certainly, certainly remember that. I remember talking to him one time and he wasn’t, he was big into rugby, I’m big into my rugby so we got to talk about that sort of stuff. But he was going to almost take you down into hospitality and all that sort of stuff, you know, never, never, nothing ever happened. But yeah, no, you’re right. I do think that the advantage of independent practise owners is that their flexibility. Yeah, they can respond quickly. They can respond quickly to the market. They can respond quickly to everything goes on. And actually, the advantage is if you have a good principle and you have to have a good principle, I’m not saying I’m one necessarily, but you have to have a good principal who has strong leadership, a strong vision of what they want to do with the practise. They will be very successful. I think, unfortunately, a lot of principals possibly don’t have that sort of leadership skills, but yeah, they are. And therefore maybe a corporate is better for certain people, but not for everybody.

[00:57:15] Yeah, so I don’t think it’s impossible that they could succeed. I mean, in opticians they’ve certainly, you know, taken completely taken over except for the very high end ones, right. Yeah. And I think opticians are different to dentists.

[00:57:30] Yeah, they.

[00:57:30] Are. It’s it’s more a retail model than a service.

[00:57:34] I have to say where I say we were more veterinary like I would argue that. Yeah. And I think veterinary there are 40% or something on it or whatever. I don’t know. Is there 40% of the market. I’m not. Yeah.

[00:57:47] Right.

[00:57:48] Yeah, something like that.

[00:57:50] Let’s go on to let’s go on to your story a bit more now. Why did you move from Northern Ireland? I guess you grew up in Ulster as well, did you?

[00:57:59] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was born and bred there. I’m born 1965 in a place called Larne, currently Antrim in Northern Ireland, which.

[00:58:06] Is a port. I’ve been to Northern Ireland. Yeah.

[00:58:11] It’s a dump.

[00:58:12] Yeah.

[00:58:13] Yeah. I mean the area. So I went to school there. I, my father, my father was stationmaster. Interestingly, it used to be the largest station in Ireland and then the beach came along and he ended up setting my father. I think it got my wanting to run my own business. My father, he ran his own haulage firm for years and my father left school at 14 back in the day. So I mean, yeah, he would have been he would nowadays he would have gone to university. He was a clever bloke, but now he had six children, five which survived. And there is I grew in Larne, so I ended up going to school there ended up, as I explained to you, already doing dentistry simply through the fact that careers advice was shite back then. I remember going to the careers teacher as it was, who happened to be the maths teacher as well, and when she said, What are you doing? And I went on doing maths. Physics, chemistry and said And what you think in doing for university now? I went, Oh, I’m thinking of doing dentistry. And she went, Yeah. Greg go and look under the yonder in the fine cabinet over there. And that was it.

[00:59:15] Was.

[00:59:16] A little bit from Queens was Cuba. And that was literally my 5 minutes of career advice. And, and my brothers went, I don’t do medicine. So I ended up doing dentistry. And, and back in the day I, you know, you literally just fill in UCAS form. Even the personal step one was a bit like I like playing rugby, you know, sort of style. That was it. He had no interviews. No interviews. I don’t know if you. Did you have an interview.

[00:59:42] We had interviews.

[00:59:44] Yeah. Queens, we didn’t. No interviews. You just literally sent it off and you got whoa. Yeah. Offered you press and that was it. That was and I look at youngsters, young people coming out of school nowadays and what they have to go through to get into dentistry and school. And I remember we spend our first year, year and a half with the Medicks and I remember one anatomy lecture. They came to the front and went, We’ve got a medick who’s interested in transferring to dentistry. Does any dentist, do any dentists want to transfer to medicine? This is about six weeks in. Yeah. And I thought about it for an hour during that anatomy lecture going I went, Nah, can’t be there too much.

[01:00:21] Hassle on.

[01:00:22] The as I get switched to the doctor. So anyway, I ended up at Queen’s and Belfast did for years 1983 to 87, graduated, took the optional vet and then went from there and then basically had feet. And the problem with Northern Ireland, it’s it’s a very, very close community. And, you know, it’s complicated by obviously all the troubles. I mean, I was there at the height of the troubles. You know, I actually was in digs in the final year in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast when the sniper fired at the Army post and top of our tower block, you know, you know, that sort of thing was on, you know, so it literally was a, you know, all outgoing all at the time. So I didn’t particularly want to stay in Northern Ireland. You always get attracted by the bright lights of England. My wife, well, my girlfriend at the time was English and her father was a surgeon in Chesney. I mean, I don’t know if you ever my father in law was a surgeon from India, and he came over in 1957 to do his FRCS and ended up in Northern Ireland basically because he couldn’t get consultant’s post in the north of England, as he says, because he was racially discriminated against, because he was Indian. He wrote to the BMA and went DMC and went, Oh, I’m not going to consultant’s posts here. Do you think it’s because I’ve got a brown face basically? And they went, Yeah, probably. What do you want us to do about it?

[01:01:55] And so I’ll tell you, let me tell you a story. My dad studied in Queens. Yeah, all right. In the fifties. In the fifties, yes. And someone asked him to be president of the Students Association, whatever. Right. Because he was neither neither Catholic nor Protestant.

[01:02:14] Yes, exactly. Well, it was a.

[01:02:20] It was very much like that. You know, I remember going to the Catholic chaplain and say, I’m a Protestant. Technically, I’m atheist nowadays, but I’m a Protestant technically. And I know Niles, a very Irish name and normally used by Catholics. I am frozen technically. And I remember going with friends of mine who were to the Catholic Chaplaincy for lunch, you know, because it was cheap and it was good and they, they wind me up. I said, Oh, you better keep a low profile to realise your problems, you know, that, you know. And I was going really isolating and yeah, yeah, I’ll have you chucked out of here and I’m going, oh Lord. But yeah, it was all that, all that was going on amongst fellow students, more banter. But there was a very serious edge going on outside in the real world and Belfast and the wider shrines of Northern Ireland. So I didn’t want to live there. I didn’t want to bring up children there. I felt that it was a very closed community. My personal opinion, I know plenty of my colleagues who stayed in a very successful and enjoyable life in Northern Ireland. So we moved over to England and literally I find a practise through the back as as a box as the beat and moved over when I was just turned 26 and started my first practise and took over a practise from another Irish woman who is returning to Southern Ireland and that was that. And I grew it from there basically. So eventually we outgrew the building and we knocked it down. We got an architect and we rebuild the building, etcetera, etcetera, and the rest is history. Yeah. Do I regret doing dentistry? No, I actually think it’s a great career. You know.

[01:03:58] You’re clearly completely engaged with with dentistry still. What would you. What would you say is the secret of that? I mean, is it is it the people that you love or is it the meccano aspect of it? Is it the business side?

[01:04:13] Yeah, meccano. I was never good at my count. I said, Yeah, I would like a bit more. But yeah, that’s why I don’t do implants. Why do not you go? Yeah, I’ll fit. I’ll fit on ladies and crimes using. Sorry, that’s more like Lego implants. But seriously, what is it about? It’s the people. It’s the people. It’s the people, you know, and dentists. We’re very lucky inasmuch as that we have that amazing ability to take people from who are in severe, severe pain to out of pain within a few minutes. Yeah. You know, help them or even just on a more mundane level improve their self confidence. Even people come in and it’s nice when people write reviews going, Oh my God, I was actually petrified at the dentist till I found you or I came to your practise or I came to their, you know, and we all in all our various practises have reviews like that. And I just like helping people, you know, then they and I think that’s what keeps me going about it. I don’t like all the things that anybody else doesn’t like. I don’t like the GDC, I don’t like the QC, I don’t like everything like that that’s come with it. And I and I actually don’t like the Instagram stroke, you know, composite bonding stroke, Invisalign. It has its place, but it’s not dentistry for me, you know, it’s an aspect of dentistry, but it’s not all dentistry. So, you know, I think there’s, you know, dentistry is about helping people and helping people is extractions, root canals, fillings, whatever, you know.

[01:05:46] I mean, you should you should know there is quite a lot of very valuable stuff on Instagram as well. Yeah.

[01:05:51] Oh, yeah.

[01:05:51] I know when you say Instagram, I know what you mean. I know what you mean. I know what you mean. Yeah, yeah. But but there’s lots of lots of really good education on Instagram too.

[01:06:01] Yeah, yeah, I know there is. And I have to say I have to say I do follow not not an Instagram, but quite a few Facebook pages that I think are vitally useful. Jaz does Nick Gulati is Gujarati page A etc. etc. etc.. Yeah, are very valuable and very useful. Yes. No, there are a lot of good stuff. It’s the stuff that you know what I’m talking about, the sort of the glamour do.

[01:06:27] Yeah, I do. And you know, I’m very involved in that space.

[01:06:33] Yes, I.

[01:06:33] Know you are. You know, I’m very Payman.

[01:06:37] Don’t worry. Don’t worry. They say whatever you like, right? At the end of the day. Know a line? Bleach bond. Right. So we’re big in bleach and we’re making bond, and we’re not big in a line. But I know what you mean. I mean, there’s definitely some overtreatment going on with composite bonding and some low quality treatment going on with composite bonding. And there’s going to be a bunch of failures very soon. I mean, composites are very unforgiving material.

[01:07:03] Yeah, absolutely.

[01:07:05] You know, stains very quickly. And but then on the other hand, I would say that’s the reason for learning it properly. And I don’t even mean come to my course. I mean practise, you know, practise a lot and talk to lots of people and and so forth. But it’s interesting, though, these days you can choose to be whichever type of dentist you want to be in a way, because there’s so much more referral. You know, in our day you were either a general dentist or you were a specialist dentist. And even specialist was a new thing, wasn’t it?

[01:07:35] Yeah, it was more. Or your dentist was more or more what. I qualified the other one at the hospital. Or you are a general practise dentist. Yeah.

[01:07:44] And then I know you quite like you quite like endo, don’t you.

[01:07:49] I do quite a lot of endo. Yeah.

[01:07:51] Yeah. So, so I, I stopped practising ten years ago, but in my last four years of practise, I didn’t do any endo at all. I just I referred all of them. And what I’m saying is you can you can choose to be an Invisalign dentist and be fine with that, or you can choose to be an implant guy. And just just go into that very quickly these days. What do you think about that? Do you think do you think do you do you also sort of mourn the loss of the generalist?

[01:08:22] No. As much as I think do I mourn the loss of the generalist? I don’t think we’ve lost the generalist totally. But there are things like implants. I genuinely do think they should be done by guys who are doing X number of implants a year.

[01:08:37] Lots of them.

[01:08:37] Yeah, yeah, lots of them. I really do think. Do you want to go to a hip a hip surgeon and get do you want to go to a surgeon and get your hip replacement done? But find out actually, he’s an abdominal surgeon. Just does the odd hip replacement once every six months.

[01:08:52] No.

[01:08:52] Well done. You know, and you know, so, you know, why should implants be any different? You know, so the likes of, say, Adam Glass food for want of a name or you know, quite there are loads of people out there. Roberti Yeah, yeah. Rob Morrissey There’s another good one. Yeah. Who I think Dominic Hurley tends to do mostly implants. Stuff like that tends to my name. Yes, I am very much a best for that in terms of, you know, Invisalign and so on. Yeah. Well now don’t get started on Invisalign. I do think once you get away from implants, once you get I do think there is a, there’s certainly a place for specialists, but there’s no reason why a good generalist can’t do 90, 80, 90% over to a standard that is more than acceptable for the JDC. Yeah. So, you know, so yeah, I think you can end up referring most of your business away if you end up referring too much out. But yeah, you know, I certainly I certainly think that and also sort of sometimes patients go, yeah, they don’t like going to another place. I know this is where it’s coming back to that people are bringing specialists in-house, aren’t they? More and more so. And that’s that’s a headache in itself, trying to keep them busy and trying to keep them on something the other. But yeah, if patients don’t like, they’ve come to see you, they’ve come to see your practise, they know where you are, somebody’s described also the patients are a bit like patients are a bit like cats or no. Yeah, that patients but like cats. Yes, that’s right. Rather than dogs. Dogs. Dogs are attached.

[01:10:32] To the building.

[01:10:33] Yes, the cats are attached to the building. Yeah. So on patients are a bit like cats. That’s how good the sale of goodwill works because they go, Oh, I’ll stay to the building. Even though a new owners come in, I’ll stick there because I know the building. Yeah, it’s a weird phenomenon, but that’s the way it works. And I think patients. So I do think there is and will always be a place for the general sense. I think what’s sad is that people sort of see that they should be doing more Invisalign and more bonding and more of this. You know, there’s nothing wrong with doing that, but at the expense of doing their general dentistry or they feel like they’re peer pressured into doing it because they’re met down the road, is doing a lot or they’ve seen someone on Instagram.

[01:11:16] I feel like I feel like Invisalign kind of feels like easy money, doesn’t it? That’s the thing.

[01:11:21] Yeah, it’s.

[01:11:22] Something. It’s not easy. Money is very difficult work, but not easy at all. But have you done Invisalign? Now, I noticed on your on your website, you guys do Invisalign.

[01:11:33] Yeah. It says my, my associate does Invisalign. I don’t touch the stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. On our website.

[01:11:38] Which is leaning on it, I feel like you’ve got something to say about Invisalign. Go on.

[01:11:42] Well, apart from that, like the dominator. Yeah. Apart from the fact that they absolutely dominate the market. What I find sad about Invisalign is the people that sort of chest, the diamond, the double diamond, the platinum, whatever status you know, that. Oh, don’t do this number. From what I understand, the fees are still incredibly high from Invisalign for their stuff. Even if you get diamond, double diamond or whatever status you’re on. Yeah. And if you talk to sort of certain orthodontists like Ian Hutchinson, for example, yeah, he’ll go Aligners or Aligners and my associates done the in Hutchinson’s course and she would go that well yeah, you can do them with Invisalign and you will get down to site their particular Instagram going, I can do everything on Invisalign, you know that. But there are certain cases on quite a lot of cases that are maybe better off with fixed, but you know, it is what it is.

[01:12:37] But I think that tide is turning though in a way, because I speak to a number of orthodontists who are Invisalign only Invisalign orthodontists, and it can do a lot more than it used to do. I mean, I remember when I trained on Invisalign, they were saying, you know, you can’t rotate teeth, you can’t you can do a lot more than it used to. But but this question of, you know, being aligns sort of ad, you know, like some people say, look, why are you putting Invisalign brand ahead of your own brand? Yes. And you know what? I get it. I do get it. Number one, the discount bit piece is is significant. You know, that that that apex diamond predator, whatever status they get it. I think half the price of of an.

[01:13:26] Absolutely significant chunk of money when you compare it to other.

[01:13:29] Compared to brackets. Compared to brackets. Of course. Yes. Yeah. But the other thing is, you know, align invented aligners. Yeah. They, they didn’t just go stick a name on, they invented it. I mean, okay, totally different management to to it was a totally different person, totally different management to who we’ve got there now. But, but having invented aligners that, that first mover advantage that they had and they’re now bigger than Henry Schein, I think the biggest, the biggest company in dentistry now or they’re definitely up there. I mean it’s basically align Henry Schein and then splice around, you know, there’s three or four investor, you know, the ones who own all those noble bio care and or ASC optic. And so, you know, I’ve spoken to a bunch of dentists about this. I haven’t got a horse in the race. I don’t I don’t mind one way or the other. I certainly know some dentists who’ve left Invisalign and then come back because they were unhappy with the alternatives. And I know others who’ve left and and they’re very happy. Very happy. I know some who print their own aligners, you know, make their own in house. So there seems to be a few ways to skin the cat. But the, the brand is super strong and there’s a lot of very happy people with the brand. I think they could do a lot more on customer service. I mean, yeah, they seem to be very poor on customer service, which is weird. You know, you’d imagine they take care of that.

[01:14:59] Yeah, I think it’s they, they almost are in that position of it and they’re so dominant that they feel they can just treat anybody the way they want. And that’s what the seems to happen. Then the single.

[01:15:11] I don’t think that’s it. I don’t think that’s it. No company thinks that way. I mean, it’s well, maybe, but you don’t become the world’s biggest dental company thinking that. I think it’s probably you.

[01:15:21] Know, there are a bit. But I just think I just.

[01:15:23] Think they’re growing so quickly that they can’t they can’t keep up with the growth themselves.

[01:15:31] So, yeah, it’s.

[01:15:32] The same reason Facebook is such a nightmare to deal with. You know, as an advertiser, it’s an absolute nightmare dealing with that company. But the reason is they’re just growing so quickly.

[01:15:44] Yeah, I.

[01:15:45] Think. I think that’s the reason.

[01:15:46] Yeah.

[01:15:47] Tell me, let’s move on to darker questions. Well, before we do that, before we do that, let’s talk about you’ve run a couple of super successful dental practises, have been around for ages, employing loads of people, treating thousands of patients. What would you say that secrets to success outside of the clinical?

[01:16:10] Well, the sacred success are I personally might. Well, we’ve talked about this already is your personality. You know, you have to be a nice person to deal with.

[01:16:21] It’s certainly outside of patient care. I mean, I’m.

[01:16:24] I’m thinking more staff associates. Yeah. Outside the patient care. What’s important for me having, you know, in terms of what do you mean in terms of equipment and stuff like that or staff associates. Keeping people happy? Yeah. What’s important? I think you’ve got to pay people. Well, certainly nowadays that’s a big thing for staff. You know, that’s one of the big questions is the dental nurse crisis. You know, dental nurses have been absolutely poorly paid for donkey’s years, you know, treated like shit, basically, to be honest with you. You know, my it up. We’ve got nurses retiring. She’s 59 and she’s been a dental nurse since she was 16. And she started off nursing right in four inch stilettos because that was the rule for the practise back then. Four inch white slippers, you know. But, you know, she said we had to have that, you know, that was the rule, you know. And I’m going, oh, my God. Yeah. They’re always been paid a pittance. So it’s treating your staff well. The problem is with it is, you know, with difficulty with staff, your staff are key to the success of the practise. They really are. The front of house is absolutely vital. Yeah. You’re you’re your reception team. Your front of house is absolutely vital. If you do not have people who are reasonably intelligent, reasonably, you know, savvy.

[01:17:59] Resourceful.

[01:18:01] Resourceful, etc., you are screwed it really and you really are screwed. I mean, we have been through in our current practise so many from the past team, mainly because I mean, the thing is, you know, it’s funny enough, it’s what I my favourite programme at the moment is the sewing bee. I don’t know, you watch the great British sewing Payman there you watch the Great Britain now.

[01:18:24] And the great.

[01:18:25] You know, great British sewing bees on Wednesdays on BBC One, whatever it what it is, is basically so or as you come along and make clothes out of material and it’s like great British Bake Off, but for sewing. And as I said to them, it’s all about attention to detail. You know, it’s it’s you look at it and you go, right, okay, you’ve made it, you’ve made a dress. But the hems all wobbly. Why is the hair more wobbly? It doesn’t look quite right or one side’s long and the other it doesn’t quite fit correctly there. This colour thread doesn’t match or whatever, you know. And so all about it, it’s all the little details that go in to make a dress. You may look at it and say, That’s a dress, all right. But then you look at everything that’s gone in to make a lovely, lovely dress, and that’s like a dental practise to me. People sort of say to me, Oh, you know, you’re some we’ve been accused of nit picking, you know, say you’re saying, Oh, you need to be doing it like this and be like I say, no, I call it we have standards basically. And they and everything comes together to form the whole. But if you you know if you cannot and sorry people will Brit me for this but if you cannot write an email back to people and where we are a site of Oxford we get everybody from Oxford, professors of English and to all sorts of places people in fact if you cannot write an email that makes sense in perfect grammatical English, back to patients.

[01:19:51] All right. We’re screwed to start off with, you know, and it’s the detail is the little things like that, making sure you put your apostrophe in the right place, making sure you’ve done this, you’ve done that. But yes, staff are key. Staff are absolutely key. And once you find the staff, pay them well, treat them well, you know, look after them well, make sure that you’re nice to them. But even then, yeah, there’s no guarantee we’ll stay nowadays. Everybody wants to move on eventually. And in terms of the servants, the practise, I just think, you know, people well, I can never understand as you get dentists who will have a lovely house, maybe even a lovely holiday home or a lovely Ferrari or whatever, and then spend a little money on their practise. Yeah. Then they have a lovely practise. Patients appreciate it. They really do notice the difference. And it’s all those subliminal things that go in to make to make it successful personally.

[01:20:47] Yeah. I mean, the other thing is, look, the number of dentists, the number of people you speak to and they say, oh, I really like that so-and-so restaurant because the service is excellent.

[01:20:56] Yeah.

[01:20:57] And you know, in terms of restaurant, you’ve got, you’ve got the food in front of you. So you can, you can judge the food. Whereas in dentistry, our patients mostly can’t judge. What we do at all. Our patients got no clue whatsoever that you’re putting this matrix on and wedging it and not understand. And the example you gave at the beginning about the guy who was the Great Panther wasn’t the best dentist in the world. And so they only have these other clues to go on and obviously the people. But, you know, it’s interesting, I go to a dental practise and with fresh eyes I can see things that people who work there can’t see. It’s a bit of the cobweb in the corner or a bit of something sticking off the ceiling. And these are all clues to the patient. And, you know, interesting thing now, do you do you guys serve coffee in your practise?

[01:21:51] Yes.

[01:21:51] Yeah. So so I’ve worked in practises where the coffee’s been terrible coffee and and was my fault. I was the associate there and I fully understand the reasons why, you know, we’re not a coffee shop where we’re a dentist and all that.

[01:22:07] But.

[01:22:09] When I take my BMW, it’s not a Rolls-Royce, a BMW. I take my BMW for service. The coffee is excellent, and I drive up and the guy, some dude opens the car door and welcomes me by name before I’ve even said anything. But I know how he does it, right? He’s got my number plate. He knows what time I’m coming. It still makes me feel good. It takes me upstairs. Latte or cappuccino? It’s a it’s a car garage. It’s not. It’s not a Starbucks either, right? It’s a car garage. Yeah. And so these and now it’s interesting. I must have been to a thousand practises in my career and even I, who knows the full story exactly, knows what’s going on and, and, and what’s going and what’s happening and whose fault it is and whose fault it is. And even now, when I walk into a practise and they offer me a coffee and I have the coffee and it’s a nice coffee, I start making judgements about this practise about the kind of dentist they are, even me who knows all about it. I know exactly what’s happening, I’m still making those judgements. So imagine our patients, you know, the non-clinical queues that they’re taking.

[01:23:18] Yeah, absolutely. And we will serve bean to cup. We have a bean teacup machine upstairs. Yes, we go to Costco and we buy Lavazza beans but we do bean, we don’t have that was the first thing I got rid of was the instant coffee, you know. I said, I’m going to bean cup machine. I bought it once and some later. We bought it five years ago. It’s still going strong. It’s brilliant. And patients come and go. Lovely coffee. Thank you very much. You know, selection of teeth and, you know, and it’s just not having that level.

[01:23:48] Of attention to detail, as you.

[01:23:50] Said. Exactly. And just having nice cups to serve it in and and the place being clean in the modern. And it’s all under decoration, not being too scuffed. I know you can’t help the odd scuff here and there and all that sort of stuff. I mean, there was I mean, not that I’ve gone to this, but I had in the last practise I remember we had a small tester pots and I used to get the nurse to go round and if there was any scuffs, sometimes I’d do it myself. I’d just paint them every week, just find where the scuffs were, repaint them with the tester so that we got rid of the scuffs straight away. So they didn’t hang around. But it’s things like that. People want to see. They can’t, as you say, can’t judge you and everything and anything else, part of your personality. But they will go often. Yeah. I mean, how many reviews have you seen where they go? Oh, lovely. Clean practise. Very modern, you know. Brilliant. Yeah. How do you know they’re brilliant? How many times have you seen patients where you go, God, they’re singing the praises of the previous dentist. And you go, This dentistry is pretty mediocre. Yeah, but the thing the patients are singing the praises about them. Yeah. And you go well yeah it’s because they’ve got a lot of the other things. Right, you know. But they’re really.

[01:24:59] What about associates and associates? What are your Top Tips? Top Tips? Let’s talk about what you look for when you’re hiring an associate and let’s talk about your bugbears. What’s the thing that pisses you off about associates?

[01:25:13] Yeah. What pisses me off? It was those associates outright who basically seem to think that the boss is ripping them off, that they’re making the absolute bloody fortune out of them. And then they they’re really pissed me off associates.

[01:25:27] Some of them thing was.

[01:25:28] Yeah. That wasn’t them. Who aren’t, who don’t, don’t sort of realise that they’re part of the clinical team, that they’re, that things like I’m trying to think what else. Because for both associates we’ve had associates that were that before I took over the practise had to go and work in as an associate for a brief, very brief period of time. And one of the other associates used to, if there was a gap before the end of the day, so say share the gap. And then the other end of the day, she would just literally walk out and tell the receptionist to cancel that sort of patient know. So would say, I’m not I’m not hanging around for 45 minutes to see Mrs. So-and-so for a check-up counsellor. And I’m going.

[01:26:07] Wow.

[01:26:08] Yeah, yeah. Know that’s extreme. And you don’t get that, but it’s, it’s.

[01:26:14] What are you looking for when you hire them?

[01:26:16] What am I looking for? I’m looking for very much. Can I talk to them? Do I get on with them? Can I talk to them? Because, you know, obviously you want people who are on board with what your way of thinking is. You know, I want to hear a good a good story from them. I want to hear that a certain certainly it will be a lot of I want to hear they can hold their own. They can talk to me. Honestly, I’m not so interested in clinical skills, you know. I know nowadays the thing is a portfolio, isn’t it? That seems to be the big thing. God, that was that. Jesus Christ never even thought about my day but a portfolio. Yeah. I’m not so interested. I can normally think well if you can talk good talk, if you’ve been on a reasonable number of courses, if you’ve done this, if you’ve done that, you know, and you know, you’re normally going to be okay and it’s, it’s yeah. Just saying, can you gel with them at the end. You’ve got to work with them day in, day out and, and that’s basically what I look for. And you know, there’s no I guess.

[01:27:24] If you could gel with them, then it’s likely your patients are going to gel with them.

[01:27:27] Too. Like dentists would attract people, attract people. They like them basically. Then there isn’t that old thing, you know. So at the end of the day, if you’re basically if you’re an irritating, irritable old bastard as a dentist, you know, then you’ll get irritable bastards of patients, you know, then they whereas, you know, you’re fairly relaxed, easygoing, sort of bloke, you’ll lose the ones that are irritable, right. Or the ones that think, oh, he’s a bit flippant. You know, I’m always sort of telling jokes and bad jokes and all that sort of stuff, you know? So lose the ones that think, Oh, he’s not that professional, he’s a bit flippant. I don’t want them particularly. And in that way I want more. So yeah, I want associate. But it is good to have a mix within the practise, different styles, different, you know, so that we, you know, patients always you don’t necessarily want the patient leave the practise, but you might say, well, you can go and see, they might go and see, can I go and see yens for example or whatever, you know. But yeah, the problem is with nowadays. Yeah. Trying to get an associate, that’s the thing. But there we are.

[01:28:29] Yeah. You know, it’s not limited to dentistry, right? There is a global shortage of labour and raw materials. It’s a funny time. I don’t know if you ever remember this in your time, Nigel. I don’t ever remember this sort of weird. It’s not even a recession yet. Is is whenever it is. The shortage of labour and shortage of raw materials.

[01:28:51] Yeah, well, yeah, the raw materials is certainly a big thing. Yeah. I mean, we, I have said to the staff, you know, whereas normally we did it just in time because we got a letter from Henry Schein or my email months ago going We can no longer guarantee next day delivery, you know. So I said, I don’t want to be run down to the last minute. Please give us a months, you know, like whatever. But yeah, no, to be honest, when I first qualified as a dentist and came to England, I could have walked into any area in England and been offered six jobs on the spot. You know.

[01:29:23] There were dentists.

[01:29:24] Yeah, I was a dentist. Yeah. But in terms of going round beyond that with dental nurses and stuff, no, I don’t ever remember such a shortage of dental nurses, such shortage materials, you know, and certainly. But you can see it in the wider economy. We were in Guildford today shopping and some of the staff we had to encounter in some of the quite posher shops, you’d go, Oh my goodness, they really must be struggling. Yeah, because, you know, calibre wasn’t there that had, you know, and whose somebody was saying who lives in London was saying that virtually every restaurant has a sign saying staff on immediate start you know.

[01:30:01] Yeah and I guess pressure on wages as well. Right because staff know that this is the situation.

[01:30:09] The staff staff know the situation, pressure and wages. And again, it’s fine in private practise, you just put your fees up, you know, at the end of the day. But the NHS, I don’t know where they go without, to be honest with you, I really don’t know where they go without.

[01:30:24] Let’s talk about some mistakes. What have been your biggest mistakes? I want to talk both clinically and business wise.

[01:30:33] Yeah, business wise. Clinically. Oh yeah. I’ve had quite a few. Yeah. From the, from the woman that I wanted to do, the woman that I injected bleach into her sinus and doing the nasty and, you know, doing the asked. And as she it’s quite funny, I was about 40 at the time and I was doing the Suede Rubber Diamond. She was quite quiet, everything was going nicely and she was sort of and she suddenly went, Oh, what was that? And I went, I’d just blown the three in one. And I thought, Oh no, it’s just nothing. Just air. And so we’re worked on a minute or two later, a re injected with the hypochlorite and a burning sensation in my eye. And I, I went, shit, I’ve just, just after I’ve done that. All right. So I sat her upright and took the rubber down off. Oh, no. Yeah. Luckily I had the thought, oh, shit, I’ve been injected, so I don’t know why. Just in my head I got let’s get local anaesthetic solution. I just got sinus and then pumped about four cartridges of Satanists through the root canals and just pumped it, pumped unprompted and sat her upright, took the rubber dam off, sat her upright, and as we sat her upright, she Oh my nostrils burning. Oh my God, my nose was burning. And all this clear drip out of her nose. Obviously, the hypochlorite and I can remember at the time exterior going to know this sometimes happens. Yeah, it’s rare occurrence, but it’s fine inwardly I was going I want my mummy, I.

[01:32:09] Really want my God.

[01:32:12] And I could remember thinking and I do need the loo right now, you know. And so definitely bra and trouser moment we ended up taking the two thought because it I just said oh it must be cracked, let’s take the two so send her up to the hospital. And she basically the hospital berates her because apparently she had a sinus thinning operation 20 years previous to that and never told me I said I was at least honest or to say to hell, even if you told me that, I probably wouldn’t have made any difference, you know. But she brought me a box of chocolates and apologised for actually putting me through stress and I thought was quite sweet and surgical emphysema as we discussed this on the on the on that. Not such a good day. There are office we cup the patients. Not everybody has but I think most dentists, if they’re absolutely honest, will have caught the patients. Tongue, cheek, whatever. Yeah, we’ve all had minor things. So things like that. Yes. Have happened. Nothing, nothing, nothing. So irreversible. You know, what.

[01:33:14] About what about where a management or patient management problem, where have the patients lost confidence and you know, or something?

[01:33:23] Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah. I’ve only ever been sued and once in my career and that was over a when I left the practise, my last practise to come and start this one. If I’d been there it would have been managed and handled. But yeah, it was just one of those things. I missed the root canal on a lower seven and blah blah blah patient and I end up being sued. Nice DLP letter came through for that, which was lovely, you know. So the yeah. So no in terms of yeah, we all.

[01:33:53] I’m looking for something. I’m looking for something that someone could learn from because you know I it’s a nice story the non the hypochlorite one but not, not much we can learn from that one.

[01:34:05] No, no, no, no. Yeah. So in terms of I think the things you’ve got, you’ve got to look for at the start with patient management is you will get red flags from patients from early on. You know, they will start throwing them up fairly early on if they’re sort of saying, oh, I can’t lie back, I can’t do this, I can’t do that, I can’t do the other. I think you’ve got to learn to pull out pretty quickly and say, I need to refer you on someone else. I think this is where your bacterial referral comes in. But yes, we do all get patients where we go that things aren’t going well. Right. And maybe, you know, they haven’t gone as well as you’d hoped, despite warning the patients. And the patients obviously very disappointed in terms of patient management. What I tend to do with them is look, I go look that root canal, all right. It didn’t work out as well as we thought it was going to. Unfortunately, it’s cleared up. It’s only eight months ago. I know a bit of crying on it.

[01:35:00] This, that and the other. Why don’t we get that tooth taken out? Because just keep them giving you problems. And I refund money. That’s what I do. Ultimately, people. People say to me, what? You refund money? And I go, Yeah, there’s no point in arguing. I work on that. I probably refund the practise refunds by. Under the practise turnover every year. Yeah. Now, considering we have a really good turnover in the practise, it’s nothing for a quiet line on. Patients will go fantastic. They stop complaining quite often. You don’t even have to refund the refund. You can just leave it as a credit on the the on the account. And they will either say well I’ll go and see so and so we’ll get the implant, that’ll be a credit towards my implant or that will be a credit towards whatever you need to do in the future. I just think personally, you know, it’s in terms of patient management, I think what you’ve got to make sure that, you know, after the money all the time personally patients will.

[01:36:04] Really I mean, refunds a good, good plan I think especially these days when you’ve got DLP around now. But tell me a story where you refunded money.

[01:36:15] Tell me a story where refund it. Well, yeah, I had one recently where basically again, it was a bit of this guy come in to see me for a second opinion. He was he had been somewhere else and what didn’t want to lose this up or six didn’t have a big feral on it. And I went, Oh yeah, tell you what, I can do that. I’ll refill that. I’ll put a crown on it. Hey. Yeah. Deep on the three times and six months, roots eventually fractured and went shit. So I ended up going, right, here’s your 1200 quid back on the wall where so bloody time, you know. And they I should have, you know, I was looking I think because he was, he had sort of gone I really want to keep this tooth, you know, and even though I had to.

[01:37:07] So on reflection on reflection, do you think you overestimated your own skill?

[01:37:13] You probably. I think one of the things about dentists with a lot of us are want to please people. At the end of the day, you know, we want to try and. Yeah, so you want to be the person who says yes, yeah. Yes, we can. I think that’s a danger we can all fall into sometimes. I mean, here rodents is a very good word. And I do like that phrase and I think we’ve all been guilty of here. I certainly have been guilty of Herod antics and that was a hero don’t situation. But unfortunately, I didn’t have my kryptonite with me and it all went head up. So I mean, even though we had been warned it might not work. What do I do? Do I turn around? I mean, how would you feel? I mean, if someone turned around you and said, I know you warned me it wouldn’t work, there was a chance that might work, blah, blah, blah. And my bond, when you said that, I thought you meant sort of like seven years down the line. Not. Not, yeah. How would you feel? You’d be pissed off, you know. So, I mean, refund the money and just chalk it up to another. Life is full of these learning experiences and unfortunately it takes sometimes more than once to do the same thing. I mean, I don’t know how many times I’ve done my career, probably right. But sometimes I just seem to never learn totally. I always go in, but I think it’s back into the people pleaser, into the trying to say, Yes, I can do this. You know.

[01:38:34] I think in private you’re always trying to say yes to everything because you’re trying to be a service orientated place as well. So you’re so you love saying yes. Yeah. And you’re right, you can get you into trouble. Yeah.

[01:38:47] There are occasions when you can you can certainly go. Absolutely. I don’t this worked out really well and patients really pleased with it. But there are sometimes you do have to know and say this is a bit of hero, don’t mix and I’ve got better of that over the years, but I still get all into the traps every so often. Yeah. And I think that’s partly why we wanted to put that page up about the failures that no matter what age you are, we have failures. We cook up basically, but it’s how you handle it afterwards. It’s apologies. One of the things I had a South African associate years ago who we were in the NHS and we got a complaint letter. Wait, this was about in the nineties and they about her, her, her attitude, she was really, really annoyed. So what happened was I used to say to her, you know, she, I’d say, why don’t you just say you’re sorry to hear that? So a patient come in and say, Gee, the way it would go is the patient would come in and she’d go. They’d go, I’ve got a problem that you’re feeling. Yeah. That you did last week. Yeah. And she’d go wasn’t my fault. Get a feeling the first place and sweets sort of out. And I’d say, look there’s nothing wrong with saying I’m sorry to hear that. And she’d go, I’m not apologising to anybody. And I’d go, You’re saying you’re sorry to hear that? And I think people sometimes get.

[01:40:08] Nervous escalating things.

[01:40:10] Exactly. Sometimes people get mixed up with the fact that, you know, saying sorry doesn’t mean you’re apologising. You know, you’re saying you’re wrong. It’s just say you’re sorry you had a problem, you know? And I think sometimes if you look at what. Say What do people want from the NHS? Sometimes they get complaints. They just want someone to say, I’m sorry that happened to you and this is what we’re going to do about it to make sure it happens again. Here’s your money back in case you know, this is what we and this is what we suggest we do is the next step they want. Quite often what people want from their dentist is just confidence. You know, they don’t want to be left hanging. A lot of dentists get in trouble because what they do is they just almost like things start going wrong. They abandon the patient. And I think that’s the worst thing you can do.

[01:40:55] And what about from a business perspective? I want you to tell me one of the like the best move you ever made and the worst or the worst day you had as as a professional, you know. From a business perspective, what’s the worst day and the best day? Best thing you did.

[01:41:09] Best thing I ever did. And I have to credit my wife for this. To be fair to her, was actually building the building the actually going ahead and taking a huge financial risk and knocking down her old practise building in in Sanderson Berkshire and building building that we’ve got currently because that a it won best practise of the year in 1999 building practise building 99 nine but it has.

[01:41:37] Did you build it from scratch?

[01:41:38] Yes, totally. We got architects.

[01:41:40] In. Oh, amazing.

[01:41:42] We got knocked down. We worked out of port cabins for a year. We decided we did. So then there was a double height, double bolted, all glass word. It was a way at raptures to come on and go, Oh my God, I’ve never seen a place like this before. Absolutely brilliant. And that was fantastic. And in terms of financially, that has worked out very, very well, a huge risk. And I remember at one time crying, crying just had my first child, Rory, who’s now 25, and I remember coming off the phone and the bank going, We can’t lend you any more money. And the Arctic going, We need another 50 grand. And I’m going, Gee, I’m crying, going, Where am I going to get this money from? You know, and I wish that I managed to get it from somewhere. Finished it. Yeah. Wouldn’t look back on that one.

[01:42:33] Is your wife is your wife is your wife more a risk taker than you.

[01:42:37] Would you say? And trust me, not. No, not but she got good judgement. She married me now she got you know she’s got very good judgement.

[01:42:48] So when you think, if you think of an idea oh really. When you think of, when you think of an idea and if she thinks it’s a good idea too, then you sort of go full in on it because you feel like she’s got good judgement.

[01:43:01] Yeah, the worst financial decision you want dentistry or just generally financial decisions you like? Yeah. Well, we see again, I have to say my wife, she warned me there was this sort of investment scheme I was desperate to back in. I had a bit of a low period in my in the mid 2000 so when I was about just turned 40, a mid-life crisis which you could call it, you know, and I’m desperate to get out down the street, desperate to try. And I really had and I somebody come along and said, oh, invest 35 grand into this property scheme. It will be brilliant. You’ll make a fortune. That’s something the other my wife went, don’t like them, don’t like them, don’t like them. And I went, Oh, you’re wrong, they’re fine, they’re fine. You don’t want their space, you know. So then you know. And I went, No, no, no, no. So I basically, against my wife’s judgement, took 35 grand of our money and invested. Yeah, it went tits up. Lost it all. Yeah. Loss of all. Yeah. So you know it’s one of those desperate and this factor when you’re desperate for the money, you make poor decisions, you make.

[01:44:12] Bad decisions.

[01:44:13] You make bad decisions, you know? And I think that’s what young guns don’t be desperate for the money. You know, money will come if you treat people correctly. Money will come and and you do. Yeah. So it’s not but yeah. Yeah, no. My wife, she will say I told you about them. She still brings up from time to time now and I’ll go, that was, that was 15 years ago. Now I play Sarah. I think we’ve gone past that, you know. But yeah, you know what? I still beat myself up about it. I didn’t see that coming, you know, I stupid it was, but yeah, that was the place I was in at the time, you know. So, you know, and probably going back to be an associate for too long. I sold the practise. I sold the practise in 2009 and then stayed in it for a few years. Yeah, I was probably wasn’t the best decision for that actually. But apart from that, yeah, I can’t say I actually have been, let’s say, very lucky with where I’ve ended up in life. I can’t complain.

[01:45:15] Excellent. We’re coming to the end of our time gap. So I’m going to ask you the same questions we ask all our guests at the end. Am to two questions. One is fantasy dinner party. Three guests, dead or alive. Who would you.

[01:45:31] Pick? Well, the weird with the first one is a weird one. It would be my wife’s great grandfather I use called Surfside Wazir Hassan. All right. Who was the founder of the All India Muslim League. All right. Okay. My way out. My father was from North India, originally from Lucknow area. I went to medical school and whatnot and was meant to go to Cambridge, but couldn’t go because my father in law was born in 1929. His grandfather was Uttar Pradesh. He was the Lord Chief Justice of Uttar Pradesh. Rajesh sounds fascinating bloke, absolutely fascinating and so much so. When my father in law grew up, he went to medical school, right? With a servant. Right. And I said and then looked on. I went and I said to him, Sir, your life when you grew up was very like Downton Abbey. And he went, he thought, Oh, yes, I suppose it was. He said, we had more staff and I mean, and so he had but his his his his grandfather was a fascinating character and actually has a street named after him in Lucknow. So, you know, he’s fascinating to meet, you know. The second one is my love of rugby, the Brian Driscoll of it’s simple but probably the world’s best centre, arguably. But we met him at London Irish when my son was seven and my son took fright and couldn’t go over and see him and God bless him.

[01:47:10] Brian O’Driscoll noticed that my son Rory was sort of cowering by a tree crying, and he went over and actually tapped him on the shoulder and said, And I just thought, You know what? You’re a decent bloke, actually. You know, you noticed that child was, you know, like that. And, you know, I suppose the last person I sort of I struggled with to think who I would like to have have along. Yeah, I really because there’s nobody I sort of hugely go, Oh God, yeah, it’d be great to have so-and-so along. It would be nice to have, you know, I think everybody would say this, but it’d be nice to have my father back just to see, because I think he was such a businessman. He’d be very proud of what I did. I think it would be nice he died before because I was very much he was 47 when I was born and he died when I was only turning 40 and I hadn’t hit quite the success I have now. And I think it would be nice for him to come along and then he could be very, very proud. You know what you know? So yeah, but yeah. So that would be basically my mix. Yeah.

[01:48:13] Very nice, man. Very nice. Interesting mix of people as well. The final question. It’s a deathbed.

[01:48:23] Question.

[01:48:23] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not that far. Not that far.

[01:48:28] Enough. Sure. You’ve got plenty of time on your deathbed, your nearest and dearest around you. What three pieces of advice would you give them?

[01:48:38] My first one is Don’t be a sheep. All really don’t be a sheep. In other words, do not follow the herd. The flock stand up for your own opinion because ultimately you end up with a very dissatisfied life. If you try and mould yourself, you are your own person and what you what you believe in is right. So definitely don’t be a sheep. The second.

[01:49:06] Voice.

[01:49:07] Yeah, the second one would be I had a couple I was torn up between exercise more, which is important to realise that later on in life. But I see trust that I think that’s what a lot of people would say. Wouldn’t it be trust your trust, just literally listen to your gut. If I’d listened to my gut about that investment I’ve made. Yeah. And the final ones are probably true, but slightly more tongue in cheek is yeah, don’t drink cheap red wine. Make sure you drink less of it, but drink better.

[01:49:45] Yeah.

[01:49:47] I like that. I like that. Well, it’s been it’s been wonderful. It’s been it’s been probably our longest podcast ever because we had to go through the red wine bit. I hope you keep the red wine post going. Yeah. So you don’t get put off by by some of those negative.

[01:50:07] You can do. You can’t do. That’s the problem. Yeah.

[01:50:10] But, but you know, there’s a discipline in doing something and sometimes you feel like you’ve got to do every week. I don’t think you should do it every week. I think you should do it every time you’ve got something where you’ve spoken to someone, you know, that’s that’s the important thing. And you seem to speak to a lot of people. You seem to know a lot of people. So, yeah. So you seem to get a nice different views of of what what is and isn’t controversial. It’s lovely to see those. And I really hope the new group goes very well as well. Not such a good day at the orifice. I think every dentist should be part of that and and encourage everyone.

[01:50:40] To.

[01:50:41] Contribute.

[01:50:42] It’s the posting is important. Yeah. Just to help other people.

[01:50:45] Contribute to that because you know the key point in this podcast is what were your mistakes, what can we learn from them? And you know, we don’t talk about our mistakes enough in this profession. We need to talk about them more. Absolutely. It’s been an absolute pleasure having you. Thank you so, so much.

[01:51:02] Now yeah, now I know it was a great. Thank you very much. Payman.

[01:51:07] 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.

[01:51:23] 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 had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

[01:51:37] 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.

 

[00:00:00] And I always remember this very wealthy woman. And she said to me, Oh, I’ve been told I need a gum graft around this implant the right. And I’m like, Well, yeah, I can do it. But then I wasn’t charging a lot of money and it was going to be £400. Right. And she drives him with this very expensive car outside. And she’s busy saying to me, Oh, that’s too expensive. And I’m looking at it and and I’m not backing down. And she’s saying, Well, I said, I’d rather not do anything. And she says to me, Well, it sounds like you do it for free. And I said, No. And I said, I’m the only one in the West Midlands that can do this, and you don’t want to irritate me any further. And she was well aware of that. Never, I never seen again. But then I turned around and I said, So what’s your son do? And she goes, Oh, he’s a lawyer. I said, Oh, that’s really good. Yeah. And I said, So what would you feel if your son had to reduce his fees? She said, Nothing, you know, and that was it. But I think you have to have that confidence to tell people, fuck off.

[00:00:57] Yeah, no.

[00:01:04] 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.

[00:01:22] It gives me great pleasure to introduce Dr. Ahmed Patel, Specialist Periodontist from Birmingham Practise Owner, Teacher, Current President of the ADC. And if you still don’t know who he is when you see him out on social media, he is definitely wearing the brightest outfits that you can possibly see. I mean, we’re on we’re on a podcast now and he’s wearing a bright turquoise zip up hoodie. Filler. Filler. Got to get the brand in, mate.

[00:01:53] And be honest. Right. Because when I was a kid, you’d see all these kids wearing these filler tops and Sergio to TV. And then, you know, it was like, oh, I’d like one of those. But you know what? Can’t afford it.

[00:02:07] I couldn’t afford it, mate.

[00:02:09] Oh, exactly. So now I’m like, you know, and my mum and dad just to take me down to Wembley Market and you’d be like, I’m still not going to ask for it because it was, you know, obviously it was a it was a dodgy, dodgy one and that’s fine. But it was still expensive. But now it’s like I’ve got a little bit of money. I’m going to invest.

[00:02:23] Treat yourself, but treat yourself. You know, I remember those days growing up, me and we used to go to the markets to get our clothes and all my mates had nycc and we had, we had Nick’s.

[00:02:35] Yeah.

[00:02:36] And I and I see I don’t even know if anyone knows that brand. Right. But that was the alternative, right? And we had that and we got the piss ripped out of us for that. Right. And because we didn’t have much growing up. But, but, you know.

[00:02:50] It was amazing like so like back so because I am 50 this year and you know, my mates, they were from divorced families and stuff and then they’d be going out at the age of 15, 16 and they’d be buying these really expensive T-shirts like C two set and, and, and shoving you on and all this. And it’s like you’re paying 70, 80 quid for a t shirt. And I’m like, Whoa. But then in the late eighties, and there’s like a huge amount of cash, you.

[00:03:19] Know, I don’t even do that now. Not going to do that now. But just going back to that, I mean, I think everyone would recognise you as that guy who even turns up to formal events, right? Wearing your suit and your bright orange dreads, you know, and the long hair, right?

[00:03:34] Yeah. I’m very out of luck. Exactly.

[00:03:37] Now I’m very jealous, mate. I’m very, very jealous. But just tell us about your back story. You know, where you were born, where you grew up, and your upbringing.

[00:03:47] So I was born in the UK and my dad is a civil engineer and he worked in the UK for companies and all that sort of stuff. So and my mum was sort of, I think she used to be a schoolteacher when we were in the past, but then became a housewife type of thing. Sure. And yeah. So we were born in we lived in north west London in Edgware. And actually I’ve got I would say I was very fortunate to be living there because it was really, you know, a nice kind of suburb of of London, really. And we had I had Japanese friends, I had Italian friends. I had friends that were from Ghana and all this sort of stuff. It was really, really good. And yeah, so it was, it was, it was fun, but we were all just went to normal state school and just, you know, and we were latch door kids because my parents both went to work. So we’d had the keys to get into the house and we’d sit at home and you’d watch school. I came home and it is amazing when you think about it, you know, because you had to make your own food and stuff and you just at home watch TV. So yeah, it was and you know, and it was also good because you’d go and hang out with your mates on the streets and stuff and everything and your neighbours knew it was good. Yeah.

[00:05:03] I remember those days, mate, that we would probably less so during the week, but on the weekends me and my brother would just nip out on our skateboards and BMX and then just disappear. Me and our parents wouldn’t know where the heck we were, right? We were just talking about.

[00:05:21] They weren’t fussed.

[00:05:23] But then they didn’t care me and we’d, you know, we’d go and play whatever in some hills, make some dens and go and cause a bit of trouble and then come back in the evening for our tea. Right. And the thing is that there was no issues around security where now, mate, my little six year old. Yeah. If I’m in like some kind of a theme park or summat and I let go of a hand for 10 minutes and I can’t see her. Yeah, I’m having palpitations, mate.

[00:05:49] Yeah, I mean, this is it. It’s things have changed and but you know, I think maybe we live in a society where also other adults don’t want to look like they’re checking up on a child or whatever it is, whereas before it was, you know, there’s a much more community based feeling, wasn’t it? I mean, if you think about it, you know, lockdown, what was amazing about lockdown was, you know, we all started to become much more community based. But that’s. Stopped again, right? Yeah. Yeah. One thing I did, one of the negatives about lockdown was because I have my practise in the city centre and I used to go in and just, just just just do some whatever, just to have some continuity.

[00:06:29] Bit of admin or.

[00:06:31] Something that wasn’t important but just what it. But what was interesting is because there’s loads of apartments where I work my practises and you just it was dead and you saw that these people were not mixing with their neighbours, you know, and that was the opportunity that just sat in their flats and didn’t open the doors. So. So I think, you know, it’s a shame. But, but when you go to other countries abroad, you know, you know, there’s that community still there, isn’t it? Like Italy, Spain, even though they live in apartments and the generation who’ve lived in apartments there is this family, you know.

[00:07:03] Going back and just customer mind back to those days. I don’t know if you experienced this, but you could literally walk straight into your mate’s front door, knocking it slightly open. You go straight in, say hello to the parents, you know, is Johnny coming out to play or whatever? And then off you’d go and you’d be in and out of each other’s houses. Yeah. Locks went on, doors were open. I remember those days. And now we’re so security conscious.

[00:07:27] Yeah, and I think it is. I mean, I was. It was interesting what you just said, right? Because I know we’re both like old farts, but back then, you only had the news on twice, right? Yeah. And it was. And before then there was no breakfast TV. Right? So there was the news at 6:00 and then the news at 9:00 and that was it. Right. So you only had 30 minutes of news, so you weren’t ever terrified of any stupid stuff. So as soon as 24 hour news came along, they had to put something on it. And obviously the Americans have driven this so they would turn around and just there’s a there’s a squirrel that’s escaped and it’s killing all humans, you know, but it had to be some useless news. And this is what’s happened. So people have become fearful of their own shadow.

[00:08:16] And the one thing that we definitely didn’t have back then was social media, right?

[00:08:21] Yeah, I, I am not a fan. I mean, it is really useful. I joined Facebook, maybe, I don’t know, eight years ago or something like that. And it was really for me, I didn’t have a clue what it was about, but obviously I’d heard about it back in 2006 because people were talking about it then. I had no interest then. But when you started finding out dentists using it, right? Okay, I’ll join it and friend and all this stuff because I didn’t really know many people and then it obviously escalated. But one of the good things about for me, for Facebook was that I could learn to with a really good clinicians around the world and in the UK. Right. And then you’d build relationships with them because you can contact them. And that was really good and you’d ask them advice and stuff. The bad things of Facebook is for me, you know, you might want to share your work and suddenly somebody comes out of the woodwork and they, they give it a large and they just want to destroy you and stuff.

[00:09:22] You and tear you a new one for whatever minuscule reason or their own ego.

[00:09:27] Right, exactly. And and it was really interesting because I was thinking, well, hang on, this person is asking for help. But and maybe, you know, they may not be fully aware how good or, you know, average their work is or whatever. But but there is a way of doing it, isn’t it? You know, and I think that and it’s really easy to sort of hit sit behind behind a screen and do this. I mean, now I can see your face and I could you know, I’m not going to say anything bad about you. I mean, we’re friends, but but I could if I didn’t know you, I could rip you apart. But if I’m watching your emotions, then I would change the way I’m seeing that. Does that make sense, mate?

[00:10:06] It make it makes complete sense. And, you know, I speak to a lot of dentists and my own experience of social media. Right, is that there are these people called they’re given the title of keyboard warriors these days. Right. But, you know, that person wouldn’t come to come up to you in a conference and say, by the way, do you know the case you posted the other day? That was dog shit, mate. And I’d do this, that and the other. Right. But they’ll do it on social media, right? And so it allows them to act and behave in a certain way that they wouldn’t do normally. And my take on it is it just pulls you away from real life, right?

[00:10:40] Where you, you know, because we all have we’re all social creatures. So what is it that makes you think that you have a right to do this? Because the reality is you say that to my face, they will be a massive issue. Right. Because I know and both of us who are brought up in a particular way.

[00:10:57] But you sound like someone out of Peaky Blinders now.

[00:11:01] But this is it, isn’t it? Because, you know, you as a dentist, you have to be professional. But actually most of us, we walk up a particular way and there will be our wreak havoc.

[00:11:12] Yeah, we have our instincts in the way we react as human beings. Individually and, you know, that whole social media journey, you know, I went through a period where I was posting every single day, right? Multiple times a day at times. And I’ve just picked that up again. But the one the one what I noticed is I was getting consumed with comments, direct messages. I’ll tell you what it did do. It created a massive uplift in business. And the reason it did that is, you know, there’ll be some people that resonate with my content and some people will say, who the hell does this guy think he is? Right. And I’m cool with either. All right. But you do get emotionally impact with it. And I started to withdraw from real life.

[00:11:53] Yeah.

[00:11:53] So whatever’s going on there that I get distracted in, my daughter walks in and even though she’s in the room, I’m not in the room with her. Right. And that’s sad. And I think COVID took me away from social media, if that makes sense. I got COVID had it pretty bad. Yeah.

[00:12:08] I remember you.

[00:12:09] Saying disappeared body. And it’s it’s a breath of fresh air. And what I’m trying now is to post and not check it. Right. So I’ll put a piece of content out there and just not check in and try my best to not give a you know what? And that’s my that’s my strategy now because real life is far more important, right?

[00:12:30] Lately. Yeah. And and I think and I think what is interesting is, you know, you’re right, because there’s a guy called a shaman and he does. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the stuff about Instagram. And it is interesting because he’s saying you don’t have to post every day because it is because you know, you’re having to you’re checking it and you almost have to like keep an eye on it and almost have to grow it. And it’s like, that’s not but but again, I’m too old, so I don’t know if that’s the way to do it because I earn money by physically seeing patients. Right now, I understand social media has changed, especially with Instagram, where you are, you have to work it every day because you want patients to come to you directly. And I’m in a very fortunate position because I’m a specialist. I don’t need patients to come to me. I need dentists to refer to me because and that’s why I have to lecture. And I love it. And I do whatever I have to do to network and build that relationship with dentists. So maybe, maybe Instagram or whatever it is has changed the way you interact with patients. But, you know, like I said, as you maybe post once a week, but then step away from it if you can. And you’re right, you know, that’s the right thing to do. Christmas is probably about Christmas. I just didn’t use my phone for two weeks and it was just so good I didn’t miss it. But what was amazing went back to work and I was straight back on to Facebook and Instagram because I was like, Oh, good, let’s just check. But then I realised I don’t need it, you know.

[00:13:58] It’s like crack. Me Yeah, it’s addictive. And you know, I think for you, you know, if you came to me and said, Look, what should I do with my social media? You’ve just you’ve just told me what you should do already without even knowing it, which is your audience are dentists. Yeah. And they come to you because you’ve got a level of expertise, clinical, academic, you know, whatever it is, knowledge, experience that they don’t have. Right. Whether it’s treatment, planning, identifying stuff, carrying out the surgery, whatever it is, you’ve got that experience and expertise. So if I was in your shoes, if you wanted to grow that side of things, I would be sharing case reviews and tips, hence that sort of thing. And it doesn’t have to be every day. But you know, you are louder than life character because of your bright, you know, attire and all the rest of it. Right. So people know Amit Patel has arrived. Yeah. And so I think you I think you do really well on social, but I guess the key comes down to do you really need it, right.

[00:14:57] Yeah. And actually you’re going back to that, you know. Yes, I do dress a particular way and I probably I do to be, you know, to be what it contrived or whatever it is or I don’t know what the word is. But just to show that, look, you know what?

[00:15:16] I am not a conformist.

[00:15:18] Yeah. There you go. That’s the word. Yeah. So and I do that on purpose because, you know, as a student, I didn’t fit in very well at university. I just did anything else but dentistry. Right? I did have long hair back then. And they’d be saying, if you don’t cut your hair, you will fail finals. So I had to cut the hair and I still fell finals.

[00:15:41] So that’s because you’re Sampson me and all your power was in your hair.

[00:15:45] Yeah, yeah, but. But, yeah. And then now obviously I’m a specialist and it’s like, okay, I could look and dress a particular way, but, you know, I don’t really care. I don’t need to show people this is what I am. And I’ve been to I’ve been, again, very fortunate that I’ve lectured at some of the biggest events in the world. So I’ve lecture Europe area where we have 13, 14,000 people at this event, and I’ve done it three, two times and I’ve been on and I’ve been lecturing next to the people that I want to be like and emulate. You know, I’ve always looked up to and even in that situation, I will address a particular professionally, but then I’m rocking around with a twist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, you know, but people, you know, because they assume that you aren’t someone who’s got a brain or whatever. And then but it’s not an issue. I mean, I’m not I’m not very competitive is the truth. But yeah, sorry. We were digressing about social media, but I think one of the issues it could be based on the web and brought up because I’m not the most confident of people about my abilities because I still feel that I’ve got so much more to learn. But there’s a lot of people and it could be the way they’ve been educated that they are very, very confident and they come out thinking that they are so good.

[00:17:01] But when I qualified as a student, I realised as a dentist I realised that I had so much more to that. Even when I qualified as a specialist, I realised I wasn’t good enough to even call myself a specialist. Right know. I mean, I did four years training at guys at St Thomas’s. I only place 13 implants in four years. That means I ain’t good at anything. Right. And I went out of my way to so to meet the people, the best people in the world. I went to Milan. A good friend of mine is a professor in Perio. Julia Russell really spent a month there learning how to do periodontal regeneration and all this kind of cool stuff. And then I built the network of people that he knew some of the best periodontist in the world. And then I went and watched some amazing implant dentists, you know, many weeks with them. And then there’s some here in the UK that I’ve spent lots of time with and I realised actually there’s so much more I can do and now I can give to my patients. And then I was, I was at hanging out with my mate at Harvard, spending a bit of time there to learn loads of stuff that they were doing. And his name is David Kim. He’s a professor there now. And and all that network has worked really well for me because I still want to learn more.

[00:18:12] I mean, I’m off to Brazil in August to learn from this young soft tissue expert called Ricardo Kearns. And he’s just an amazing individual. And we’ve been friends for about five years. And if I mess up a case and I do mess up tons of cases, right. And if I haven’t got a clue what to do, I call up Asia, man. Yeah. And I call up another mate, Michael David Gonzalez, in Spain. And I got all these other individuals that will say, look, this is the way to fix it and oh, let’s see how it heals. And they’re much they’re really cool individuals. They’re not critical. They tell you the where where it went wrong. So it’s really good. So I’m always learning on a regular basis. So, so that’s been the biggest thing of social media for me because, you know, you meet some of these individuals who you’ve built that relationship and then, yeah, good lifelong relationships and then you go and visit them as friends. And now because of the Adeyeye, the Association of Dental Implants ology, I’ve been very, very fortunate where I can just ring up anybody and they’ll come and do it. I mean, there’s a guy called Thomas Albrechtsen Albrechtsen, and he’s essentially the godfather of implant dentistry and he’s going to be lecturing on the conference next year. Oh, wow, he’s never left the UK.

[00:19:28] We’ll come back to the ADA. I’ve got quite a few questions around that. But going back to your upbringing, you mentioned that, you know, maybe, you know, you don’t have the confidence because because of your upbringing. Right. And I can resonate with that. And I also think about my own kids who were beaming with confidence. Right. Will stand upon a stage in front of 100 kids and belt out, you know, whatever it is they need to and have zero anxiety. Right. I know. You know, I’ve got a couple of lectures coming up every time that happens, right. The butterflies kick in me. Yeah. And I start thinking about all those sort of things. Doesn’t, doesn’t. And we’ve seen the younger generation on social media just have bags of confidence. Right. And I think part of that is to do with our upbringing. But what do you think it is about your upbringing, where you feel that?

[00:20:15] So the thing is, I, you know, when I was shit at something, I was told I was shit at something, right? So that was fine. And it didn’t, it didn’t bother me. So I had to work hard and do better. Right. But it wasn’t like I was told. It was good because you even knew it was rubbish. I mean, you know, it was rubbish, right? So I think that was what was good about it. I think that is real. Been a benefit for me, I’d say. And, and you know, if I pretended to sing my mum and dad was you’re pretty rubbish. And I’m like, fine, that’s the end of it. I’m not going to do it. I mean, maybe that’s not the right thing. And it’s interesting because also when I was at dental school. It’s all changed now. But if you are rubbish at something, they did tell you, right? So that was a good thing. Right. And it just made me want to think, och, I would never get to the point where I said I’m going to prove them wrong because that’s that, isn’t it?

[00:21:17] Not you.

[00:21:19] I had no interest in that, but I wanted to get better than I will do it. So I think that was the reason. And and also there’s this there’s this saying, isn’t it physical imposter syndrome or something like that?

[00:21:31] Do you know what that was screaming out at me? And the reason why is you just said to me, oh, I did this. I did my specialist training. I did this only place, this implant. I’ve gone and see this guy, but I’m still not good enough. Yeah. And to me, it just screams imposter syndrome, because you kind of feel like you’re putting yourself out there, I guess. I don’t know what. What’s your take on that? What’s your take on imposter syndrome?

[00:21:56] I mean, I didn’t realise that’s what it was call what I had. It’s like you said. So you and I both lecturing in this thing at this weekend. Right? And I am anxious about it. Right. And I will be doing it until it’s like an exam. You are poo in your pants until you sit there, write your name on top of the exam paper, and then suddenly everything goes away. Yes. And that’s what will happen. So I am so nervous to the point where I’m doing my presentation just before the before I plug it in. And, you know, it’s the same thing with Europe area, right? So I knew that I was lecturing with a guy called Otto Xur and Gallop Gazelle and a guy called David Herrera all at the same time on the same stage. And and, you know, I knew a year in advance and I was still anxious about it for a whole year until I turned up and did it, did the talk. And I can’t get rid of that. And, and yeah, I don’t know, I don’t know the answer to that. But I mean, it’s like when I go, you know, I love you, brother, don’t you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think he’s he’s just an amazing human being. Right. And, you know, when I stand next to him and he just oozes confidence that every single pore of his body, it is hilarious. And and next thing I know, I’m in awe of this man. Right. And the rest is I’m like six foot and he’s like, two foot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, makes me look like I’m the smallest person in the room because of what he has, you know? And it’s amazing. But he has confidence based on how good he is. Right. And clinical ability and his knowledge and all of this stuff that makes him.

[00:23:41] But the one thing Caleb does is he does speak volumes about you. And he does say to me that, you know, you’ve got that guy who you can call up when shit goes wrong. Yeah, you’re his guy. Oh, really? Yeah. And he says to me, you know, it’s nice to have someone like Hamlet who I can just whizz a photograph across to pick up the phone. And, you know, he just squares me away. He sells me out, right? So even though you’re in the same room and you’re looking up to this, you know, two and a half foot guy or down to him that he does look up to you as well, mate. And, you know, he comes to you for that for that higher level advice. I would say.

[00:24:22] This. So I don’t I don’t know about the confidence thing. I mean, I think I’ll always like it. I mean, again, it comes to also if an individual ask me a question, I know I will know the answers and I will answer in a professional way. But but when someone sort of says to me, Oh, yeah, I think the work is good online, I get really embarrassed and I’m like, Oh, that’s very kind. But actually I think this is not as good or whatever it is, you know what I mean? So I don’t know. I don’t I don’t know how you deal with that because I mean, it’s a really good friend of mine called Nick Fahy and you know him as well.

[00:24:53] I know Nick. Yeah. Good friend of mine, too. Yeah.

[00:24:56] Yeah, he’s exceptional individual. He’s. He’s somebody I’ve known for 12 years now. Right. And he’s amazing. And he’s a specialist in his field and he runs a stunning practise in Pango. And what’s interesting about him is he’s been pushing digital implant dentistry and the whole concept of guided implant dentistry for 12 years and he knows more than most people around the world, and yet he lacks confidence because he feels maybe he’s, you know, he’s not in the right place or whatever it is. But it is fascinating. But I will go and say. Days of them learning from him because he knows everything. And yet we’re in the same position where it’s like, Well, hang on, I’m thinking to myself. He’s a specialist in prosthetics and I’m a specialist in Perio. And what I’m trying to say is that he’s probably thinking, why is this periodontist come to learn from me? And I’d be thinking, why is this dentist is a specialist for me? But it’s like, well, he should already know it, you know what I mean? But it is I don’t know. I don’t know how you get over that. I don’t know. The things are changing.

[00:26:02] Yeah. Look, I’ve had many conversations with Nick and his wife, Sarah, about the whole Nick confidence thing. Right. Because he is bloody amazing at what he does, right? There’s no question about that. He’s. He’s somebody who I’d consider to be quietly confident. Yeah, but you can’t go out there and blow his own horn. It just it just doesn’t have that in him. And I respect.

[00:26:22] That because, I mean, I know we know he’s not British, but I think it is. And the way I was brought up is, you know, you’re British and we do have a stiff upper lip. Yeah, but maybe that’s changed now. Well, you know, the days you meet these British individuals in the past, you watch films, they would never they’d have this air of confidence, but they wouldn’t blow their own trumpet. I mean. Yeah.

[00:26:47] But but then, you know, you grow in going back to you. Growing up as a kid, I don’t tell my kids the shit.

[00:26:53] Yeah.

[00:26:54] And I was told I was shit. I come home. Must test. Yeah. Got 98%. Dad, what up. What happened to the other two. Yeah. What happened to the other two. That’s, that’s what I used to get. Right. So I think there’s probably some truth in that in terms of the way we were brought up and the, you know, the encouragement or their lack of that we had. Right. But it shaped us into who we are today. Yeah, exactly. You know, the way I see or deal with my own imposter syndrome these days is, you know, may I might be delivering a piece of content out there that is the same piece of content that someone else is delivering who is far superior to me in experience, years of knowledge and whatever. Right. But it’s the same content being delivered. But guess what? Some people prefer that content to be delivered by a two and a half bald guy. Yeah. And some people prefer that content to be delivered by the other guy who is the the pioneer of it or whatever. Right.

[00:27:55] And that’s cool and right. It’s just people will engage with you or relate to you in different ways.

[00:28:02] In different ways, mate. So, you know the way I do it and I’m still not over it, right? I get anxious all the time. But I do think that the way I deal with it is saying that, you know what, the way Prav delivers it, nobody else can deliver it like rough. Right. And that’s not arrogance. That’s not arrogance. It’s just Prav does it this way. And somebody else might deliver the same concept in a way better than Prav, right? I’m cool with that, right? And that’s how I try and sort of process it in my own head, mate. But moving on to your upbringing.

[00:28:37] Going back to this confidence thing, so I know I’m not told about imposter syndrome, but essentially so when I was a student, if I if I got a B, I was very content, like, okay, if I go to see I got into trouble because they were saying, that’s really bad.

[00:28:55] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:28:56] All I wanted was the least amount of replies I wanted just to get out of there and get a beat. So I was and but I teach because I moved to Birmingham and I teach at the university here in chapel. Yes. So that tells you who’s. An exceptional friend, and he’s helped me go into different directions. But essentially when I was teaching the students there, I learnt. That their confidence is amazing. Right. So. So I remember one day and I’d be you know, I always remembered that when I was a student at Liverpool, I didn’t want to be that clinician who showed favouritism to a particular sex or a particular individual, which is always the way back then, right? Yeah. So I remember one one student and I give everybody B’s, you know, because they were average, you know, and they were good enough, you know what I mean? And once you turn up to me and she said, I disagree with your grading, and I was like, Oh, really? You’re only like a third year or fourth year. Where do you get this? Confidence is amazing. And then all these individuals are like they will go and shit.

[00:30:11] They don’t know what it’s going to be like because and I just went so. So do you think your what grade you want? And she went like I’m like, okay. So I said, so does that mean you’re as good as me? And then she backed down very, very quickly because they don’t realise the scale. Yeah. And you know, and, and I thought and then she and obviously she looked like an idiot in front of her mates. Right. Which was, which was really, which wasn’t my plan, but obviously that’s the way it ended up. But, but I was amazed. And then I’ve done all this teaching the trainer stuff. Oh, my God, I do that years ago. And and it’s fascinating when we got in this position where we say to people, so. Where do you think you did well? Where do you think you did bad? I mean, it’s like. What? It’s just. And we’re so much more cautious about not. You know, especially when you’re talking to someone face to face, it’s like, you know, you want them to do better, don’t you? You don’t want them to do that. No.

[00:31:17] But you know what? These days we just got to be careful about the words we use. Right. The certain words I used to use growing up that I couldn’t repeat on this podcast. Right. Because because someone would tear me a new one. Right. And maybe, you know, if we were having a beer or over dinner, I’d come out with that stuff. Right. No problem. So, you know, we are in a more cautious society.

[00:31:39] You say this because I was I was when I was driving back from Newcastle on Friday night at stupid o’clock and I was in bed by 130, but essentially at 9:00 on Radio four, there was something about it’s about the nineties and it’s really, really good because essentially it talks about I can’t remember who there was this film called Trainspotting, and there was a particular Scottish actor in a big Hollywood attached, I remember. So he’s he’s the one talking about it and it talks about. So in the eighties, we’re very much more politically correct, right? Yeah. And and then the nineties became less politically correct. But that also led to some of the issues that we have now in 2020. It really, really interesting. You’ve got to listen to that radio for 9:00. And I think it’s a it’s a bunch of it’s it’s called the nineties or something like that. But and it sort of put into perspective about the Internet coming into into the into the nineties. And this is why we now become much more woke because of what happened back then. Sure. And and that also talks about the Ukraine situation and stuff like that. And coming down to the of the war is very, very good.

[00:32:53] But again, it’s about the reason why I’m talking about that is because it also has given these a lot of people this self-confidence and their ability to just say what they need to say. But it’s also made it very difficult for us to be. Because end of the day, 90% of us will say things and it’s not really to hurt people. But that small 10% is so loud and making it difficult for us to be part of society. I mean, look, I have patients of a certain age, right? And they are blatantly racist. Right. And does it bother me? No, because it doesn’t matter. Right. Because because they’re in their seventies or their eighties, but they don’t, you know, and that is fine. But why am I going to try to change their attitude? Why do I need to do that? Why do I want to you know, they’ve only got a certain number of years and then they’re feeling that they’re not part of society. Does that make sense? And it’s because they’re scared of the wrong things, you know? Do you know what I mean?

[00:33:56] Makes complete sense, mate. You know, at the end of the day, you know, I look at those individuals, the older generation, who are racist. Right. It’s just the way they are. It’s the way they’ve been brought up. It’s the way that it’s what they’ve been exposed to. Right. And what’s this seven year old going to do to you?

[00:34:11] Yeah.

[00:34:12] Yeah. They’ve got their own preconceived ideas. So what? Right. Move on. Get on with your life, you know?

[00:34:19] And what is interesting is that that 70 year old doesn’t even see me. As being of a different colour. Which is hilarious. Okay, but. But everybody’s racist, right? Because it also it came back when it came to Brexit. So I’d be asking my patients of this age because they’re obviously. Doesn’t matter what race they are. Right. You know, they’ve they’ve seen the benefit of the of the EU and before the EU and then they realised this rubbish. So I get Asian patients come in, I’m going which way you’re voting and they say I’m voting Brexit. And I’m like, well why is that. We have too many foreigners in the UK. So this is a foreigner. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You say you have English people saying I’m voting for Brexit for the same reason, and so we’re all racist in our own little ways. It just depends on how you communicate with your circle of friends and who you let in and out. You know what I mean?

[00:35:14] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it’s that sliding scale again, right? We’re going to move on from this conversation.

[00:35:19] Before I get to this one. Yeah.

[00:35:21] Oh, we get carried away. But we can we can continue at the dentistry show next week. But you know what? When did you when did you decide dentistry was for you? Was it was it one of these, you know, Asian parents brought up in that environment? Doctor, dentist, lawyer, what was the.

[00:35:41] So I went to not a very good school, so and it is now a very good school, supposedly so. So I was 16 and I wanted to leave school. I wanted to join the army or or become a plumber. I just I hate I hate I didn’t hate academia. I didn’t want to. Yeah, I’m really rubbish at learning and, and they were like, well my mates decided to do the A-levels. So I was like, I wouldn’t did that. So they were doing like graphic design. They wanted to be graphic designers and all that. So my mates were not anyway, none of my mates, the doctors or medicks or whatever. And then I went to do my A-levels and then the teacher sort of said and I was good at woodwork, right?

[00:36:24] So I was good at woodwork, my loved CBT they used to call it.

[00:36:28] But then yeah, yeah, design and technology and I love the lathe and all that sort of stuff. I love that. And this would out of everything okay if I left school at 16, right? Yeah. And then they were like, Well, you seem to be good with your hands. You know what? Maybe you should do dentistry. I’m like, okay, fine. And that was it, really. And but then it was a B and two CS.

[00:36:50] And what was that? Some careers dude said to you, give dentistry a go. They flicked a book open and go, Oh yeah, you’re good with your hands. Give us.

[00:36:58] A shot. And that was it. And I remember it very vividly. I’m like, Okay, I’ll do it. Because my mates had decided that they were going to go and do graphic design or or whatever it was. Yeah, designing graphic design and and I went, okay, fine, I’ll do that. And, and my school again, we had a sixth form in the school and most of us went, we all failed at A-levels, most of us, and the rest that didn’t didn’t fail, you know, they did. All right, A-levels. They still went to a polytechnic because we had polytechnics like that, right?

[00:37:31] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:37:33] So yeah, that’s what it was. So I just did it for the sake of it. But then the problem, what happened was I did fail in A-levels and I got what I get, I got a C yeah. And I got an E and I got an RN. An RN is a near miss. I see now. That’s right.

[00:37:49] Do you know what you you should have told that girl when she came to you and said, hey, I’m not happy with my B, I bumped you up from a C, love. Where do you want to go?

[00:37:56] Yeah, that was really smart. Yeah.

[00:38:00] Well, go on. So. So you got you got a near miss. What happened? What happened.

[00:38:04] Next? I was really, really gutted because I thought I was going to get these A-levels and and but I didn’t work for it, you know, and I knew I hadn’t worked for it and it was just stupid really. And then I and then my mum and dad realised, oh hang on, maybe the school isn’t that good. They took us out of the school. I got a little Oh. And they put us in a crummy school. Right. And I had a very good friend, that Japanese friend Yuki and he lives in, lives in Japan now and, and his mum took him out of that school a year before without A-levels because she realised he wasn’t going to do well. So he went to this grammar college and then did very well, then left with a successful career. And so my mum and dad took us to the same college and we understood how to sit an exam and all these things. And my brother, brother got his A-levels, really good A-levels and went on to Aston and then I, I got three B’s and I went on to Liverpool but essentially when I went for my interview. So obviously nowadays there’s no way I’d even get an opportunity to be a dentist or a doctor or whatever, right? Because you have to do really well in your swimming test at the age of eight before you’re even allowed into one of these to do a degree like that. So I was rejected at all of these places because I wasn’t. My interview process is rubbish, you know. It’s not very good and it’s still not very good.

[00:39:25] Did you turn up in a bright turquoise tracksuit at your interview?

[00:39:30] No, I wore my dad’s suit because, you know, it was like I was like where my dad said didn’t fit. I never owned a suit. You know what I mean? It was.

[00:39:40] I remember going shopping at Burton for my first seatmate. Do you remember that store?

[00:39:45] Yeah, I do love it. Actually, go buy the bird. So when I went to Liverpool, we were told we have to buy dinner jackets and stuff because there was going to be loads of balls with it. And I’m like, Oh man, they’re expensive. So we had this place called the it was, it was called cardigans and you’d go into this place in Liverpool and it’s like loads of stores in it and second-hand clothes and you’d go and buy your dinner jacket. So I bought a dinner jacket for 20 quid and in it it was made like 1930 or something and it was written on it. It was really hilarious. Nice. The font was very different. I have a burnt jacket now at last. But. But yeah. When I went to my interview at Liverpool it was shocking interview because I’m not good at it and they just said, So I suppose you’ve been rejected from all the other places? I said, Yes. So would you like an offer here? I said, Yes, please.

[00:40:37] Wow.

[00:40:38] Yeah.

[00:40:38] And it was this directors that directors that.

[00:40:41] Yeah, and this is a long time ago. I remember it very, very vividly. And they said to me, So what, what grade would you like? And I said, Well, I prefer three E’s, please. And they’re like, Well, that ain’t going to happen. And that was it. And then I turned up. It’s funny because, you know, when my mum and dad drove us to university, it was on the same day. So my brother was in north west London up there one and six dropped my brother off at Aston and it was I remember dropping him off and I was thinking I was very anxious for him, you know, and he’s he was only 18 and stuff and, and it was good. My mum was calm and then they dropped me off at Liverpool and I was shitting myself because I’ve never left home. But more than that I want to stay London because my mates are there. There’s nothing exists out of London right now. That’s what I thought. And, and, and I remember, you know, my dad told me my mum cried 200 miles back home because they’d lost their kids. So it wasn’t like it wasn’t life. It wasn’t like, you know, I left a year early and then they had my brother.

[00:41:54] Yeah. How did you not clocked your exams or you would have been all right.

[00:41:58] My fucking fault. And it was. I felt so bad when I heard like shit. Yeah. And it was the funny, right? So essentially my mum would say, you know, it’s cold up north. So I was the only one at university who had an electric blanket.

[00:42:17] Say me. I grew up with those electric blankets. Yes.

[00:42:22] Yeah, I know, but it’s hilarious. And I’m they’re like if I’ve ever invited him in to my room. What is that? It’s my electric chair, you know what I mean? But I remember sitting in my home and he says, Roscoe and Gladstone at Liverpool. I just sat in a room. I did not know how to interact with people, any of that sort of stuff. And I just sat there and I got knock on the door and this big tall guy called Sean Rollins and he’s he’s Welsh and he’s 62 and he was loud Welsh accent and he goes, Hi, hi. My name is Sean Rowlands. I’m doing a veterinary degree. What’s your name? And we just became such good friends. Otherwise I would be still sitting in my room then and can you know. And he he suddenly just that, that, that, that one thing. Yeah. And it was, it was just and then, you know, you’re at Liverpool and you know, we had Brookside back then and you know, you heard the Scouser accent, what the hell is that? And you know, I got in the cab to the union the first, second night or something and this guy had such a strong Scouse accent.

[00:43:27] It was obviously from Everton or exactly or wherever. And I was just thinking to myself, Are you actually asking me for a fight? Because I don’t actually know what you’re saying because it sounds so aggressive, you know? But then it took me it took me three months before I could understand what they would say. Yeah, it was, it was good. And going to Liverpool I think made me a better person because I, I could, you know, became much more individual and I could survive on my own. You know, you had your own money, you never had to ask anybody for whatever. You just had to survive. Yeah. And I look at some of my friends who said in London, they’ve definitely not moved away too far from where they were originally from, which I think, fine, you know the choice. But I think if you were to leave, if you have the opportunity, you should take it and run with it. Really? So it was good.

[00:44:18] Push him as far. Yeah. My daughter’s at Edinburgh now and I was very keen on her not going to Manchester or Liverpool or anywhere nearby. Do you know what I mean? Not because there’s anything wrong with Manchester. Liverpool. It’s just.

[00:44:29] No, no, no, no.

[00:44:30] Too close to home, right? Disappear. Go spread your wings.

[00:44:33] And come home straight away. Ask for trouble, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Of course. I remember and this is interesting because because I back then I had a bank account with Lloyds and I thought, you know, because everybody switching bank accounts, I thought, let me do it because this might be a good thing. And I did. And at that point, I was stuck because I was there was no income, no money and stuff. And at that point, I remember it very vividly. I was shitting myself, right? And it wasn’t like there was loads of money, you know, but but I didn’t ring up my dad or my mum and say, Hey, look, I need a hand. But it just sort of had to deal with it, you know, it was. And all those things I think have allowed me to shape you. Yeah. And adapt to situations and and you know, bad things have happened to me, right? Without a doubt. Right. But it just makes you hopefully stronger, really. And, and if things come and somebody throw shit at you, you can just deal with it, you know?

[00:45:32] So I’m moving on from obviously you got into Liverpool University not with threes but but you know, some, some, some more respectable grades. And then what was just what was your university experience like in general? We did you get your head down at that point? Were you a bit of a party animal? Just talk me through university experience and was there any point during that journey where you thought, I want to be a periodontist?

[00:46:00] I love that we want to be a periodontist. Okay. Right. So so I was very lucky that the halls of residence I was living in was full of art students. Right. So the law or whatever degree there was and it was it was a luck, but also a bad situation as well, because they obviously did not have to be at university five days a week, 9 to 5. They could do what the fuck they wanted, which is amazing. Yeah. So I was distracted quite a lot. So the little Liverpool is such a small city, but the campus is is amazing because you have the art side here as well, the unions here. And on this side there’s the medical school and the dental school. Yeah, science sciences in this direction. But essentially I would leave the dental school and I just stroll over there and I’d hang out with all the students because the reality for me was they were having fun. Right? Of course. And maybe that’s why I didn’t fit in with in my own dental school, because I was less than student orientated, because we just did our own thing and I thought, I know the whole universities here.

[00:47:06] So yeah. So I used to go out every night and and obviously the weekends are a bit more restful of, but it was good. And you think about it actually it’s interesting because if you go and do that now, it’s a nightmare. You can’t I can’t stay out till silly o’clock and then work the next day. But we did it for like five years and it was great. But the negative about living with art students was when it came to sitting exams. They’d finished their exams in May or whenever, and they were having a great time. And you were they’re still working towards the exam so and then I always live with the non dentists, so it was, I’ve always had that sort of relationship but going back to dental school. So within the first three months we did something called up tech where we drill, drill these plastic, drill real teeth. And I realised at the end of that I thought, I can’t do this as a career, you know, because.

[00:48:05] If the first three.

[00:48:06] Months yeah, but I was committed to finish it, I was never going to walk away.

[00:48:11] No.

[00:48:12] Because I was having a good time and I’m a degree’s degree end of the day. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So that was that. And it’s interesting that I bring this point up because I’ve met dental students who are at university now and they are three years into the degree and they have realised they don’t, they don’t like it but, but they don’t want to finish it, they want to do something, they want to, they want to leave and find something else. And I find that very difficult to comprehend because again, I’ve got friends who’ve done medicine, dentistry, and they’ve gone on and done completely different things, you know, and you, you, you’re an example of that and they’ve become very successful. So anyway, did dentistry finished it? And then year and year four, I turned up at a hospital in Woolton, which is really rough area, and we were there for a week and I’m like watching these go into that and watching these blokes. Have you seen them, predator? Yeah. Do you remember the predator? Where the guy gets his. Gets his mask off and the.

[00:49:14] Face comes apart? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:49:17] So there I am. I’m rocking up and I’m going. Patient’s face has been opened up like predator. And I’m going. What the hell? And I’m saying to them, Are you all dentists? And they’re like, Yeah, yeah, we’re dentists. And then they say, I said, But, but you cut this guy’s face open and they’re like, Well, we’ve done medicine as well. We’re surgeons. And we said they were maxillofacial surgeons and the guy’s name was James Brown and he was a consultant. And there was loads of registrars and there was a guy called Simon Rogers. He’s a professor now there. He was an amazing individual who helped me, you know, help me massively and loads of registrars there, John Devine and Dave Jones and all this sort of stuff. But essentially because they liked me and I was just so enthusiastic, they used to always drag me in and do that. Gomez Fratricide. Gomez And and mandibles. They got me to do all this stuff as a senior. And I was thinking, You know what? I like this. I might go and do medicine, right? And so at that point I said, right, get the degree out of the way, go on and do house jobs, max back jobs, and then go and do medicine. So I got my dental degree at last. I failed. Failed finals.

[00:50:29] Failed finals as well as A-levels.

[00:50:31] Yeah. Good Lord. How many times tell you? Yeah, exactly. No one was there to keep an eye on me, but. But essentially, this. These things would never happen. But in year three, there was an orthodontic consultant, and he didn’t like my attitude. And I never he never taught me after that. We never had any ones. And I was quite proud, I should say. I’m quite proud of it. But I was the first one to fail this exam at Liverpool Dental School and it was called Paediatrics and Orthodontic Dentistry. And no one, no one fails ever. I mean, it’s just a mickey Mouse exam. No one will fail that obviously I did and I’ve missed it by 2%. I even had a viva. And then I went and spoke to the paediatric consultant and his name is Mr. Lee was lovely. And he says, I didn’t think to me you did not fail. Right. And then when I saw the orthodontic consultant who runs the department, he just said, and back then we had no recording devices or anything like that. Right. Just so he said to me, he says, he says you fell because of your attitude. And if you don’t change your attitude, I’ll spare you again. And I then became this little meek individual after that. And luckily enough, I passed all the other exams by 60, 65. Right. And but then there was the people in the hospital would have a meeting and they would say, okay, who they should feel should pass, who should fail and stuff. And obviously no one put the hand up that I should pass.

[00:52:01] But one of the consultants was living in in Sheffield or Leeds. Leeds. And he came back and he said to me, he says, if I was there it would have been a different. Different, yeah. Because I wasn’t a rubbish chute. And you know what, I was very, very upset and very angry about the whole situation because I knew I was not the shitty student. I mean, and I will say this now, I don’t really care. You know, there were worse students in our year and I have not heard where they are, but they’re passed, right? Yeah. I was very angry and bitter about it all. But you know, now when I think about it, like everybody should think about stuff, would I be here talking to you? Would I have met your brother? Would I have become a specialist in Perio or whatever it is? Would I have had those opportunities, what I’ve published and everything that I’ve done? No, you know, and it’s so funny because, you know, so then I passed my degree obviously. Yeah. And then came back as a house officer and that consultant got many complaints about from me, about about me actually because I didn’t work. He was always complaining and he was saying, look, we know you have an issue with him, but he’s doing that. I said, does he do I work for him because no, I, I don’t give a shit. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but anyway, so then I, then I did my house job, I did my jobs and I loved it and I got my PhD.

[00:53:27] Yes. And I got into medical school, I got into Leeds, I got into a three year course and during that time I then did vet because I thought, you know what, I need to do vocational training because I’ve got to get that out of my way. Sure. Because I’m still a dentist. Right. It’s not like I didn’t you know, I wasn’t sure what I did not like about dentistry. Right. So I thought, let’s get out of the way. And and in that vet, I met a guy I went we went to see a specialist in in Manchester at a place called. It was called, but it’s called the Malthouse now, but essentially. David Cohen, who’s an orthodontist, was just so enthusiastic he was doing I mean, root canal treatment is mind numbingly boring when I was a student, but this guy made it sound so interesting. So I thought, you know what, maybe this is this is interesting. And then he took me out to dinner and he took me out with a periodontist that work there called Phil Green. And he said to me, you know, if you go with a scalpel, then do perio. I wasn’t looking for in any any other. Korean. But I was listening and keeping my options open and. Okay, I’ll, I’ll maybe I might consider Perrier because I’ll use a scalpel. And at that point, the speciality training pathway was being set up because the specialist had been set up because of the EU regulations. And we’re the only country that went the whole hog, whereas the rest of the European Union didn’t do that.

[00:54:45] So as always, and then I worked at UCL as an WHO and I realised how unhappy all of these registrars and consultants were. They were just so unhappy and I thought, I’ve been lucky to work at all of these amazing places and suddenly I’m exposed to these people who are unhappy. And I thought maybe that could be me because I’d have been a consultant age of 44. Okay? And so I then deferred medicine and got into the period training pathway and an A and again there was a mentor there called Allan City and he then made me realise what you can do. Now you go to his practise in, in Harley Street and he would show me, you know, look, we’re doing all this sort of reconstructing bone, all this sort of stuff. And I thought, okay, this is cool. And then from that point I then actually realised I love dentistry and the reason why I love it is it’s the interaction with the patient. The work is an exceptionally difficult if I’m having a laugh from a patient and just, just chatting away or whatever, it was really good. And I’m so pleased I didn’t go down that path of. Do match facts because the whole political situation within the NHS, I think I would be very, very annoyed and frustrated now. I like this autonomy that Kailash has. You have where we are our own own individuals and we make our own decisions. No one else is telling us.

[00:56:07] Yeah, you’re in control of your own destiny, right? You you make your own look, as they say.

[00:56:14] Exactly.

[00:56:15] So I assume you got you got through your period training and did you pass your exams?

[00:56:20] Yes, I did. Yes. Yes. First time I did. I know is.

[00:56:23] Relatively well done. So moving on from there, you became a fully fledged specialist. And then and then what happens after that? Did you what was your transition from this point to actually becoming a dental practise owner? Right. Because traditionally you’ve worked in hospitals, which is very, very different to where you are now, where you’re building relationships with your patients. Right. Completely like chalk and cheese. So just take us through that. Take us through that journey.

[00:56:52] You’re right. So, you know, the thing is, with working in a hospital, you wear this white coat and patients then think this is the highest opinion you will get and that’s it, and they usually believe you. But then when I started working in practise, it was a very different situation. Yes, yes, you were a specialist, but because you weren’t when that white coat didn’t come across in that same way. And also it was also a lack of confidence on my part, my part, knowing how little I experience I had, you know, and how much more I should I should be able to do so. So it was a very difficult transition. And one of the reasons and one of the things, you know, is I’ve worked in London and I was working in quite a few practises and I used to work in some really amazing practises and it was good and I used to work, to work in Manchester and all this sort of stuff as well with Phil Green. But I think I just got bored with all the commuting and stuff. And then my, my girlfriend who’s an intensive care consultant in Birmingham, and she said to me, Listen, why don’t you move up here in 2008? So I then 2007, 2008. So I did, I had no work because, you know, when you train as a specialist, most of us stay in the southeast where the money is and all the training is there. Whereas I just moved up to Birmingham and here in the city there was only three specialists and one of them was me.

[00:58:07] And it’s a very nice working class city. And again, I was commuting around not as you know, probably further than I would have done in London, but it would take the same length of time because it was just, you know, less traffic and stuff and no tubes. And then I enjoyed that. I built my experience because I work with some really I worked for a guy called Jason Glass and he owned three specialist practises in Shrewsbury, Stafford and in Birmingham and I learnt loads from him and understood about business then as well because he’s a very smart cookie. And I also then when I came to Birmingham, Prof. Chappell, Ian Chappell offered me a job and that was, that was an amazing thing, you know, because, you know, he’s the world’s best scientist in dentistry. Two years ago he was nominated the best scientist award in dentistry. Right. Wow. And anybody I went anywhere in the world, people that I’d read about. As soon as you tell them you worked for Ian Chappell or your you know, him, they suddenly want to they suddenly just talk about how how dynamic he is as an individual and you just realise it. You’re with one of the best people you know, and he’s the one who’s, in my opinion has built, helped me build my reputation because he’ll sort of push my name around and, and I’ve always been grateful for that really. And yeah, proper, proper. I mean what I say I love him. Yeah, I love him. Yeah. Because he’s done lots of.

[00:59:41] You seem to have crossed paths with a lot of sort of very well respected clinicians, scientists, academics. Even when you mentioned fourth year at dental school, you were the kid who got in to watch the Zigomanis and stuff, right? I’m taking it that there wasn’t another six dental students doing that. Right. You managed to to get that. What do you think it is about you that sort of enables you to connect with these individuals? Because right at the beginning we were talking about your lack of confidence. And yet, you know, you get this unique opportunity at fourth year at dental school, you’re Ian Chappell’s pushing your name around. Phil Green is the guy who said pick up the scalpel and, you know, do perio or whatever. And all of these names I have heard of, I don’t know to what extent their gravitas takes. You’ve just educated me on that piece, but what is it about you that that connects you with these individuals? Are you better one on one than you are in groups? What is it that.

[01:00:40] I don’t I don’t know the answer that you’re asking me a question that’s making me very uncomfortable, because I don’t in the sense that I’m not. Not. You know, it’s about talking about myself. And I don’t know. I don’t. One thing that I have been told is I am very irritating and annoying. Right. So. So I will if I want to speak to somebody and just that I’ve read about, I will wait and I will just say, listen, I really enjoyed reading this because I need to tell them that you have. Put something in me that’s made me think, Oh shit, I could do something different, but I want to tell them that. And I think that has maybe potentially helped me. For example, a good friend of mine now, his name’s Pat Allen. He’s one of the almost periodontist in soft tissue, and he’s in his late seventies now. And I met him at Boston at a conference in Boston. And again, there’s loads of other people I can mention that I built relationships from that as well. And, and it was hilarious. So he says to me, because, you know, obviously the Americans struggle, realising that some people might have a good English accent because of this interview.

[01:01:56] Right. He says ask him a question and he says to me, your English is very good. And I and I said to him. That’s because I’m English. And. And he was he was a bit embarrassed by that. So then he answered the question to my friend, who’s who’s from? His name is Haitham Al Rafi, who’s again? Another exceptional periodontist in London, once amazing para courses called Perry Academy, because obviously Pat was embarrassed about what he said to me. He then asked the question to to Hatem. And I’m there going. Well, I’m right here and it was hilarious. But then we became friends from that point, you know what I mean? And and again, he’s coming to lecture at the next year, and and I built a really good relationship with his wife and stuff. So he’s now suddenly know he’s there. And he and he again introduces me to people and he’ll throw my name around. But maybe because I’m a bit annoying and can be frustrating, but persistent.

[01:02:51] Persistent.

[01:02:52] Yeah, but I am persistent. But I’m also a lot of academics don’t find me competitive with them. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yes. I’ve noticed that once some academics are talking to each other and you can see there’s a guard up and I’m going, I’ve spoken to you privately, I’ve spoken to you privately, and you two are not talking the same way you do to me. And it’s hilarious. But yeah, you know, and maybe that is, is why I can have a bigger network of people because I just want to learn I am not competing with them. I don’t know the answer, to be honest.

[01:03:30] Okay. I think I think you’re very humble for somebody who’s in your position. That’s that’s very clear to me, not just in today’s conversation, but the conversations that we’ve had in the past. But moving on from there, when did practise ownership come about? When did you start working in in your own year?

[01:03:48] Ten years ago, I thought, right, well, I need to stop and just stop a squat. So I just found a little one surgery practise in the city centre and it was a dental practise before and it never did well because there was no passing track. So we’re literally in the middle of where there’s nobody walks past. It’s just off the back of the mailbox and I just sat there. So it’s just got one surgery, another room, which was a dental surgery, which I switched over and it became a CT scanning room. And we have a receptionist and a nurse, that’s it. And for months I sat there twiddling my thumb. I would go out to dentists and do lunch and learn and send newsletters out or lecture to them, free, KPD, all this sort of stuff. And I would write articles in the dental magazines and publish peer review journals, all that sort of stuff. But that sort of helped me build a small reputation and and obviously running a practise is something that I never wanted to do ever, because I saw the stress behind it. I thought, I can’t be bothered with this. It’s been it’s been a really good learning exercise for me. I don’t want to take over the world because I only have to stop.

[01:04:57] And what is lovely about it is they’re very protective and they, you know, we are a team together. If I’m doing something wrong, they will tell me off which is which is so much nicer. And so I’ve enjoyed that aspect of it and just having that autonomy and what I’ve learnt now is that I love what I do, and if I could do it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, I would. But my staff caught me, asked, you know what I mean? But you know, and this is one of the reasons why I contacted you, because I saw your stuff on Facebook and I thought and the best bit was I knew Kailash Solanki, right? Yes. Your name is Solanki. I did not realise the two of you are the same and I’d be contacting you, you know, because of what you were showing on, on Facebook. And I love the stuff you were posting. And I thought, this guy is smart and focussed and has a really great balance in his life. And I thought, you know, I’d like that. And that’s why I contacted you and that’s how we became. But then, then somehow I’ll be talking about your brother and you’re like, Well, actually, he’s my brother. I’m like, Whoa!

[01:06:00] So connected that I remember that moment.

[01:06:03] I know I you don’t look in my mind. You don’t look the same.

[01:06:09] We don’t look like each other. I’ve not got his funky hairdo. We’re like chalk and cheese and very similar in this in the same.

[01:06:15] And that’s what’s nice isn’t it. And I think that’s lovely. Yeah. And that’s why the two of you work so well together. And it’s the same again with you, my brother. You and your brother. Your brother and I, Kailash and I, we are the same. We’re chalk and cheese. And I think that’s why we work so well and we can be good friends. But that’s why I contacted you, because I thought, you know, I’m obviously not doing it right and I know I can still do better. But the problem I have is I am the problem because it’s letting go of that control, you know. And yes, I could expect, you know, and yes, I could get more people. I mean, I have 144 five Google reviews and I would be so upset if someone walked up and ruin that, you know, my insecurity, I’ll be sitting in a corner crying, rocking, like, you know, like, like really in a zoo, you know what I mean?

[01:07:03] Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, you’ve created that whole, that environment around you, right? And you’ve realised that you don’t want the additional stress of multiple associates or all the rest of it and you’re in control of that. Right. And you can go on holiday whenever you want and whatnot. And that’s, and that’s cool. And it’s all about you. And and there’s nothing there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

[01:07:29] It’s like you just said. Also say to me, like before lockdown, they said, you spend ten weeks out of the out of the out of the clinic. And I’m like, well, it doesn’t feel like I spend ten weeks the most lecturing board, whatever it is, and the few holidays that might have gone on. And then when obviously when lockdown came along after lockdown, because I’ve not gone anywhere because you realise you’ve turned over this much and I’m like, What? And it’s like, I don’t understand why, because you never, you’re here, you know? And it’s like, Oh yeah.

[01:07:57] And you know, all of that comes down to, well, what you want out of life, right? The balance like, does turning over a significant number mean anything to you? Right. Is it important to you? Does your lifestyle allow you to sustain something that’s a lower level of income than than you could ever possibly spend anyway? And it’s all relative, mate. And, you know, you talked about like growth, right? We were talking about and you said, I know it’s me that’s holding me back. Yeah, we’re all holding ourselves back. Right. You know, I’ve been asked to give a lecture on growth at the dentistry show and the. Oh, my opening line will be the reason why none of you were growing beyond where you want to grow is just look in the mirror. Take a selfie. Right. It’s you. Yeah. We all have our self limiting beliefs or whatever. Right. And that’s what holds us back. But it’s okay.

[01:08:49] Yeah, you’re right. It is okay. And you’ve got it. And if you can accept it, that’s cool, right? But the problem is we all have this fear of missing out. And luckily I of course, I have this now, but it’s always based on something that’s really crappy and not important to my profession. Does that make sense? You know, be like, you know what, I’d love a PlayStation five, but you know, I’m not going to buy one yet. You know, that’s obvious. You know, I’d like some Lego and but I’m not going to buy it because it’s really expensive. But that’s what.

[01:09:18] I’m not going to buy it because someone’s going to send me a gift of Lego anyway, so.

[01:09:23] I can hope I can. But that one thing about Phil Green and David Cohen, because they used to use the guy called Chris Burrow and I don’t know Chris very, very well, but it essentially they used him to sort of develop the business. And and and Phil would take me to like a business lecture at the armoury in in Leeds and was Michael Gerber and he wrote a book called The E-Myth. Right. I remember you. I just mind is like 152 years old or whatever and still got enthusiasm. I don’t know how old is now if you’re still alive, but but essentially he was amazing. And there’s like a lot of people sitting in this room maybe, I don’t know, 800 people and a lot of them are dentists and they all want to get out. Right, or be able to do something different. But like you said, we all want we are our worst enemy. And and he was saying so he rocked up at the at the hotel. And and he was like, well, and he was listening to some of the conversation of some of the people around there that were saying, well, I can’t park my car here. And and then he was saying he thought about it. And then he was at the conference, he said, right. They talked about this park, people starting to park the car there. And he says, well, I could develop a business where I’ve got a little, little bicycle, you know, that folds away, put in to back someone’s back of their car.

[01:10:45] And I can then validate it off someplace else and park it someplace, right, then get back to the hotel so I can do this as a business. And then he was saying, he says, I’ll go to one hotel, say the Hilton is doing it even though they weren’t doing it and getting them all to do do this business. He was just making this business proposition and it was like that made sense. But then when we were talking about dentistry, he was saying, this is what you can do. And he goes and we said, You can’t do that. It just doesn’t work. And we’re the problem because we can’t see. And this is why someone like you comes into into play where you sort of sit from a distance and you go, well, actually, you’re the problem. It can be done. This is the way to do it. But we can’t see that. And I think and sorry, sorry about interrupting, but I think my issue also is that we have these dental business coaches and in my mind, I don’t like dental business coaches because you’re still a dentist, you still have the same attitude, you know what I mean? It needs to be coming from another aspect, whereas completely remote from our business.

[01:11:48] What I’ll say about that is that you know how you’ve got yourself limited in belief, and my clients have their own self-limiting beliefs and I help them through that journey. Right. I have my own self-limiting beliefs as well. Yeah. I’m not this, you know, this this guy who’s got all the answers, right.

[01:12:06] And I look at you, I’ll be able to pick holes in you. Oh.

[01:12:09] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tear shreds.

[01:12:11] In you. Exactly. Because we it’s a different and different entity isn’t it. But yeah.

[01:12:16] Yeah. When you’re in it it’s hard to see from that, from that bird’s eye view. Right. So I have coaches as well. Right. Because, because I need that right and so on and so forth. But going back to going back to you, so now practise owner and then the other aspect of your of your life is teaching. I one of the, one of the pieces of content that I do see out there a lot is, you know, you’re in Newcastle, you’re in London, you’re in, you know, you’re all over the place speaking, lecturing, teaching and whatnot. How did that first come about?

[01:12:51] Again, it actually tell me how that came about. So there’s a guy called Paul Tipton and everybody knows who I know Paul. So I went for a job interview for him because I was looking for work when I moved to Birmingham and it just so happened that it didn’t work out. But he always thought, okay, now he had my name and then he said, Right, he’s running these an education course and he would love me to lecture on it. So I talked about perio and aesthetic perio and and actually doing like a whole day course that I did have like, I don’t know, ten, maybe, maybe 15 years, actually, a long time. And I would let journeyman yeah, maybe a thousand dentists, right. And I loved it. You know, I really enjoy it and, and I, and I built it from that. And obviously the stuff that Ian Chappell would then get me to do, lecture at the university and then companies that ask me to get involved and all this sort of stuff because. Is why you think becoming a specialist is important really is because that you’re going to do part of the job is that you need to be lecturing and and essentially that’s just because you’re, you’re selling yourself to get referrals, aren’t you?

[01:14:00] Of course.

[01:14:01] So yeah, that, that that’s, that’s where it went from. And I don’t, I don’t do the lecturing capacity anymore because I just, I, I like it. But I was thinking it’s time for a change, you know? And what’s been happening over the some years is that people have been saying you need to run your own courses and I’m just really bit lazy or there’s not all the truth is I’m insecure because I think if I go and post on Facebook or whatever that I’m running a course, please come to my birthday party, all that sort of stuff, and nobody’s going to be coming, do you know what I mean? So that does play my mind massively so. But a good friend of mine here in Birmingham, Birmingham, called Zubair Sakhrani, he’s you know, he’s a he’s a really exceptional individual and just gives me good advice. And he’s said to me, look, let’s just run a course, you know, let me do all the hard work and we can. And I’m like, okay, you know what? Let’s just do this. So the plan is going forwards in the next year. We want to prepare courses for hygienists, therapists as well as dentists, and it’s going to be based very much on a practical way of looking at it.

[01:15:10] And yeah, we can talk about the academic side of stuff, but the way I look at it, whenever I teach any hands on or lecture, I always say, Look, if I can do it, anybody can. That’s all I want. I want I want everybody to know that because you know. You can do it. And I think I hate when you go to a conference or lecture and they set so high and I’m like, well, show me your face know, because I can see through those those those holes, you know. And then it almost makes the point, well, you know what? They’ve achieved this high. I can’t do it. And it makes then it makes clinicians around them thinking, actually, you know, I’m just going to sit in my own room, do nothing. And I don’t think that’s right. You know, yeah, I want the profession to know that they can do better and be better every day and their patients will benefit. That’s the most important thing for me.

[01:16:01] Amit, speaking of failures, what’s your biggest clinical mistake?

[01:16:07] Not getting not knowing the truth. Language of brothers.

[01:16:13] That’s not clinical, mate. Come on. And I’m sure there’s been a few, right? As with anyone with your level of experience. Right. But what’s been the biggest heart sinking moment where you just thought, shit?

[01:16:27] Okay. So there’s a lovely woman called Tracey. Right. And. Actually it will come back to that before that. The one that really bothered me the most and still does is when I was working as a dentist, I had a patient who came along. And back then we didn’t understand about bisphosphonates or bisphosphonates that are a drug that’s used in cancer treatments and also helps with osteoporosis because it reduces the activity of the osteoclasts cells. So then you get less, less bone destruction and you get more bone building because the osteoblasts. But essentially as a result of that, because you’ve got necrotic bits of bone in the within, the within the bone itself, the US can’t actually do it so it can’t eat it away. And then you get osteoblasts plastic cells, building more bone around it and you get this osteoporosis form that goes to science lecture. But you knew that.

[01:17:29] But yeah, I used to do you know what? I used to get confused between osteoblasts and osteoblasts. And my way of remembering it back then was the osteoblasts blast a load of bone out and make more bone, and then the clasps do the other bit. And that was my favourite. So, so when you were saying that it actually brought a smile to my face mate because it brought those, those memories back.

[01:17:56] Yeah. Yeah too and stuff. But yeah but he was, he was, he was, he was having this sort of bisphosphonate treatment because he had some sort of cancer in the past and then he needed these teeth taken out in the lower, lower, lower pre molars, lower left molars. And because of loose I took them out and I and back then none of us knew about it. So I took him out and it never healed. It was always necrotic and I did not know what to do. So I was always drawing the bone away, stitching it up, and it would never heal. And that was one thing. I always felt bad for this man because I just put him through this pain for year after year because of me. That was I always remember that. But one of my clinical and that was a clinical mistake based on lack of knowledge or lack of knowledge of the science in the profession to let us know these are this is a consequence. This is back in 2000. Yeah, this is back in 2000. It was in 2000 actually. Right. He hasn’t won the one of my cases that I’ve completely messed up here and I’ve learnt so much from, it’s a woman called Tracy, so and she’s just very lovely, friendly woman in her fifties and I’ve got beautiful smile and she’s got left one which needed removing and an implant placing. And I just looked at the space. I go, Yeah, I can remove it, but I didn’t. I just forgot to look at other aspects. And because essentially she had short clinical crowns, right? And when you take the tooth out, the body will then resolve back to where the clinical crown should be.

[01:19:30] So suddenly you’ve got a gap which is much higher. And I placed the implant thinking it’d be fine and the tooth was long and she didn’t like that. And then we’re now in a position where I was now going backwards and thinking, Alright, actually we need to crown lengthen all the other teeth when that wasn’t an issue for her. Right. And I was trying to all this sort of fancy reconstruction or soft tissue and it was just getting worse and worse. And then she brought a husband in. And I knew I was in trouble. And he’s and he’s a lovely guy. His name is Dave. And I would say. And all I did was I just said, look, I’m really sorry. It’s not going to plan. Right. And I think as a profession, you know, we’ve got defence unions. When I was when I was younger, they would say, you just don’t apologise because you’re admitting liability. And I think you have to learn to say, look, I’m really sorry. And then the whole situation was calm, you know, and I and I said to I said to Dave and Tracy, look, I’ll do whatever it needs to be done. It needs to be done to get this right. And they were much, much happier about the situation. And I said, you’ve got nothing to worry about costs because that’s not going to be part of the equation ever.

[01:20:36] Right. Because at that point, this patient is yours for life. I’m going to do whatever needs to be done to fix it. And luckily, I then contacted another friend of mine, David Gonzalez, in Spain, and I said, Well, what would you suggest we do here? And then we came up with a solution. And after like about two years of doing lots of other fancy stuff and she’s just over the moon, and she then on the last day of the treatment, she brought me these two lovely ties. You know, she didn’t have to. She completely forgot. Mess it up. Right. And she goes, I’ve really missed. Come in here. And I said, Look, Tracy, you’ll have my mobile number. You can contact me. You can come and see me any time. She’s now my patient for life, right? And when I let you at events, I wear these ties. And if I do talk about failures, these are the ties that woman bought me, you know? So I think I messed up cases, and I don’t ever focus on the cases. I do well and my nurse and my research centre and say, look, you know, do you realise look at what you do? I can’t see that. I only focus on the worst ones where I’m, you know, and they’re the ones that eat at me and they’re the ones I don’t I’ll not sleep through the night because I’m thinking, crap, why did I make that mistake? You know, why should I? Why should I make that mistake? How could I have done it differently?

[01:21:47] And you don’t you dealt with it really well. You know, you took ownership of it. And like you say, you’ve got a friend, stroke, patient for life. Right. And a new tie.

[01:21:57] And it’s and this is something, you know, not all my patients have my number, you know, because I know there are dentists that that will give them the number. And I think that’s a stupid right. I gave my number to patients. When I do a complex case and I say, this number is for you, contact me. There’s a problem. And they will always say, you know, I trust, you know, it’s really kind of give me a number, I will not contact you and they never do, which is amazing. You know, and I think the problem of going back to social media with Instagram, there’s this line that’s now been crossed between what you are as a person and the patient can tap on your door any time and you respond back, whereas a mobile phone, they don’t have the access to it. And I think that line of professionalism is very, very massive and grey and it makes me uncomfortable when patients contact you directly. But can you do this for me? Can you do that? But I can see the benefits if you’re trying to develop patients.

[01:22:54] Double edged sword, isn’t it? It really is. It really is a double edged sword. And you can see the huge benefits of it and also the fact that, you know, someone can DM you on Instagram and say, hey, do you know what I mean? And then and then they expect a response because they see you’ve read it right. And, you know, it connects you openly in that way. I see that and I see a see see the negative side of things.

[01:23:18] And I also think, you know, because obviously the iPhone has made things different. They that’s changing because before you would respond to an email because you would do it at home. Right. And there was no rush. But now because you don’t respond to it straight away, they think you’re being rude. Well, actually, I have a life. I’m doing other stuff. Let me respond back to you in a much better way after I thought about it. But it’s it’s and it’s the same thing with and I do find this restraint because I get a lot of young dentists asking me for advice and and I’m happy to do that. It’s not an issue, but it’s like, well, why don’t you actually contact me and actually call me? But instead they’ll send me a voice message and I have to sit and listen to this conversation. Right. And it’s like, you don’t want to listen to what I have to say, but you’re talking at me, you know, like what? The point where I could just we can have a conversation and just like now we can break it up, break it down, you know, figure out where where they want to go. It is interesting.

[01:24:19] Really interesting.

[01:24:20] I don’t know the answer, but I mean, recently it’s interesting that I spoke to someone and this new generation of young people that are coming out of dental school and they are now starting to follow Instagram dentists based on their clinical work. Okay, now that I was when I heard that, I just thought, that’s what you should be doing. You should be saying, right, this is what I want to emulate myself, not based on trying to look like a Z list celebrity and. From Love Island or whatever, whatever TV show it is, reality TV show where you’re trying to be something to someone so that you can then get patients through the door. Whereas it should be based on, well, this is the outcomes I can do. This is what my patient comes in with and this is what I can do for you. And that’s the way I think is that you’re an advertisement. You’re not trying to. Then the patient is not your friend because you fuck it up. They will sue the shit out of you. Doesn’t matter what fake relationship you have. The relationships I’ve got with my patients is a different situation because I can fix it. And I know enough people that will help me. And I will pay whatever needs to be done. But. There is that that balance. It’s it’s it’s not real friendship.

[01:25:41] Yeah. It’s interesting what you say. And I think, you know, some people might be listening to this thinking you’re an old fuddy duddy.

[01:25:48] I am and I am.

[01:25:50] And, you know, and I understand that part. And I totally resonate with what you’re saying right now. And, you know, when when dentists and dentists are looking at and saying, I want to be a better dentist, I want to be a better clinician. I want to learn how to move my hands in this patient’s mouth to get the best outcome right, whatever the black boxes happens in between. And then there’s others that want to emulate what you mentioned before, because they’re more interested in turning a business, making money, attracting patients. Do they have the clinical skill set to deliver what it is they’re promising? I have no place to comment on that. Yeah, because I’m not I’m not a clinician. And, you know, we can look at this on an individual basis. I’m sure others can comment on that. You know, I’m in no position to comment. But, you know, if you look at long term, you know, where where’s your dentistry go in in 15 years? Where’s your dentist should go in in 20 years time. How long does your dentistry last. Yeah, you know, am I going to do the Treacy on somebody else. Yeah. Because, because I don’t have that knowledge or the bisphosphonates thing. Right. There’s a very strong argument that get that solid grounding underneath you before you start pushing that out. But I see both sides of it.

[01:27:03] I mean, you’re right, I’m an old fart, but I’m also looking at it in a way that there’s a longevity to your career. Right. And I think people are forgetting it because I have a meeting yesterday and. People wanting things now is because of the of iPhones and everything be much more Amazon. This doesn’t happen in dentistry. It just cannot be. And if so, what is it? They say there’s three things in it. You can. Is it cheap? Can I get it done quickly and will it last? Did those three things work together? They don’t, do they? Yeah. Yeah. That’s the direction we’ve gone into haven’t we. Yes. Right. And then when it goes wrong, who they’re blaming. Right. Because we live in a society, especially here in the UK. You know, you and I know patients will buy new iPhones every year. Yeah. Unless they can’t afford it. Or they’ll. They’ll buy a new car every year in finance or they’ll buy a new TV because there’s a new whatever, whatever rubbish it is. Right. But yet when they’ve spent tens of thousand pounds on their veneers or whatever it is, they expect it to last. But it’s because they don’t understand. They don’t value what we do and understand that this is you know, it’s got a longevity. Does that make sense? And it takes time. It’s a skill set. And you’ve got to take your time. It’s like building a house. You can’t build it like tomorrow, you know, and you educate the population. And and that is an issue. But then dentists have gone down that path. Okay, let’s chase the money, which is fine. It’s not an issue. But then realise I don’t know what I’m trying to say, but it’s, it’s, it’s frustrating because the longevity, you’ve got to enjoy the, the job and you will just, you will reap the rewards promise you. And you know, I mean ten years ago I was making £35,000 a year. I’m a specialist, but I didn’t really care because I was loving the job. Now it’s a very different situation because it’s you know.

[01:29:02] What you say about longevity there resonates with what you know, some of the teachings that I’ve sat in on lectures given by TIFF. Qureshi Right. And he he talks about and documents cases that he did 15 years ago, the mistakes he made, how this stuff is lasting. Right. And he speaks to patients about something called the replacement event.

[01:29:23] Okay.

[01:29:24] And so when he places something on a patient’s tooth, he’ll educate them on how long that’s likely to last, when it’s going to need replacing and what the likely cost of that replacement is. And I think a lot of clinicians, from my experience and speaking to them, they they talk about the event as in slap in whatever it is in their mouth. Right. And I mean, that would a bit a bit bit more respect than, say, slapping, right? But but putting a restoration in their mouth or whatever. But they don’t really educate them on what you’re going to have to come back in five years time. And and you’ll need a new bridge or you’ll need a new this. And if you if you grind your teeth, these ain’t going to last for 12 months. You’ve got to wear this splint or whatever. Right. And there’s less of that that goes on. And so what you’ve just said is it really does remind me of.

[01:30:13] The one thing I mean, I see I did not know of Qureshi until Facebook, but I think I might have heard of him. I read his articles in some of the magazines, but I’ve never met him. And and yet I know if I do meet him, I would get on with him because I just think, you know, he’s looking out the patient’s best interests and also learning from his mistakes. And just the work is doing is exceptional. And this is and I’m not belittling what he’s doing, but essentially it’s relatively simple work, you know, but which has massive benefits to the patient, you know, not just with, you know, with the aesthetics, but also with regards to the tooth wear and all that sort of stuff that occurs with it. And and I think this is the stuff that maybe they’re not teaching at university to a certain extent. Maybe it could be as simple as that, you know, I don’t know. But you’re right, this the education part of it is an issue. I mean, we had this meeting again yesterday and we as dentists, struggle to talk about money, maybe less so now, but we still talk about money. And, you know, maybe we should be taught that universe to say, you know what, this is what the things cost on the NHS. These are what the costs would be for the lab. And this you understand about the business aspect because now associates are coming, well, you should pay me this much, but they’re not understanding the repercussions of the principle of they know and I think they should be taught these things and then maybe taught the benefits of private therapy that can be done and what is available in the NHS.

[01:31:48] And I think and then they’re thrown in the big wide world and they’ve got someone like a principal try to teach him that and they can’t always fully grasp it. I mean, going back to your brother Kailash, you know, he’s he’s very, very good at explaining all this stuff to his associates. And he does that. He does his own private scheme. And I thought that was an amazing idea where he’s training up somebody to work in a private setting. And when I heard that, I just thought, why don’t other people do that? It just makes sense, you know, you know, he’s been trained to be an NHS dentist because you get the NHS number, but the NHS is good, but patients want more, you know, but we need to be able to deliver that. But to do it well with the skill set that we have developed for longevity. Then the patients value what you’ve done and they have to understand why it costs them. I mean, you’ve explained that, haven’t you, to me before, where you sort of you how many times did we always apologise, know to a patient, oh, he’s going to cost 600 quid. Is that okay? That’s an apology. You know, this is going to be. No, it’s not okay. That same patient will go from buy £100,000 car. They don’t quibble when they pay them.

[01:33:02] Though. And the car dealer doesn’t turn around and say, is that okay? Or your lady in Sainsbury’s who’s selling you a banana doesn’t say that’s $0.23. Is that.

[01:33:12] Okay? No, but we do all these. And I say this as well. I mean, I’ve heard this. I think I think I’ve heard it from you or from Ashley Latta or whoever. But essentially, you know, you’re going to do a composite filling and it’s 300 quid and then, you know, 20 quid and then you sort of thinking might well, it doesn’t take that long. And it’s going to be and I know the patient has got so much money and I’m going to now charge them on a quid.

[01:33:37] And actually, Ashley talks about that a lot.

[01:33:40] Then you say you found a quid and then the thing is he says, fine, you can say that, right? Do we ever say it’s discounted? But we never say that. But you say, look, you know what? Normally we charge £200, but I’m going to do it for £100. How does that sound? And the way you say it, how does that sound? Because that actually sounds really great, doesn’t it? Yeah, the patient will then know it and you see a same thing. One of the things I struggle here in Birmingham is that it’s obviously very cultural and stuff and I get certain groups of people coming in and they’ll I say it’s going to cost £30,000 for these implants. They come back, say, do for me for ten. Right? So and you know where I’m coming from, right? I love that when they say that. And and I’m going, okay. Now, the thing is, I’ve met many dentists in this city or in the UK that have done it for ten. That patient was the patient’s expectation of the cost really should be 30. Right. So when it goes wrong they will blame you because it should be better just because you’ve got it for ten. Meaning they’ve got a bargain. It’s wrong. So I and I have had to fix so many dentists work, patient, dentist, work for the case that they’ve undercharged. And I’m then charging the patient, the dentist, the real fee.

[01:34:58] And so on. Right.

[01:34:59] Yeah. Well, you know, we all make this mistake, but it’s like, you know, if a patient is arguing with you, I’m not going to they’re going to break you when it goes wrong. And I’ve learnt that and I’m like, I don’t. He said, one woman come and see me and I’ll always remember this very wealthy woman. And she said to me, Oh, I’ve been told I need a gum graft around this implant in the lower right six. And I’m like, well yeah, I can do it. But then I wasn’t charging a lot of money and it was going to be £400. Right. And she drives him with this very expensive car outside. And she’s busy saying to me, Oh, that’s too expensive. And I’m looking at it and and I’m not backing down. And she’s saying, Well, I said, I’d rather not do anything. And she says to me, Well, it sounds like you do it for free. And I said, No. And I said, I’m the only one in the West Midlands that can do this, and you don’t want to irritate me any further. And she was well aware of that. Never. I never seen it. But then I turned around and I said, So what’s your son do? And she goes, Oh, he’s a lawyer. I said, Oh, that’s really good. Yeah. And I said, So what would you feel if your son had to reduce his fees? She said, Nothing, you know, and that was it. But I think you have to have that confidence to tell people, fuck off.

[01:36:12] Yeah, no. Yeah. In a roundabout way.

[01:36:16] Yeah.

[01:36:17] Absolutely. Absolutely. Let’s move on to the Association of Dental Implant ology. Right. Because, you know, we’ve been chatting for about an hour and a half, mate. And if if if we’d just sort of said, right, we’re speaking to we speak we’re speaking to the president of the ADA. Yeah. I don’t think the conversation would have been as candid as it’s been now. And and I think I think, you know, you’re probably different to all the past presidents for sure. Yeah. Tell me about that. How did it come about? How did you become president? Why did you want to become president? And what what does it involve?

[01:36:53] Okay. So I was in Scotland treating a patient for a guy called Atiq Rahman. So he asked me, he said, I’ve got a case and I really would love you to do the gum graft in this patient or whatever it was. It was, you know, went well. And then I got a phone, I got a text message from somebody on the committee and they were saying, Oh, we would love you to be on the committee. And this is about six years ago, I think. And I’m like so I sent a message back saying, Can I just tell you something? I’m not very much liked within the profession. I don’t think they’d want me on the committee because I say what I say, you know, I’m not very political. And they were like, Oh, no, don’t worry about it. They’ve all decided that they would like you on. But I’m like, All right, fine. And I wasn’t even a member of the Adeyeye, right? Because one of the reasons why I wasn’t a member of the Adeyeye is because the way I was trained at guys, which is which is a real pity now when you think about it, because if you weren’t a specialist, then you shouldn’t be placing implants or you shouldn’t be part of the society. The Adeyeye was an organisation that was set up by general dental practitioners who were placing implants so they could then have a network of discussing cases and stuff, which I think is a really good, you know, really good.

[01:38:06] But then they were like, Well, you don’t need to be a member of that. You need to do other stuff. So I would I always just kept my distance because of that little seed being planted in mud. And I used to go to events abroad because it was bigger events anyway. So I then turn up at this committee meeting and I had to become a member because obviously if you’re going to be on the committee, has to be a member. And it was really interesting because there was a group of people that they were enthusiastic and they were doing doing it in most part for the benefit of the profession. Obviously, there are individuals that are on their decline, whatever political or whatever rubbish they think they’re going to get from it. Because in my mind, you know, do you remember who the president was last year or the year before? You won’t remember because the names disappear. Who knows, right? It’s just if you can make a difference in my mind, I think that would be amazing. So. So, yeah. And I was and from that, I mean, I met some really good friends. I mean, there’s a friend of mine called Pinata George and he’s this exceptional implant that does dogmatic implants, and he’s pushing the whole fallout stuff in a completely different way, which is much more predictable.

[01:39:14] And he’s making a big difference. So and then another guy called Paul Champagne and a guy called George Margaritas. All of these individuals I’ve been able to I wouldn’t have met if I wasn’t part of that committee. And obviously, there are people that I’m, you know, and that research and that stuff. So that was good. And then I started to understand the whole politics of it all a little bit. And then it came in that first two years, they sort of said, Alright, we need to vote, we need, we need to have an election to see who’s going to be the next president. So my name got put forward, right? And what was interesting about that was and it was lovely that my name was and I’m like, okay, I’ll be happy to do it because I’ll give it a go. Never done it. Yeah, never been, never been el presidente of anything really. And I do call myself anti because yes I do take it seriously, but I’ve also got to do my own thing of course. And, and essentially when, when I was trying to get votes, I was, I was speaking to some of the people on the committee and they were saying, we don’t want a specialist in Perio to be the president because that is wrong.

[01:40:22] And I was like, I couldn’t understand that because Perio is very important, is very much a period orientated think thing without a doubt. You know, all of the treatments, all of the technologies that are involved in periodontitis is based on implants as well. So it just they they’re so side by side, the brother and sister without any hesitation. So, you know, I had half of the group saying no. I said, okay, no problems, you know. And then when it came to the vote, I was up against someone and I beat him by two votes. But but what was interesting was the email that came because his name in the alphabet was before mine. So I just thought he’d won automatically because I didn’t bother reading the rest of the email. Right? So I’m going to carry on. And then I got this text message for some people in the committee going, Oh, congratulations. I’m like, For what I’ve got, I’m not one because I was guaranteed to lose against this individual who had had been president of other societies and stuff because they felt that, you know, he had more experience and but it was hilarious. I’m like, Oh, then I read the email, oh my God, I did win.

[01:41:29] So it was hilarious. But so that was, that was very pleasant because as an implant society, to have a periodontist, hopefully running it for a couple of years and pushing it in a particular direction will give a different impetus to it. You know, we’re getting more hygienists and therapists who are now like, well, you know what? Maybe they have something that the AGI might have something to give them. Course and and we’re getting more periodontist there are training wanted to join the society which has been really lovely and my aim for that for the society which which isn’t going to happen and it’s because of the pandemic things have slowed things down in a particular way was to make it much more of an international organisation. Normally we get about 800 to 1000 people attend the conference every two years and no other implant societies in Europe will get three and a half 5000 people attending an event called CEPA in Spain 12 years ago. They only had 400 people attend. Now it’s like one of the it’s got four, five, 6000 people attending. So and that’s run every year. So I’m I’m not saying I want to emulate them, but I would love to go in that direction. And it’s a that’s a reorganisation, you know, it’s not implant organisation, but obviously we’re running cyber sites so there’s lots of amazing speakers of that.

[01:42:54] So that’s what I want and, and I really want more young people to be involved. So because it is very much a society full of a certain group of individuals and they’ll be retiring in the next five, ten years. So what will we have as a membership? You know, and right now what I’ve learnt is that when I lecture for some of these implant courses like there’s a, there’s a course called Smile Academy run by Ginn and a guy called Kish. Yeah. You know, you look at them, they’re, they, they, they, they are technically young with the way they look, but they’re not, they’re obviously much more older, but they have a different outlook on stuff. And the people that are on that course, you know, have been attracted to them for one for a reason, whichever reason it is. And maybe societies need to change in that direction to because they all have their WhatsApp groups that they can discuss cases. So they have got their own network. But why are they not wanting to be part of a society to have another network to to do you know what I mean? So I think all societies need to adapt and not be very much an old boys club, you know.

[01:44:01] To attract that younger generation of dentists.

[01:44:05] And and, you know, and some of them, you know, like there’s a guy called Git and he’s Jim’s brother and he’s an exceptional clinician and there’s a guy called Viraj Patel. He’s future is amazing. I mean, I was invited to lecture for Guy like, I don’t know, September, October, October. And essentially it was going to be me. Right. And a mate of mine, Julia Russell. Really, the two of us are going to let you the whole day on soft tissue and implant stuff. But then Guy said to me, would you do you think we should have another person? And I’m like, Do you know what? You should invite Viraj Patel right now. This is an individual that hasn’t had an opportunity to do that sort of thing, but he’s talented now. When I was younger, how many people would have actually put my name forward to lecture on the same stage? They want to be doing it themselves. Does that make sense? And I think those opportunities have to be now given to some of these individuals because my day has come and gone. Do you know what I mean? I’ll be running courses locally here, but these individuals need to need to inspire the new, new generation of implant dentists. And I think this is where the addy should have a role and get them involved.

[01:45:15] I mean, I run I organised a masterclass in March and we only had like 150 people attend. That’s nothing. We had the full best for the most exceptional individuals around the world attend. Right. A guy called Luke Stoller, we had David Gonzalez, we had a professor from Sweden called Christa Darling. We had a mate of mine from Brazil called Paolo Paolo Paolo Mesquita. And he came over and these guys usually lecture to thousands of people. And the reason why I wanted them to lecture, because they were telling the whole story about guided bone regeneration and implants and what could be achieved. And these are individuals that have inspired me to try to want to be better. And I think, you know, and I wanted more young people to attend and we did. And and I wanted them to realise that you can do more and be better and be more like these individuals if you can aim, you know what I mean? So and I think that’s what we have to do as a society. But so the plan now is that I’m going to try to organise. I’ve already contacted the old dental schools. I’m going to be getting representatives from the dental schools to be part of the society, will have two people from each dental school.

[01:46:27] And I’ve got to now communicate with the deans and ask them, could you give them days off next year? Because we have a conference next May that’s going to be in Birmingham and get them to be part of that event. And then on the Saturday we’re going to it’s been a many, many, many years before we’ve we’ve got students event organised. So I’m going to, I’m going to organise a student event on the Saturday so all undergrads will rock up at. This thing. And the plan is I’m going to get a good friend of mine called Anthony Budowsky, who runs an exceptional employment practise and is very smart. Talks about the purple cow and business. Oh, yeah, yeah. He’s a he’s a smart cookie and a good friend of mine. Again, another guy called Bill Schafer, who I skydive with, and he runs another very good practise. But again, both their journeys have been different. I’m going to get a friend of mine called Fiona McKillop and she’s a specialist in parallel, works for Android down on the street and her story’s different. So I don’t want it to be too heavily male orientated. I want to be able to have women there to at least talk about their journey.

[01:47:31] And I’m going to get a couple of young guys, a guy Laffan, and talk about his journey. I’m going to invite and invite Sascha Melman also because he can do Instagram and stuff because they want to. Yeah, but I want to be able to talk about all these different journeys. On how they became implant dentists. Then they can be students can sit there, you know what? I can potentially do this, you know, and then they’ll be able to come to the main event on the Saturday afternoon and hear two of the best speakers and clinicians. Again, Ricardo Kearns, talented, amazing and, and friend of my uncle Ramon Gomez from Portugal. So talented. So they’ll be able to say, look, you see them on Instagram and Facebook, but essentially they’re all well published, but they show beautiful aesthetic work. So I’m really looking forward to that next year. But this, this, this month we have a conference in Manchester which is run it was supposed to be postponed from last year because of the whole pandemic situation. The past president, Emma, obviously hasn’t had the best run of it all because she’s not been able to implement things that she would like to have. So the conference is running this and we’re hoping that it will be a big success.

[01:48:48] And of May, right? Was it 27? 28.

[01:48:51] Yeah. You lecturing there, aren’t you?

[01:48:52] I’m speaking. Yeah, you invited me. So you’ll be the reason why I’ll be experiencing some sort of anxiety.

[01:49:02] Maybe I’ll just come from you. I go that irritating you, you be like, Yes, yeah. Excuse me. But yeah, I think. I don’t know. I think it’s not just the ADA. I think all societies need to learn to change to somehow get these younger people involved. And and I want these representatives of the universities hopefully push the society, and we’ll go and lecture at the events. And we’ve got some people on the committee that be willing to lecture at these universities. I mean, I’d be happy to do it. It’s not an issue to empower and give these students an informed decision, really. I mean, it’s it’s interesting going back to that. I mean, I’ve got I’ve met a couple of newly qualified specialists who contact me again. I’ve only become a periodontist because of you. And I’m like, and the responsibility of that is really annoying, right? But and I’m like, you should have told me, right? Because now, now I feel I own you, and I need you to do well, you know, really. And they sort of said, I heard you lecture and I realise this is and I’m thinking, really, I just talked about gum disease and this and the other, but who knows that they are going to be they are talented already, better than I was at that age. And I love that, you know, and and and I’m happy to say that they are better than I was at that age and they’re going to be even better, you know, which is so cool.

[01:50:29] Amit We’re getting towards the end of the time for this podcast. But, but, but, but I really want to talk about your skydiving mate. So tell me about like I’ve seen crazy videos of you jumping out of planes and you know, you’ve got, you’re showing me your parachute that you assemble, put together, pop this pin in. You were telling me if you you know.

[01:50:55] This and then the whole parachute pops out from there.

[01:50:58] Yeah, yeah. And there’s a tiny bit of string that connects you to the parachute and all the rest of it. I mean.

[01:51:04] I wouldn’t. This tiny bit of string. Yeah. How old you to the parachute? This is if I pull this out. Yeah. And I’ve told this away.

[01:51:15] Yeah.

[01:51:16] You’re dead and it’s gone. Yeah.

[01:51:20] And for those that haven’t got the benefit of seeing this parachute, it’s. It’s a it’s a, you know, it’s a piece of string that can’t be any thicker than a shoelace, that’s for sure. That’s holding you to this parachute. And then you’ve got the responsibility of assembling it after you’ve landed. And I can trust myself to do that. Absolutely no way. How did you how did you get into skydiving and jumping out of planes in the first place and why?

[01:51:46] I remember when I was younger and you just watched these people base jumping and you’d see, you know, obviously there was. What was that? What was that film called? With Keanu Reeves and. Yeah. Break, break, breakpoint or something like that. I can’t remember. Oh, I can’t remember. I dive in and I love to watch James Bond. You know, he’d pull a parachute, and then he would, you know, and he’d jump out of an aeroplane and pull the parachute much further down and base jumping, which is what I really wanted to do. I wanted to jump off buildings, and that’s what I really want to do ultimately. Right. But the problem is, I am scared of heights and I’m scared of heights of maybe about 15 feet, 20 feet. I get very, very unhappy about it. But I thought, you know what? That might help me get over my fear of jumping heights. So after I qualified, after after I found a degree and then went to the US and I learnt how to jump out of aeroplanes and within about two and a half days I was doing it all by myself. I was terrified. I mean, I’m there in the plane you’re holding on the door and there’s a man outside holding onto you and the man inside. And I’m going, No, no, because I didn’t want to jump out. It’s 12 and a half, 13,000 feet, and the guy is looking at the other guy. It goes right, dragging him out. And I’m there going, Oh, my God.

[01:53:06] So you do it, Tandem. Do you do it tandem to stop?

[01:53:08] No, no, you can if you want to. But I did something called accelerated freefall, where you just get thrown out of the plane and there’s two guys holding you, and then you just try to learn to fly, say, I mean, the whole concept of skydiving is if you have a ball. Yeah, always is this way and you turn it this way, you drop it. It’s always going to turn back on. It’s on its belly, isn’t it? Okay. So you’re always trying to fall. Would you belly down? Because then you’re going to have you’re going to fall correctly. But as soon as you start a dodge, yeah, what could potentially happen is you can then flick up back on your back, right. So there’s lots, it’s all clever stuff. So within about two and a half days, I was jumping out of planes by myself, which was shocking. And then and then I was just learning to fly this parachute, right? And then I went a year later, I did another I had 50 jumps by then and I bought parachute. So it was like nowadays they wouldn’t let you buy a parachute because that’s like a lethal weapon. You can kill yourself. Right? And I was just been jumping. I got like I took the 13 year break because it was expensive and I was doing my training and I had money. And so I’ve got maybe 300 jumps. I went away to Russia and I went to Russia for two weeks and I was jumping out of military helicopters. It was the coolest thing, you know, the doors open at the back of the helicopter and you just legging it out. And that was really cool. And I did about I did 86 jumps in ten days. So, you know, I do love it. I know, I know it’s sad. And now I’ve got back into I’m older, I’m a bit more fearful and my landings aren’t very good. So I’m trying to get training on how to land better and I’m getting better at it. But it’s only because I’m scared of heights, because you see, at a certain height, I’m getting scared.

[01:54:55] That you’ve jumped out of a plane 300 times or whatever you’ve just said you can’t be scared of heights anymore.

[01:55:00] Oh, yesterday I was in a practise in Harley Street at this meeting and we were quite high up and I couldn’t stand on the edge. It was so scary. And. And it was like leaning against his banister. I’m like, I just don’t. I didn’t want to be standing there. We came down one flight. I was like, Oh, this is easy. It was really weird.

[01:55:21] That’s bonkers.

[01:55:23] That is bonkers. But this is why I messed up with my landings because at about 20 feet, the parachute was coming at about 30 miles an hour. And it’s like getting this wrong, getting it wrong, but I’m getting a bit better. But I’ve got friends who are world champions and they are flying their parachute in at about 70 miles an hour, 80 miles an hour.

[01:55:42] And.

[01:55:42] Landing it. And it’s it’s amazing. I don’t think I’ll ever be there, but I love it. And now I’m doing a lot of wind tunnel flying. I’m flying in a wind tunnel and trying to learn how to.

[01:55:51] Do little tricks and stuff.

[01:55:54] It is cool. So I go every two Mondays a month. I drive down to Milton Keynes. Yes, 30 minutes in the winter. Wow. And like my mate, Bill Schaffer, he’s he’s a skydiver as well. And the long term plan is to get winged suits and go flying in a wingsuit across whatever we need to do. So before lockdown, they have a wind tunnel in Stockholm, which actually the wind is obviously coming horizontally and you can fly suits and you can do loads. It’s like you’re an aeroplane, you know what I mean? It’s so cool. And when I skydive. Yeah. It’s just so peaceful. You know, my brain, love. I don’t think about teeth. I don’t think about anything. I’m just having it. It’s just relaxing. But people say it’s an adrenaline rush. There isn’t really. Because now for me, it’s just the only time my adrenaline starts pumping is when I’m trying to land, because that’s where I’m scared.

[01:56:51] But once you jump out of this plane and then you’re you’re in the air, right? And then what are you just floating about for a bit? And then you pull the cord or what?

[01:57:01] This is all.

[01:57:02] This is all foreign to me, right? I’ve seen it on the on the movies and stuff. Right. But you literally jump out. Are you just bolting down now at that point.

[01:57:11] About 100. And so in about 120 on average. But I’ve done maybe 180 miles an hour when I’ve gone down with my head down and stuff, because then, you know, you’ve got less surface air and you are plummeting and you lose altitude very quickly and you’ve got these altimeters and you’ve got audible ultimate in your ear that’s telling you 10,000 feet, 9000 feet, and it’s going very quickly and you realise it’s cool. And then you’re also flying with a whole bunch of other people. So you can, you know, you can then come together and you sort of holding hands and all that sort of stuff. It’s pretty cool and you’ve.

[01:57:47] Got time to do all of that at 100 and odd miles an hour.

[01:57:51] Now you got loads that you don’t realise how much time you have. It’s about minute that just shoots past so slowly. You know, I remember one time I was, I was in Russia and I was, I was there’s a way you can you can fly and you can fly like you’re on the surface. You sit flying, right? Yeah. And so cool. And so I was above above the cloud and the sun was setting and above the cloud. The sun was just setting and it was beautiful. It was just stunning. And I always remember it. And then when I when I when I went beyond the cloud, then you saw that it was another different view. And it’s just, it’s it’s so peaceful and relaxing. Yeah. There is no adrenalin rush to me. It’s just like, Oh, this is cool. It’s fun going to go mess around and literally just playing in the air, you know? We’re just playing in the air.

[01:58:40] Yeah. I don’t think I’m scared. I have to do it. I’m scared of roller coasters. Me?

[01:58:45] Me, too. Me, too. Especially at the top. And then the rest of. It’s fun. Yeah. You can that as far as you can.

[01:58:55] Yeah, I’m no I’m no thrill seeker mate. But I know people who’ve sat in your Tesla and you’ve given, you’ve given them a run for their money. So I’ve yet to experience that. But they call you a crazy so-and-so and. But we’re coming to the end of this, this podcast. And, you know, before we started this podcast.

[01:59:16] Why would you want to do a tandem jump?

[01:59:19] No way, mate.

[01:59:21] So I’m going to put your name on the list because I’m going to organise a whole bunch of dentists that wanted to.

[01:59:25] You didn’t hear what I just said them, mate.

[01:59:26] No way. I’m a bit deaf in this. Hang on, let me try this one.

[01:59:30] No fucking way. Me. Not a chance, mate. Anyway.

[01:59:37] I mean, dentists that have said they want to do it.

[01:59:40] Really? Really.

[01:59:41] I’m going to organise it and I will organise it. But if you wanted it, it would be my pleasure. Thank you. I won’t go in it, but I’ve got Red Devils who’ll be happy to do it for you.

[01:59:51] Right. Anyway, moving on from that conversation, we when we started this podcast, I said that, you know, wouldn’t it be really nice if we could just record a conversation of me and you having dinner over a beer or something like that and just and just like and then we could speak more freely. I think we have been able to speak quite freely, actually. And I think, yeah, it’s been, it’s been a really good conversation.

[02:00:17] I’m fine, I’ve enjoyed it and I’ve learnt loads from you, you know.

[02:00:20] And I mean we usually end this podcast with a couple of a couple of questions and one of them is if it was your last day on the planet and you were surrounded by all your loved ones and you had to leave them with three pieces of wisdom, what would they be?

[02:00:40] I think. If you work hard, you will be successful. I think that’s the most important thing. And I think. It’s. I think distraction of stuff that’s not important is where you will you will just. You know, just not do well. Does that make sense? I don’t know. I am going down the social media path and I don’t. Yeah. So. Work hard, be successful. And then I think you have to have a good balance in your life, which I think a lot of us have struggled with.

[02:01:18] We all struggle with it.

[02:01:19] Yes. You know, work hard. Play hard. Yeah. You know, but that balance is really, really important because there’s going to be a point where you’re going to regret the stuff that you not had the opportunity to, you know, to have done because we’re we. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s the only. That’s too, isn’t it.

[02:01:38] Okay. So first piece of advice, put the graft in. Yeah. Put the graft.

[02:01:43] Only works with that doesn’t it. Yeah.

[02:01:45] Yeah. The second piece of advice have some balance in your life.

[02:01:50] Yeah. And it could be you find time just to spend time with your friends and family, you know, how often do we do all that? We try to make the effort, but it doesn’t really happen because they’re the ones that ground you, don’t they? Really?

[02:02:06] 100%. And they’re the ones that matter, right? They’re the ones that are going to turn up if you end up in hospital. They’re the ones who are going to be crying at your funeral. Right. Exactly. Not the 5000 followers you’ve got on Facebook.

[02:02:17] No. Exactly. Exactly. This is it. Yeah. And the third thing. And this is cheesy. Everybody says it. You know, you do the best you can and the next day do better, you know, because that’s the only way, because I think, you know, we’re all very competitive. But the person we’re not we have to compete with is ourselves. And I think, you know, I don’t want to be like Solanki. You know, I don’t want to be like whoever else, you know, because, you know, you know what I mean? But but the thing is, it’s a matter of trying to just do better every day and knowing that you’ve done better the next day. I think that’s I think that that for me is important because otherwise, how would you gauge. Yeah, you know where you are?

[02:03:08] Yeah, absolutely. Well, that’s really nice of it. And final question. Fantasy dinner party, three guests, dead or alive, who would they be?

[02:03:22] Good question. Charles Dickens. Mm hmm. Only reason why is that I’m a very I’m not a good reader of books, and I’ve read maybe ten books in my whole life because I’m the reader, because I read each word like this, and it’s a nightmare. So and so during lockdown, I bought I bought audibles. And I’ve been listening to such I want to listen to the classics, you know, and I’ve just started listening to Great Expectations and I think, oh my God, this man is an amazing author, you know? So, yeah. Charles Dickens. Dickens Yeah. I would like to add, like Elon Musk, it’s the truth, because I’d love to. Yeah, I’d love to meet him and just find out what is what is he really all about? You know what I mean? Yeah. And. I’d like Mark Hamill. Luke Skywalker.

[02:04:23] All right. Because you’re a Star Wars fan.

[02:04:26] I’d love to ask him all these questions about Star Wars and stuff. Yeah, I could ask Harrison Ford, but I’d rather not. I’d rather ask him because he is. Yeah. And he chose Elon Musk and Luke Skywalker.

[02:04:42] They’re amazing. I mean, it’s been an absolute pleasure. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation and I do feel like we could have expanded on so many more points and taken this conversation for half a day. So yeah, maybe maybe we’ll catch up at the dentistry show at the.

[02:05:00] U.s. on Saturday. I’ll come. I would love to sit there and listen to you. Yeah. Thank you. Amazing speaker.

[02:05:06] Thank you. Thank you very much.

[02:05:10] 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.

[02:05:26] 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 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.

[02:05:41] Out of it, think about.

[02:05:42] Subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend.

[02:05:46] Who you think might get some value out of it, too.

[02:05:48] Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks. And don’t forget our six star rating.

[00:00:00] The thing is, if you want to enjoy your dentistry, if you want to actually like your job, I think you’ve got to go private. At my opinion, you really got to. Nowadays, I don’t think there’s any choice. The funding is just appalling, and I admire people who try and do it for feeling that they have an ethical obligation to it, feeling that they have a moral and more moral obligation to do it. Yeah, do it for a while. Pay back what you feel is your moral obligation. As I said, I did dentistry for 16 years in the NHS, so I think I more than paid back any sort of moral obligation to society on that. But as fast as you can, I would move on.

[00:00:48] 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.

[00:01:06] It’s my great pleasure to welcome Lyle Hutchinson onto the podcast. Nile is famous or infamous really for his red wine posts that he’s been doing lately practise owner principle and has lately set up a group that’s I think one of the most important groups in dentistry now is called not such a good day at the orifice where where we look at errors and things that didn’t go so well. And my sort of antidote to the Instagram generation where everyone’s patting everyone’s back and everyone’s showing off about the things that did go well. It’s lovely to have you now.

[00:01:42] Hi, Payman. Thanks for inviting me on.

[00:01:44] My pleasure. My pleasure. We thought it would be fun to do a red wine podcast. And I’ve got to admit right now, Nile, that the bottle that I’ve chosen I haven’t got because of my my wife’s Lebanese. And so I had thought I had a bottle of matzah in the back of my cupboard. But obviously, I think that some some somewhere along the line. So I’ve got I’ve got what I call my steak wine. It’s a Bordeaux. It’s a scent Himalayan thing. The main reason I like it is that it’s on Zap, so I can push a button and it arrives within 10 seconds.

[00:02:21] Oh, yeah.

[00:02:23] What have you.

[00:02:24] Got now out in rural Berkshire? We don’t have that, I think. I don’t think we’re ready yet. But I’ve got I’ve got it. I’ve got a Australian Shiraz with me here, you know, which is not bad. Yeah. I must admit I prefer the French red wines, but yeah, the nice shiraz is not bad at all.

[00:02:42] Excellent. My favourite thing about wine is this this sound here.

[00:02:47] Oh, yeah, I know.

[00:02:49] It’s the sound. Fine. I never get quite screwed up so I can say why they broke the lid. Because you don’t get a problem with being caught. But it’s not some kind of the cork satisfying side of the cork coming out. And you just that moment that you think, I’ve just got the wine, it’s fantastic. You know, it is. It is that you know, I think there’s a who as I said, we used to live in France for a year and the French taught me to appreciate a lot more wine. And that made me realise that I actually sort of moved as straight away to Chile and Argentina. I know they do very, very good wines. I sort of have gone back to French wines, but they really certain, you know, that appreciation of the whole thing about wine, not just the drinking, but the opening of the bottle and whatever else, you know.

[00:03:34] So, you know, we’ll get into red wine itself later. But I guess the red wine post is kind of a kind of a get out clause, isn’t it? Now, like, it’s almost like in this era of sort of political correctness, you can say something a little bit more, sort of, I don’t know, the controversial.

[00:03:57] And.

[00:03:58] A little more cheeky. And you can put red wine post on it and then it’s cool. We can we can all discuss it. And I think it’s been an excellent series.

[00:04:08] Yeah, it came eventually it came out of one evening. I can’t remember my first ever post, but it came out one evening. I was genuinely drinking a bottle of red wine and I was sitting there thinking really pissed off about something, you know, it was really irritating me and I thought, Cool. So it’s on ground. Grant Macquarie’s business marketing group. And I saw that I’m going to put this up and just hashtagged it because it was sort of it was an anti Instagram hashtag. It was a hashtag red wine post. You know, I’m not Twitter, Instagram, I’m not anything like that. But I thought it was sort of slightly ironic and I thought, you know what? And it just seemed to catch on. And yeah, it certainly divides opinion. There are a lot of people out there who think I troll with it and I’m just an irritating so-and-so. But the genuine questions, I mean, they don’t always hit the mark the way I want them to. But the genuinely r question, people say, Yo, actually you ask the elephant in the room, you ask the question that a lot of us have been wanting to know the answers to. And it’s interesting the way that I mean, sometimes I have a very definite opinion on what what I think on this thing. But quite often I’ll go, actually, I don’t have a really strong opinion on either side, but it would be just interesting to see what people think. And sometimes people pick up very valid arguments and I go, Actually, that’s a very valid point. I actually never thought of that as the latest one. I think. I don’t know if you saw it at the weekend.

[00:05:39] I did 200 responses.

[00:05:41] Yes, 200 plus responses. Yes. And why do we pay any attention to this red round poster? He’s a tosser or whatever, you know. Instead, he’s.

[00:05:51] Just.

[00:05:52] Basically he spreads hate and division of the profession. And I actually sort of I did post to that.

[00:05:58] I think I. Never thought that myself.

[00:06:01] Well, no. Yeah, but it’s an interesting sort of. I’m actually a great advocate of profession. I’m an older dentist. I’m 57 for any of you listening. And I qualified in 1987 when, like, your composite came in one colour, you know, and it was occlusion by IP. It was, you know, everything was nothing was like your nothing. You know, we, you know, we still did blacks cavities, we did all that sort of stuff. So it was all it was a pipe dream, all that sort of stuff. So I sort of look at it and I look at the profession today and I go, Is it taking a path that I am proud of? Totally proud of? And I would say, yes, I’m yeah, I am so proud of most dentists that are out there. But there are a few angles to where I think, are we really a profession anymore? Are we going down a bit more of a car salesman or whatever, you know.

[00:06:56] Yeah. So that initial post was it. This one is the religion. Will there be a second coming or will it still be funded by five? No, no.

[00:07:06] That wasn’t the original post. Yeah, that was so I wasn’t. Yeah.

[00:07:11] Which, which one was it. Half the.

[00:07:14] Way back. I’ve about 24, 25. It was way back last October I think it was. But yeah.

[00:07:20] Yeah I was in the group so maybe yeah. Maybe that’s what I’m missing. Yeah. What it was. I think we should answer some of these. I think, I think we should talk about some of these red wine posts I think is a good place.

[00:07:31] I mean, it’s a good point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look them up and we’ll we’ll see what goes on. I mean, okay, back to it. Right. Let’s, let’s go for the two most recent ones. Right, CPD.

[00:07:39] Yeah, go on.

[00:07:40] Right. Do. Why is there a sudden proliferation of CPD? Well, I mean, if you look.

[00:07:50] At it because. What? Go on. Yeah, go on. What do you think?

[00:07:53] Yeah. Since just nine years ago, right. Cpd when you had a few courses, section 63 type courses, you had a few courses here and there. Tipton was a bit of a novelty. Yeah, things like that was all. But no, no. For courses everywhere you look at, you know, everybody’s doing the bloody course. So one thing is, why are there so many courses? Is it the lack of education for undergrads nowadays? I don’t know. I mean, I don’t want to put that out there because that’s an easily thrown out thing against on the grounds of qualified say, oh, you don’t know as much as we did when we qualified back in the day. I think that’s too easy an accusation to make. Or is it the fact it’s easy money? You know, and I’m not saying it’s easy, easy money because I know there will be people going out there. How dare you say that? The amount of hours of time I put in working on these lectures and I go, I agree with you on that. You know, and it’s very it’s not something I ever want to do is run the course. And I can certainly see that for hours. Know you do put in hours of it, but equally well, it must be something in for it. Is it ego or is it money or what? Or is it the desire to teach? I don’t know. I mean, what’s your opinion on it?

[00:09:06] Yeah. There’s definitely a lot more than there was. One thing I hope you’ll agree with me now. When? When we were coming through. I mean, I’m maybe seven, eight years younger than you when we were coming through. There were no courses. No. I mean, I remember thinking as a as a young associate, I remember thinking, I want to learn something about private dentistry or I want to learn something about cosmetic dentistry. And there was nothing. There was. There was one course, I think. And so a much happier overall with too many courses than too few. Yeah. The reason of why is there so many courses? I think a big part of it is, you know, the younger dentists don’t want to do NHS dentistry.

[00:09:50] Yeah.

[00:09:51] They, they, they’ve got to build their CVS or they think they’ve got to build their CVS. And going on a course has become a CV builder. Yeah. And I think we both know, you know, it’s not it’s not what you do on the course. That’s the key is what you do after the course with that information. Certainly that’s that’s really the key. But as for the question of profitability, you know, I run several courses. I’ve got a I’ve got I’ve got a horse in the race here. One thing I would say about it is it’s it’s high risk. It’s high risk. Running a course and, you know, you can toss up whatever you want to toss up, but the risk factor is important. So we’ve got a composite course, which, by the way, we didn’t just start when it became fashionable. You know, we’ve been doing it for 12 years now. But but we for the first four years of that course, we were making a loss.

[00:10:47] Yes. No.

[00:10:48] With that. So. So. Don’t forget the risk side now. Is there. Is there money in it? There is a little bit. It’s a tiny part of our our bigger business, our bleaching business. But and I don’t teach the course. So so I’ve got to pay a speaker as well. But but stuff costs money that people don’t realise, you know, just shipping all the drills and things to the course just cost £1,000, you know? Yeah. And no one, no one thinks about that. And then we’ve got team and you know, there’s loads of reasons.

[00:11:22] Yeah. The reason it brought it up was two or three people pm me and saying you know, you know it’s fair enough because they’ll come on to the quality of courses as well. And do we need to have independent feedback courses in a minute? But some, a couple of two or three people pm me after that first one which was about quality and said what about the price? Of course because they really have gone up. I mean I remember the day courses used to be 299 quid, 250, 199 quid. There are now a standard 700 plus and certainly some of them are heading up that way. Not if that’s what the cost. That’s what it costs, you know. But I think there’s a little bit of cynicism from some that’s out there, as you probably pointed out, possibly quite wrongly. But and I have no strong opinions on it. I’m quite happy I’ve gone on many courses that I pay the best part of £1,000 for a day, and I’m quite happy to do that provided a good course. You know, I have no issues with that.

[00:12:18] And the other.

[00:12:18] Thing might be as to why there’s so many courses nowadays, and I think it was just poked as well by a couple of people going, oh, you know, going to mention the cost of these courses, you know, so I know what you mean. Multiply everything up and just get, oh, you must be taking this by the Monday in the day. That’s incredible. You know, so why why did you do a course? Why did you what got you into doing courses then?

[00:12:43] Well, we sell composite and the composite that we sell. You’ve got to learn how to use it. It’s a particular way of using it. Okay. But but but, you know, one thing I’ll say is, you know, the this same course, the same lecturer in Chicago is twice the price.

[00:13:04] Yeah.

[00:13:05] As the one we do. So, you know, and, and I’ve been to those courses in Chicago and in all over America and dentists come pay the price of the course and almost the whole room buys the materials. Right. And, you know, they they’re just they’ve got a different outlook. And by the way, they’re not just the very young dentists who turn up to the courses. You get all sorts of dentists turning up to the courses, trying to learn a new skill. Yeah, but, but I think, you know, it’s an important question. Of course, I thought the the troubling word in your post was profiteering.

[00:13:39] Yeah, I know. Do you know what? That was a clumsily used word. I said, to be honest with you, the reason why it was trying to link it in with yeah, I know it was a very tough thing and I think that created a bit too much animosity, to be honest with you. Yeah, I didn’t mean profiteering in that way. What I was trying to equate it with was quite a few people are quite quick to throw accusations at dental companies that this bit of plastic. Right which is a bit of. You are charging me 200 quid for a bit of plastic that if I went into it would cost me a couple of quid if it didn’t have to work for dental use on it. And so I was sort of trying to sort of play with that idea that it’s okay for it. So it’s okay to slag off dental companies for charging what you think is an X amount of money. Are you charging excessive amount of money is what I was trying to get at. I think I was. Yes, I wasn’t meant to be insulting. Mike, this is the thing about the red wine posts there. Never.

[00:14:36] Don’t worry about insulting. Don’t worry about insulting. You know, it’s a concept, right? But I mean, I do see some profiteering around around dentistry. So I’ll tell you where there’s profiteering, right? You can go to the IBS, show the world’s biggest dental show. Yep. And the cologne isn’t equipped to have that many people come descend on it. And the three star hotels suddenly become £500 a night.

[00:15:03] Yeah, and they’re pretty, pretty awful.

[00:15:06] And you’ve got no other choice but to go there and spend that money. And I think with PPE, there was a question of profiteering, you know, with it. But at the same time, you know, it’s you know, obviously I’m in with that side, too, right? I supply dental equipment, dental, dental stuff, and our stuff’s expensive stuff. Our stuff isn’t cheap stuff at all.

[00:15:28] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:15:30] But but you know, the comparisons that sometimes people make and dentists make with a piece of plastic, you know, there’s huge regulatory nightmares in in supplying dentists. You know, if, if I want to supply my toothpaste in India, I have to pay a compliance company over £100,000 just to say hello, you know, just to get into that country. Yeah, in in Russia. Well, before when Russia was the thing, you had to pay £1,000 per ingredient per product for regulatory compliance. And then, you know, there’s a competitive thing. And, you know, I don’t know, it’s one of those things that, you know, the market will decide and profiteering sounded like the wrong word for it.

[00:16:16] Yeah. No. And with with with hindsight, I wouldn’t have used that word. And I think that’s what went wrong. I mean, now.

[00:16:23] But let’s get let’s get to this question of, you know, as a dentist, let’s say you’re booked up 11 weeks ahead. Should you put your prices up or not?

[00:16:32] Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, it was it’s a it’s a hypocritical post. And asmuch as that, you know, your patients would look at me and what I charge and my hourly rate of which I average are about sort of 275 to £300 an hour. I work in rural Oxfordshire and patients would look at me and go, Oh Jesus Christ, you’re ripping us off, you know? And yeah, you do get accusations. I mean, I suppose I’m paying for your holiday and I’ll go, Yes, I actually do say no. Yes, yes. You are just a very, very small amount, you know, and if I know that they’re an electrician, but like if I got you to come on wire or something up in my house, I’d be paying for a very tiny bit of your holiday as well. But, you know, it’s, you know, don’t get so much.

[00:17:17] To recognise that dentists of our era had their thing about, oh, don’t, don’t turn up to work with your nice car.

[00:17:25] Oh, yes, don’t.

[00:17:26] Do the practise up that whole thing. But the younger ones, they’ve gone the other way, you know, they want to turn up in the Ferrari. Yeah. So that the patients think they are successful dentists you know. And that’s the kind of change in society.

[00:17:42] I’m not sure. I’ve got a Tesla and it’s parked outside the practise and they might have come on bloody Tesla going oh nice car. Ooh. And some of them are genuinely interest because it’s a Tesla and some of them are like you can tell it’s just angled. You know, the funniest one I ever had was when they took over this practise. Took this practise was like six years ago. This bloke came in for adjustment and his dentures and they go over visits and she said, Oh, what happens? They all dentists. And I went, Oh, she’s retired. And he went, Oh, I suppose he’s gone to a her holiday home in the Caribbean that she’s bought with my money, that I paid her twice over two separate visits. So I actually looked up on their say what they actually paid and they paid 800 quid over seven years. And I just went, Oh God almighty. But I mean, yes, you’re back to what you were saying. I think dentists and and this is partly why I was sort of bringing it up about the thing. I think dentists are very remiss. I’m actually a great supporter of all the dental companies, and I think they do an absolutely valuable job. You’re a company, everybody else’s company.

[00:18:51] We would not have the progression in dentistry if we did not have the companies investing in all the dental equipment. I mean, I use a company called RPA, Dental, Exxon and so on. Brilliant. Dental company best of every use. Not plugging them, obviously, but they are very, very good and the equipment they’ve supplied has enabled me to do much better dentistry. I mean, Saric, for example, I’m a big Saric fan. Saric is just amazing, you know, and you look at it nowadays, but if originally back in the day Simmons hadn’t taken on then, then I hadn’t taken on and threw a lot of money at it because Saric is quite often, you know, oh god, look at the price of £100,000 for I go, Yeah, but look at the value it brings to your practise at the end of the day. And the same with your enlightened equipment. Look at you have the best whitening stuff on the market, you have the best, you know. So the value is there and I think people do take cheap shots. So yes, it may have been a bit of a cheap shot that back to the CBD. Are you profiteering? You know, but it was meant to. Yeah.

[00:19:57] Anyway, back on debate and it did it stimulated debate. Right. That’s, that’s what.

[00:20:01] It was there it stimulated about. Yeah. I was, I went at one point nearly 200 replies wow I but, but back on and I have no no aversion to anybody charging whatever the market will stand for a dental course. But then back to what the previous week’s post was, what about the quality? I mean, have you have you been on dental courses Payman recently. Have you have. Yeah or.

[00:20:31] Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well I stopped practising ten years ago but but I’m at a lot of dental courses. Yeah, I’m at a lot of dance courses. And look, you’re right. Let’s talk about the quality of courses and the question of where is the review site for courses? Because you’re right in that you do tend to get a lot of back, back slapping, back, back that. What did they call that when when people are just only talking about the positives. That does happen and it happens more with some courses than than others. And I’ve always wondered about that. You know, is it is there some some way, as the course provider of making that virality happen, that make people talk about you more and want to be part of it, but you don’t hear the negatives very much. And what would you think the reason for that is? I mean, people don’t want to be seen to be that that guy, I guess. So the anonymization of it.

[00:21:27] Yeah, it’s a bit like the red.

[00:21:28] Wine is a good idea.

[00:21:29] Yeah, it’s a bit like I stick my neck out and people do say to me privately, So why do you bother to stick your neck out? You just get a lot of flack sometimes. Why do you bother? And I said, Well, I’ve got to that age in life where I don’t give a shit anymore. And but I’ve got that age in life where I basically go, You know what? Sometimes I’m not willing to stand up and just sort of listen to all the sort of back slapping and all the same people going, Oh, hey, brilliant course, fantastic or whatever, you know, all sort of. And especially for younger dentists nowadays, I think us older than this have a responsibility to younger dentists to make them realise what the profession is about. And it’s not about Instagram, in my opinion. I know some people will argue differently. It’s not about solely cosmetic online, it’s not about solely Invisalign. You know, it’s a lot more than that. So but. Well, so I do stand up for what you’re saying. So why are people sort of worried about giving negative views? Mainly because of that pack mentality? Some some course. And I’ve had personally experienced this. I have been blocked. All right. By someone who took exception to something I said on the dentistry top 50 for actually for putting the dentistry top 50 thing up. That’s another one to come on to. But I got blocked. And so there are people out there who would block you, who had bully you, who would actually just go out of their way to say, you know, you possibly do nasty things. So ultimately, I think a lot of people are very scared. And also there are a lot of people, again, are scared to say the counter opinion because there are a lot of if a lot of people.

[00:23:05] Oh, it’s a brilliant, brilliant course. Brilliant course. And you’re going actually, I didn’t think it was all that. You know, you’re the one that’s going to stand out, aren’t you? And I know. And the problem is all that feedback forms your hand back in that they at the end of the course it’s all named, it’s all GDC numbered. Yeah. No. Fine. Well who’s who’s written them. Are you going to write. Somebody said I think it was Jaz or Drew and when something went. All right. So a brilliant course, a genuinely really good course gets five stars, a crop course gets four stars. And I do think there it needs I mean, people came on and said, yeah, we’ve tried this before. It hasn’t really worked. Maybe there needs to be a consensus of reason. I’m not I’m not senior enough in the profession or well respected enough in the profession to be able to do this. But maybe, maybe people like through is not so keen on the idea. I know that it doesn’t seem so keen on, but guys like you, Payman or Jazz, I say, is a really decent bloke and you know people who are highly respected. To get together and say, we are going to start this and we are going to start some sort of independent review site for courses. And whether it works, whether it brings benefit, I personally you’re not going to get in theory at the GDC, you should be doing it. But they do everything else but the actual stuff that would be useful.

[00:24:24] Yeah, they.

[00:24:27] Do absolutely everything else. You know, I’m so mad. I mean, I come from the day you do you remember coming from the day when when you could just write exam ESP and that would be enough for your notes.

[00:24:39] Yeah. When I was a dentist, that’s what it was.

[00:24:41] Yeah.

[00:24:42] I remember. I remember, I think I remember.

[00:24:44] I remember showing an associate of mine. My old notes have notes from the I think it was the eighties. And I went and we counted the number of visits the patient had on the, on the old brown record forms, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And there were 24 visits, one side, 24 appointments on one side. And they’re all things like exam, ESP, upper left, six amalgam, no le or something like that. And that would be it, you know, that would be your notes and you’d get away with it, you know, oh go for those days. But yeah it is, it’s a changed field ultimately. But yeah, I do think so. Back to the the peripheral vision of course, is how do people tell what’s the good course, what’s of course now people have said to me or gets around in the grip, fine. Yeah. But only if you know people who have been on the course or, you know, the right people don’t ask or there’s something the other. So, you know, it’s surely it’s time that somebody has an evaluation of an independent. And I think it should be anonymous personally, because I think anything the way it would be done and this is the way I would view it would be done. You would people say, well, you could you could have trolls giving you bad reviews, just competitors giving bad reviews. Just Oh no you’d have to upload it wouldn’t it would be anonymous on the front but at the back end it would you whoever controls it would be saying, right, show me your cpc’s certificate. You’ve been on the course. Who are you? What’s your DTC number? Okay, that’s your opinion. We’ll post that anonymously, but we can verify you have been on that course. Yeah, but whether it takes off or not, who knows? You know, maybe there’s too many dentistry.

[00:26:25] Interesting one.

[00:26:26] Yeah, it’s an interesting one.

[00:26:28] Let’s move on to the next one. Let’s talk about that. What of you? You’re fully private now. The NHS one.

[00:26:37] Yeah, yeah. Is it religion? Is there going to be a second coming. Is that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:26:44] Probably private. Right.

[00:26:46] I’ve got small NHS children’s contract. Yeah. Which is. Okay. Cheers. My friends in the back side. Then they really is. The only reason we keep it on was whether my last practise, we went fully, fully private in 2006 and we lost loads of children, but we actually lost quite a few families as a result of that, whereas we would have kept them on and we kept the children’s contract, probably we kept the adults on privately. So when I took this practise over, it had a small children’s contract. Initially I thought, Oh, I’ll ditch it. But I thought, No, I don’t want I’ll just keep it. We ended up treating the children for virtually free in the last practise it was in, so I thought it better to get some money than no money. So that’s how we kept on. Yes. So I have a small so it’s not that I’m talking in case people think, oh, god, you know nothing about the health service. I was a health service dentist completely. I know. Or not under the UDA system. But from 1987 through to 2003, I was completely an NHS dentist for 16 years, so I know what it’s like at the sharp end of the NHS and it was bloody awful and it was actually my GP who advised me to go private.

[00:27:55] I went to them and she pushed a box of tissues towards me when I was in my early forties and I burst into tears myself in the consulting room and she went well and GP’s with next door to me where I work and she went now you know the number of my patients and she went, you’ve got three choices. You either have a nervous breakdown, that’s where you’re heading for, you either give up dentistry, but you’re too good to do that or you give up the NHS and ask. Gp’s are jealous of the fact that you guys can give up the NHS. And so that’s what we did. I gave up the NHS for others. Oh my God, that was the most stressful time in my life. But there we are. The abuse I got from patients like that, that was incredible. One guy drove up in his new series of five series BMW to say, you may want to be a millionaire son, but not on my money. I’ll never forget that. He walked in the room. He said, I’m here for a check-up for the habit. And I was just like, Oh, my God, there we go. That was unbelievable. But anyway.

[00:28:51] So there’s lots, there’s lots of people right now considering leaving the NHS.

[00:28:56] Yeah.

[00:28:57] What would be your advice?

[00:28:59] Yeah. To me obviously it’s a different we were sort of I wouldn’t say we were the frontiersmen because the, the true frontiersmen of going private were actually, funnily enough, reading what you call a moral mountain origin. And Stephen nor wasn’t it 1990 them plan where they they were the true frontiersmen. What happened was 1991 they had a fee cut of 7% and a lot of people went private. Then that was truly frontiersman charity. That was really, really unusual back then, though, we were still early on, reasonably early on to do it. All I would say is I think you’ve got a different scenario. I think patients are probably yeah, probably more appreciative of the fact that you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place as a dentist nowadays. You will still get them. Think. Oh yeah. Well yeah it was some plan for your bloody test side or whatever. You know, a certain neighbour was going private. I would not be parked my Ferrari outside the door but I would. I think the thing is if you want to enjoy your dentistry, if you want to actually like your job, I think you’ve got to go private. That’s my opinion. You really got to nowadays. Yeah. I don’t think there’s any choice. The funding is just appalling and I admire people who try and do it for feeling that they have an ethical obligation to it, feeling that they have a moral and more moral obligation to do it.

[00:30:22] Yeah, do it for a while. Pay back what you feel is your moral obligation. As I said, I did dentistry for 16 years in the NHS, so I think I more than paid back any sort of moral obligation to society on that. But as fast as you can, I would move on. But is it the problem with it? It back to the original question. Is it religion? Yes, it is very much in this country. It ended up in the bloody London Olympics opening ceremony. If you remember, they had whirling beds, this, that and the other. And I think I read the times at the time and said what other country in the world would put their health service in the Olympic opening ceremony? None. You know, so it is religious. It is a religion in this country and that’s what we’re fighting against. But NHS, I mean, dentistry has never been entered fully integrated into the NHS almost since 1950. I think it was charged upon start charge upon for treatment in 1950. So yeah, that’s the difficulty. Will it have a second coming. No, simple. They may try, but they just don’t have the money. They don’t have the. They don’t have the. What’s the word I’m looking for? They they don’t have the the the really the government aren’t really that interested.

[00:31:41] It’s all political manoeuvring. And it’s sad, actually, the way I mean, I think if they if I mean, my my personal thing would be if if you had it, we could have an emergency core service that was not tendered. I think tendering needs to stop. Right. Personally, would my opinion tendering needs to stop. I think it’s ridiculous situation. You know, I think then every dentist could offer every dentist may include probably could offer an emergency core service to help people out. That would spread the workload out a bit more evenly across the country. Stop this thing about. We’ve got a short what I love is the headlines. I’ve got a shortage of dentists. No, I couldn’t find a dentist. You couldn’t find an NHS dentist. That’s different. You could have gone privately. Yeah. You know, it’s all these head and it couldn’t find a dentist for three years. Did you try? You know. You know, but. So if the president said got rid of Tendring, we’re going to let everybody do have a core service. And then after that and obviously then you’re going to have to have income support, whatever it’s called, not as universal credit, not sort of area covered and run on those bases. And they’re covered for that. But beyond that, yeah, it’s really got to be a private, private service. But I don’t know. Yeah.

[00:33:01] So look, it’s interesting what you said about the Olympics because I’ve recently been using the NHS for medical services in the family and I definitely don’t want to lose that. No. As, as, as something that by the way even in medical it’s got loads of problems, right.

[00:33:24] Yeah.

[00:33:25] Issues and so on. But, but I definitely wouldn’t want to lose it because I also have been using private medical services a lot. My family has. And that has all of its own issues, a whole lot of its own issues over treatment issues and problems like that. But as far as dentistry, I mean, I did vet and I remember the moment it was was very near the beginning of it. I thought to myself, I’m never going to do NHS dentistry. I was completely pissed off with. I couldn’t believe what the situation was, you know, like what you had to do for what. And, and, you know, I also admire people who make it work. Yeah, I feel I feel like making it work. It’s almost a martyrdom thing where, you know, dentistry is a stressful job and you really need to pay be paid. I don’t know what the number would be. You’ve got to be paid 70, 80 grand to be a dentist because it’s a proper stressful job. Yeah. Yeah. And if you’re if you’re doing it properly on the NHS, you’re not going to make that.

[00:34:33] You know.

[00:34:34] And so, so you’ve got that choice of do you do the best for your patients or do you martyr yourself to the system? And I remember back then as the vet thinking, I will do whatever it takes to go private. And this was a long time ago when it wasn’t so fashionable to do that.

[00:34:53] Yeah.

[00:34:53] I found a guy who’d gone private and you said 91 was early found a guy who’d gone private in 68? Yes.

[00:35:01] Yeah.

[00:35:03] I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse and he took me on. And that was it. I’d never, never did an NHS after off the vet again. But now I see, you know, people, good dentists, people going on courses, people with good knowledge, working in the NHS. And I think the biggest problem for me is a lot of the work that NHS dentists do as far as learning is learning how to survive in this system. Rather than, you know, learning how to fix teeth. Yeah. You know, it’s understanding the bureaucracy of it. I mean, it’s such a and the funny thing, when you talk to NHS dentists who want to make the leap, a lot of them are worried that they haven’t got the skills or something. And I think to myself I could never have done NHS. Like you’ve got to be a very, very good dentist to pull that off. Yeah. The short periods of time to get people out and not coming back in with problems, you know. So my advice to anyone who wants to make the leap is make the leap. Make the leap. And and and private dentistry. Now, you’ve been in it for a long time now. I think the soft skills are just as important as the clinical skills.

[00:36:23] Yeah. And then the funding that’s going to come to you, I think if patients don’t judge you. Well the judge in a number of ways, but the probably the number one. Do they like you? You know, there’s I don’t know. There’s a classic story by the medical profession. I remember being quite a few years ago, you may have heard.

[00:36:43] This about who gets sued and who doesn’t.

[00:36:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s right. And the answer was nobody gets sued because they were all lovely. All right. And the guy wrote and basically went, thank you for all your care and attention. And you looked after me superbly. Well, I realise there were just one of those things that was very behind. And then what they conclude it was people don’t sue people they like. And that’s very true and very, very true in life. And it is the soft skills. I learnt that very quickly on my free for my I was the very first year of at Payman 1983, the very first year it was optional. In my year we didn’t have to do it. All right. Okay. I don’t forget. How many years did you spend at dental school? Were you four or five?

[00:37:26] I was five. I was I was the first five.

[00:37:29] I was for four years at dental school. I was and we were the Queen’s and Belfast was the shortest dental course in the UK by one week. Edinburgh was the second shortest by me and my first boss I went to. He was a superb dentist, but a grumpy so-and-so, absolutely grumpy so-and-so, and his practise was failing. I remember we used to have to pull people out of the sofas because the bottoms had fallen out of them and things like that. And I said to him, Why don’t you buy a chair? Why don’t you buy some new chairs? And he went, Oh, NHS doesn’t bloody pay me to buy waiting room furniture and Jesus sort of thing. When I moved out at the end of 80 and I went to a place and nearby a guy he had, you remember the Siemens em one chair, the really Rolls-Royce Siemens erm one chair. He had that himself and you still get crap equipment with associates but you had Siemens in one but he invested and he could talk the hind leg of a donkey. He really had the Blahnik, he wasn’t that good a dentist, but he had the blarney, as we say in Ireland, he was supremely successful. He had people coming from far and wide flocking to him, all that sort of stuff. I very quickly learnt that actually not not such a personable bloke, failing, really personable bloke, not such a good dentist succeeding immensely. And really that’s when I very quickly learnt the soft skills were vitally, vitally important and it’s still the same today, you know I think patients just go, was he a nice chap? And that’s the more important thing that they will forgive you a lot if you’re nice to them.

[00:39:04] Yeah. Yeah. But it, it, it doesn’t mean be nice and then mess up their teeth. It’s be nice and keep, keep it simple. Keep it simple. Yeah. And anything you can’t do, refer out.

[00:39:16] Yeah, exactly. And this is where I would yeah. This is where I would agree with ADC. If not don’t often. But yes. Speak within your competency. Don’t be afraid to refer. Really. So yeah. Just because you see so-and-so on the Instagram having done this, you won’t see the fact they’ve got nine of them that are a bit crap and they both know that. Yeah. You know, you know it is one of those things, you know.

[00:39:42] But Niall’s the guy, the guy sitting, let’s say, like you, he’s done for 16 years a bit much. Let’s just say he’s done, I don’t know, five years of NHS. Yeah. And now he wants to make the leap and very simple. Be nice, don’t hurt people, you know, painless injections. I would say the most important thing you can do and then as soon keep it simple, if you haven’t got super duper skills, if you’re not a full mouth dentist, don’t, don’t try and be. Yeah. Until you get the skills and then refer out. It’s as simple as that. I mean, any dentist could be a private dentist as long as they follow those rules, right?

[00:40:21] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:40:22] I don’t need special knowledge.

[00:40:24] Most patients just want straightforward dentistry. They don’t want total rehabs. They don’t want film with implants. I don’t want this. What they want is to have teeth that are functional. Don’t give them much problems. Look. Okay, feel okay. And that’s all they want. And they want a nice person to do it for them. That’s what they want. They want someone they can trust. My big thing would be intraoral cameras. If you’re going private, make sure you have a really decent internal camera. Show everything. It builds trust immensely if you can show them. Particularly if, as I say to my associates, I go take the patients on the story, particularly when you’re doing the treatments. You you say you’ve got consent. You’ve you’ve shown them at the exam and you said, see, this big crack filling here, you know, carries whatever. And they consent. They come by. Show them. Remind them why they’re in today. Then show them when the feeling is removed. Show them what it looks like underneath. They normally look pretty. Yuck. You know, shown when the care is removed, show them the various stages, take them in the story, show them the cracks. Show them that you build so much trust that the next time you say to them, actually, we’re going to crack, they’re there, you know? But ultimately, you’re right. I mean, it isn’t rocket science. But one of the things I would say to young dentists, they do tend to come out and just to be focussed. Some of them is and particularly if you’re working for corporate, I would actually take your time, do things properly, right when you’re starting off in your career.

[00:41:48] Don’t worry about the money. All right. Even if you’re I mean, most people, my son, being an example, has graduated with a master’s and whatever else from Lisa. And he’s on 30, 35 grand a year. 25. Now, a lot of dentists come out and think, oh, I should be heading sort of high. 60, 70, 80 ground. Most graduates don’t earn that at that stage. What I would be saying to you, be happy with your 25 to 30 grand, but build your skills now. Take your time. Use the rubber dom. Learn to do a filling. Learn to do the difficult extraction, etc., etc., etc.. Even if it’s onto the NHS, the corporates can’t complain because you’re doing everything by the book, you know. So you’re doing good dentistry. Just take your time and build those skills particularly well. As you said yourself, even if you haven’t done that, you don’t need a huge amount of skills to go private. It’s just been nice, as you say, being nice to people doing basic good basic dentistry. Yeah. And this is back to where people look at. I mean, I was talking to someone the other day who said, where are the associates, young associates nowadays who want to just do general dentistry. They all seem to want to do bloody bonding and Invisalign and you know, that’s all they seem to want to do nowadays. And I’m going, Yeah, I just find that weird because you know, most I would say 90% of patients, 95% of patients don’t want Invisalign or bonding. Yeah, they really not interest in it. They’re interested in good basic dentistry and plenty of money to maintain that.

[00:43:28] Yeah. As long as you’re charging appropriately. Right. And that’s another problem.

[00:43:32] No, exactly. And I think I think we’ve got to do is we’ve got that. You’ve got to start. You know, we’re worried about what people will think about us when we charge fees and all that sort of stuff. I think that’s, you know, that’s a whole different area of mindset of it. But somebody said to me once you think about Harrods, they don’t aim to sell every whatever designer dress to. They don’t aim to sell a designer dress to everybody who walks into Harrods. They’ll only be a certain amount of people will buy them. And that’s the same with your dentistry then, that you will find your market, you will find your people will. You’re not to be scared of your fees. Yeah, but.

[00:44:13] How often do you put your prices up in your own practise.

[00:44:17] And annual? Late January? We we do it routinely. I mean, if we need a mid-year tweak, we will do mid-year tweak. Patients don’t notice when you put your prices up, but you get the old one who does, right. Okay. You will get the old. I think there was a statistic that came out somewhere from Harvard Business School or somewhere that might be apocryphal, but 14%, you can put your prices up by 14% and no one will actually notice. And funnily enough, we stuck are not quite that high, but we stuck our examination fee and our hygiene fee up by almost 11% this year. Not we had one patient mention it. So yes, the fee increases is only in your head then they.

[00:44:56] Yeah. In fact that boss of mine, the one firm that had gone private in 69 or whatever it was, he had a thing about if the patients aren’t complaining about the prices, they’re not they’re not high enough. And he used to annually put the prices up. And I remember I remember thinking, that’s not a big increase. Why is it even bother? But then when I stayed, I stayed in that practise for four or five years and after four or five years it was a big difference. Yeah, if you get 12 12% a year after four or five years is a significant difference.

[00:45:33] Yeah, absolutely. But you’re right, it’s indirect. If you do them regularly, patients don’t notice. I think sometimes what happens is we had this issue when we first took over the practise, the plan prices hadn’t been updated for years, for years. So we had to bring them all into line with the fee per item. The fee per item. Prices had been put up, but the plan price has never been increased. So we had a real sort of backlash from patients going. What we want to put my plan price up from 12 to 17 quid a month. Yeah, well, you know, you’re on an absolute bargain. There are 12 months, you know, so it is doing it little and often and working your way through that. But certainly, yeah, I think turning the NHS, moving away from the NHS now it’ll be just interesting to see how over the next year or so what happens. I mean because I remember there’s an awful lot of dentists talking. They want to go private at the moment and I would encourage them to. But I remember back in 1991 we went to when there was a 7% fee cut by the NHS back on the old fee per annum service.

[00:46:36] We went a BDA meeting in Surrey where I was working at the time and I had just taken over my practise 25 and it was a dump and I was literally there six months and this fee cut came in. So I knew I couldn’t go private because it was a dump and I was just new to 25, new to the area. And but everybody in the room went and they sort of had to show hands who’s all going to go private and everybody stuck their hands up and barmy and a couple of others. Interestingly, I would say about half of those who stuck their hands up never did. So it’ll be interesting to see what happens. There’s a lot of bravado at the front end, but it’ll be interesting to see there will be how many actually do make that move. But it is something I think is much better on the other side. I enjoy my job much more. I am not a stressed yeah, etc. etc..

[00:47:26] Yeah.

[00:47:28] Let’s move on to our corporates. A force for good in dentistry.

[00:47:33] Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s an interesting one. What’s my view on that one? Yes and no. I must admit, when I when I come to sell this practise and I’m 57, so it’ll be a few years yet, possibly. But when I come to sell it, I don’t want to sell it to a corporate.

[00:47:52] Right ideologically.

[00:47:55] Ideologically and ideologically. I don’t want it. I think we need to have independent practises out there. I really do. All right. I think it’s sad that we’re all ending up as corporates. You know, there are good corporate, better corporates, less, by the way, than others. I don’t slag any of them off. I mean, we we are near Portman. And I have to say, I think Portman are run very well. They buy good practises. You know, they choose well, it’s run well then. Tax is an interesting another one that I just happen to notice that Hershey sold at the weekend to then tax you know I think that seems an interesting model I know I don’t you don’t know Jack and Deci and Rowling, do you at all, do you know? Yeah, I do. I do. Well, John’s a good man, was a good mate of mine, and he sold to Dan Tax and he’s recommended me Dan Tax highly, but equally well. I would quite like to keep it the independent sector because I do think it’s important for the you know, just what I mean if you’re a young dentist and you’re coming out today and you had no hope to own your own business, maybe, maybe a different mindset, I think. I mean, why did you do dentistry payment? Why? Why did you do Street?

[00:49:07] I was one of those. Didn’t know what I wanted to do. My parents said, hey, you know your uncle’s dentist, you like your uncle? So it was it was as terrible as that.

[00:49:19] Yeah, well, mine, mine, mine seminary. Terrible. I must admit, mine was a bit like I’m the youngest of five, and my two of my brother is much, much, much older than me. My eldest brother was 70, our doctors, and they both went, Don’t do medicine, it’s shit. And what they meant by that was they are not that time. I happen to have a very fun dentist in Northern Ireland who drove at the old quatre, went away on a skiing holiday once a week and had a 9 to 5 job and owned his own business. And that was what I quite like. They owned his own business and I went, Oh, I’ll be a dentist, you know? And that’s how I ended up doing that. But equally, equally shit reasons, you know, but it’s worked out for the best. And part of the attraction for me was the fact I could be my own boss one day. And I sort of think if it goes all totally corporate, I don’t think it ever will go all totally corporate. But if it did or if there was less opportunity for dentists, yeah, I just think it’s a sad, sad day. And if I look at some of the corporates you talk to, some of the youngsters, young professionals on the course are not youngsters. Young professionals are on the courses I made and they’re going, Oh yeah, I’m having to buy my own composite, I’m having to buy my own whatever, because the corporate will not buy this quality material for me. So I have to supply it all myself. And yeah, just.

[00:50:45] Just to be fair, lots, lots of independent bosses aren’t buying things as well.

[00:50:52] Yeah. So the red line post for another day came and that’s, that’s, that’s on the back burner actually. It keeps coming up and I think I’ll post that on this week, but it hasn’t come up yet. There’s other things that keep popping up. But yeah, that is a red wine post for another day. Yeah, you’re right. It isn’t exclusive to corporates. You’re absolutely right. It isn’t exclusive, of course. But I just think. Yeah, how are they forced for good? They’ve been a force for good somebody put out pointed out and the thing for practise owners Goodwill’s.

[00:51:24] For selling out.

[00:51:26] Yeah well it’s gone through the roof I mean back to what we were saying earlier when I first bought my practise, 1991, they were all sold through box yards in the back of the bdg and Frank Taylor was an auditor. Frank Taylor was actually Frank Taylor. He was an he had a little thing and practises were sold for the average of the previous three years turnover. Right. So the average of that on the third of that somewhere between 25% and 33% of the average of the previous year. Three is turnover. And so I bought my first practise which was turning over about sort of 180 grand for about 60 grand. Yeah, well, I know. Just mad, mad, mad, mad. And you know, it has totally changed. I mean, nowadays, you know, so so they have brought the corporates have certainly from the PRI, but from the associates point of view, I struggle a little bit more to see what they brought.

[00:52:26] Yeah, you’re right. On average, you’d probably rather work for a for a non corporate as an associate. My wife works for a corporate and they’re one of the better ones. They’re one of the better ones. Although when something goes wrong, the chain of command is just extraordinary. That’s one thing. And then another thing, you know, my wife is actually owns a quarter of enlightened. She herself owns a quarter of Enlightened. And you’d imagine the owner of Enlightened. Right. Could could make things happen from a whitening perspective in the practise. Yes. And the red tape they have to go through just to make a leaflet, you know, it has to be in brand with the corporates and so on is amazing as well. And then things like computers break and and don’t get fixed sometimes you know. Yeah. And you think this corporates got so much money why don’t they. Although although having you know, I’m talking to lots of corporates about bringing in light in in as well and it’s not a bed of roses running a corporate at all because it turns out the business model actually isn’t that lovely, other than they will then sell the whole thing off for even more bigger, even a bigger multiple. But but, you know, it turns out running these, you know, 300 practises, whatever they’ve got, it takes a whole team of head office and you know, that team needs paying for. And like anything when you grow it, I mean, you’ve got one practise, you know, but there’s several dentists. You’ve got, you know, way more than that. And they whenever they grow it, they find it very. Haunt keeping the thing as it was right. Keeping the culture as it was and and keeping everything going. And so they end up they end up exerting control with cash, essentially, sort of the easiest way for them to control. The thing is to say this is the maximum budget and you’re right in that dentistry doesn’t work well under those circumstances. No, no, that’s very true. I agree with you on that.

[00:54:30] Yeah, I’ve heard that story. And the reason why I didn’t I mean, I was quite interested in in in in the early days, back in the days of you remember Whitecross in London. What was it was yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:54:43] Mendelson.

[00:54:44] Mendelson, yeah.

[00:54:45] Just passed away.

[00:54:45] And I took a strong interest in sort of having a look at the courtroom, but I couldn’t see maybe it was just me how it would work. Because again, what you say that I want to have really good practise of patients treated really well. So my first boss had in Northern Ireland had four practises. He went bankrupt. This was back in the early nineties. He went bankrupt and he said to me and he sort of put me off. Somebody said, never run more than one practise. He said the main practise was doing really, really well. The other three branches, squats, fair enough, as branches grinned as money bankrupted them. And he started again. But what I’m saying is that. So that’s between the two. I just couldn’t see how it worked. But I remember back in the day when I wasn’t idea what was what was the idea to the average day when it was originally called? I can’t remember what was called back in the nineties somewhere else.

[00:55:42] Now it’s called something and now it’s called my dentist.

[00:55:44] My dentist. Yeah. Yeah. No, maybe it was always idea.

[00:55:47] It was like that.

[00:55:48] Yeah. But yeah. No, but I remember Whitecross in London looking at them and London and going, Oh, nice idea.

[00:55:56] Nice, didn’t they? And there was JD Hull, if you remember.

[00:55:58] Yes, I remember JD Hull. I mean, he was he was a character. Wasn’t a he was a character. He was a character.

[00:56:06] He started out in South Wales, I studied in Cardiff so. So I’ve got some of his.

[00:56:11] Yeah, yeah. No stories character. He certainly, certainly remember that. I remember talking to him one time and he wasn’t, he was big into rugby, I’m big into my rugby so we got to talk about that sort of stuff. But he was going to almost take you down into hospitality and all that sort of stuff, you know, never, never, nothing ever happened. But yeah, no, you’re right. I do think that the advantage of independent practise owners is that their flexibility. Yeah, they can respond quickly. They can respond quickly to the market. They can respond quickly to everything goes on. And actually, the advantage is if you have a good principle and you have to have a good principle, I’m not saying I’m one necessarily, but you have to have a good principal who has strong leadership, a strong vision of what they want to do with the practise. They will be very successful. I think, unfortunately, a lot of principals possibly don’t have that sort of leadership skills, but yeah, they are. And therefore maybe a corporate is better for certain people, but not for everybody.

[00:57:15] Yeah, so I don’t think it’s impossible that they could succeed. I mean, in opticians they’ve certainly, you know, taken completely taken over except for the very high end ones, right. Yeah. And I think opticians are different to dentists.

[00:57:30] Yeah, they.

[00:57:30] Are. It’s it’s more a retail model than a service.

[00:57:34] I have to say where I say we were more veterinary like I would argue that. Yeah. And I think veterinary there are 40% or something on it or whatever. I don’t know. Is there 40% of the market. I’m not. Yeah.

[00:57:47] Right.

[00:57:48] Yeah, something like that.

[00:57:50] Let’s go on to let’s go on to your story a bit more now. Why did you move from Northern Ireland? I guess you grew up in Ulster as well, did you?

[00:57:59] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was born and bred there. I’m born 1965 in a place called Larne, currently Antrim in Northern Ireland, which.

[00:58:06] Is a port. I’ve been to Northern Ireland. Yeah.

[00:58:11] It’s a dump.

[00:58:12] Yeah.

[00:58:13] Yeah. I mean the area. So I went to school there. I, my father, my father was stationmaster. Interestingly, it used to be the largest station in Ireland and then the beach came along and he ended up setting my father. I think it got my wanting to run my own business. My father, he ran his own haulage firm for years and my father left school at 14 back in the day. So I mean, yeah, he would have been he would nowadays he would have gone to university. He was a clever bloke, but now he had six children, five which survived. And there is I grew in Larne, so I ended up going to school there ended up, as I explained to you, already doing dentistry simply through the fact that careers advice was shite back then. I remember going to the careers teacher as it was, who happened to be the maths teacher as well, and when she said, What are you doing? And I went on doing maths. Physics, chemistry and said And what you think in doing for university now? I went, Oh, I’m thinking of doing dentistry. And she went, Yeah. Greg go and look under the yonder in the fine cabinet over there. And that was it.

[00:59:15] Was.

[00:59:16] A little bit from Queens was Cuba. And that was literally my 5 minutes of career advice. And, and my brothers went, I don’t do medicine. So I ended up doing dentistry. And, and back in the day I, you know, you literally just fill in UCAS form. Even the personal step one was a bit like I like playing rugby, you know, sort of style. That was it. He had no interviews. No interviews. I don’t know if you. Did you have an interview.

[00:59:42] We had interviews.

[00:59:44] Yeah. Queens, we didn’t. No interviews. You just literally sent it off and you got whoa. Yeah. Offered you press and that was it. That was and I look at youngsters, young people coming out of school nowadays and what they have to go through to get into dentistry and school. And I remember we spend our first year, year and a half with the Medicks and I remember one anatomy lecture. They came to the front and went, We’ve got a medick who’s interested in transferring to dentistry. Does any dentist, do any dentists want to transfer to medicine? This is about six weeks in. Yeah. And I thought about it for an hour during that anatomy lecture going I went, Nah, can’t be there too much.

[01:00:21] Hassle on.

[01:00:22] The as I get switched to the doctor. So anyway, I ended up at Queen’s and Belfast did for years 1983 to 87, graduated, took the optional vet and then went from there and then basically had feet. And the problem with Northern Ireland, it’s it’s a very, very close community. And, you know, it’s complicated by obviously all the troubles. I mean, I was there at the height of the troubles. You know, I actually was in digs in the final year in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast when the sniper fired at the Army post and top of our tower block, you know, you know, that sort of thing was on, you know, so it literally was a, you know, all outgoing all at the time. So I didn’t particularly want to stay in Northern Ireland. You always get attracted by the bright lights of England. My wife, well, my girlfriend at the time was English and her father was a surgeon in Chesney. I mean, I don’t know if you ever my father in law was a surgeon from India, and he came over in 1957 to do his FRCS and ended up in Northern Ireland basically because he couldn’t get consultant’s post in the north of England, as he says, because he was racially discriminated against, because he was Indian. He wrote to the BMA and went DMC and went, Oh, I’m not going to consultant’s posts here. Do you think it’s because I’ve got a brown face basically? And they went, Yeah, probably. What do you want us to do about it?

[01:01:55] And so I’ll tell you, let me tell you a story. My dad studied in Queens. Yeah, all right. In the fifties. In the fifties, yes. And someone asked him to be president of the Students Association, whatever. Right. Because he was neither neither Catholic nor Protestant.

[01:02:14] Yes, exactly. Well, it was a.

[01:02:20] It was very much like that. You know, I remember going to the Catholic chaplain and say, I’m a Protestant. Technically, I’m atheist nowadays, but I’m a Protestant technically. And I know Niles, a very Irish name and normally used by Catholics. I am frozen technically. And I remember going with friends of mine who were to the Catholic Chaplaincy for lunch, you know, because it was cheap and it was good and they, they wind me up. I said, Oh, you better keep a low profile to realise your problems, you know, that, you know. And I was going really isolating and yeah, yeah, I’ll have you chucked out of here and I’m going, oh Lord. But yeah, it was all that, all that was going on amongst fellow students, more banter. But there was a very serious edge going on outside in the real world and Belfast and the wider shrines of Northern Ireland. So I didn’t want to live there. I didn’t want to bring up children there. I felt that it was a very closed community. My personal opinion, I know plenty of my colleagues who stayed in a very successful and enjoyable life in Northern Ireland. So we moved over to England and literally I find a practise through the back as as a box as the beat and moved over when I was just turned 26 and started my first practise and took over a practise from another Irish woman who is returning to Southern Ireland and that was that. And I grew it from there basically. So eventually we outgrew the building and we knocked it down. We got an architect and we rebuild the building, etcetera, etcetera, and the rest is history. Yeah. Do I regret doing dentistry? No, I actually think it’s a great career. You know.

[01:03:58] You’re clearly completely engaged with with dentistry still. What would you. What would you say is the secret of that? I mean, is it is it the people that you love or is it the meccano aspect of it? Is it the business side?

[01:04:13] Yeah, meccano. I was never good at my count. I said, Yeah, I would like a bit more. But yeah, that’s why I don’t do implants. Why do not you go? Yeah, I’ll fit. I’ll fit on ladies and crimes using. Sorry, that’s more like Lego implants. But seriously, what is it about? It’s the people. It’s the people. It’s the people, you know, and dentists. We’re very lucky inasmuch as that we have that amazing ability to take people from who are in severe, severe pain to out of pain within a few minutes. Yeah. You know, help them or even just on a more mundane level improve their self confidence. Even people come in and it’s nice when people write reviews going, Oh my God, I was actually petrified at the dentist till I found you or I came to your practise or I came to their, you know, and we all in all our various practises have reviews like that. And I just like helping people, you know, then they and I think that’s what keeps me going about it. I don’t like all the things that anybody else doesn’t like. I don’t like the GDC, I don’t like the QC, I don’t like everything like that that’s come with it. And I and I actually don’t like the Instagram stroke, you know, composite bonding stroke, Invisalign. It has its place, but it’s not dentistry for me, you know, it’s an aspect of dentistry, but it’s not all dentistry. So, you know, I think there’s, you know, dentistry is about helping people and helping people is extractions, root canals, fillings, whatever, you know.

[01:05:46] I mean, you should you should know there is quite a lot of very valuable stuff on Instagram as well. Yeah.

[01:05:51] Oh, yeah.

[01:05:51] I know when you say Instagram, I know what you mean. I know what you mean. I know what you mean. Yeah, yeah. But but there’s lots of lots of really good education on Instagram too.

[01:06:01] Yeah, yeah, I know there is. And I have to say I have to say I do follow not not an Instagram, but quite a few Facebook pages that I think are vitally useful. Jaz does Nick Gulati is Gujarati page A etc. etc. etc.. Yeah, are very valuable and very useful. Yes. No, there are a lot of good stuff. It’s the stuff that you know what I’m talking about, the sort of the glamour do.

[01:06:27] Yeah, I do. And you know, I’m very involved in that space.

[01:06:33] Yes, I.

[01:06:33] Know you are. You know, I’m very Payman.

[01:06:37] Don’t worry. Don’t worry. They say whatever you like, right? At the end of the day. Know a line? Bleach bond. Right. So we’re big in bleach and we’re making bond, and we’re not big in a line. But I know what you mean. I mean, there’s definitely some overtreatment going on with composite bonding and some low quality treatment going on with composite bonding. And there’s going to be a bunch of failures very soon. I mean, composites are very unforgiving material.

[01:07:03] Yeah, absolutely.

[01:07:05] You know, stains very quickly. And but then on the other hand, I would say that’s the reason for learning it properly. And I don’t even mean come to my course. I mean practise, you know, practise a lot and talk to lots of people and and so forth. But it’s interesting, though, these days you can choose to be whichever type of dentist you want to be in a way, because there’s so much more referral. You know, in our day you were either a general dentist or you were a specialist dentist. And even specialist was a new thing, wasn’t it?

[01:07:35] Yeah, it was more. Or your dentist was more or more what. I qualified the other one at the hospital. Or you are a general practise dentist. Yeah.

[01:07:44] And then I know you quite like you quite like endo, don’t you.

[01:07:49] I do quite a lot of endo. Yeah.

[01:07:51] Yeah. So, so I, I stopped practising ten years ago, but in my last four years of practise, I didn’t do any endo at all. I just I referred all of them. And what I’m saying is you can you can choose to be an Invisalign dentist and be fine with that, or you can choose to be an implant guy. And just just go into that very quickly these days. What do you think about that? Do you think do you think do you do you also sort of mourn the loss of the generalist?

[01:08:22] No. As much as I think do I mourn the loss of the generalist? I don’t think we’ve lost the generalist totally. But there are things like implants. I genuinely do think they should be done by guys who are doing X number of implants a year.

[01:08:37] Lots of them.

[01:08:37] Yeah, yeah, lots of them. I really do think. Do you want to go to a hip a hip surgeon and get do you want to go to a surgeon and get your hip replacement done? But find out actually, he’s an abdominal surgeon. Just does the odd hip replacement once every six months.

[01:08:52] No.

[01:08:52] Well done. You know, and you know, so, you know, why should implants be any different? You know, so the likes of, say, Adam Glass food for want of a name or you know, quite there are loads of people out there. Roberti Yeah, yeah. Rob Morrissey There’s another good one. Yeah. Who I think Dominic Hurley tends to do mostly implants. Stuff like that tends to my name. Yes, I am very much a best for that in terms of, you know, Invisalign and so on. Yeah. Well now don’t get started on Invisalign. I do think once you get away from implants, once you get I do think there is a, there’s certainly a place for specialists, but there’s no reason why a good generalist can’t do 90, 80, 90% over to a standard that is more than acceptable for the JDC. Yeah. So, you know, so yeah, I think you can end up referring most of your business away if you end up referring too much out. But yeah, you know, I certainly I certainly think that and also sort of sometimes patients go, yeah, they don’t like going to another place. I know this is where it’s coming back to that people are bringing specialists in-house, aren’t they? More and more so. And that’s that’s a headache in itself, trying to keep them busy and trying to keep them on something the other. But yeah, if patients don’t like, they’ve come to see you, they’ve come to see your practise, they know where you are, somebody’s described also the patients are a bit like patients are a bit like cats or no. Yeah, that patients but like cats. Yes, that’s right. Rather than dogs. Dogs. Dogs are attached.

[01:10:32] To the building.

[01:10:33] Yes, the cats are attached to the building. Yeah. So on patients are a bit like cats. That’s how good the sale of goodwill works because they go, Oh, I’ll stay to the building. Even though a new owners come in, I’ll stick there because I know the building. Yeah, it’s a weird phenomenon, but that’s the way it works. And I think patients. So I do think there is and will always be a place for the general sense. I think what’s sad is that people sort of see that they should be doing more Invisalign and more bonding and more of this. You know, there’s nothing wrong with doing that, but at the expense of doing their general dentistry or they feel like they’re peer pressured into doing it because they’re met down the road, is doing a lot or they’ve seen someone on Instagram.

[01:11:16] I feel like I feel like Invisalign kind of feels like easy money, doesn’t it? That’s the thing.

[01:11:21] Yeah, it’s.

[01:11:22] Something. It’s not easy. Money is very difficult work, but not easy at all. But have you done Invisalign? Now, I noticed on your on your website, you guys do Invisalign.

[01:11:33] Yeah. It says my, my associate does Invisalign. I don’t touch the stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. On our website.

[01:11:38] Which is leaning on it, I feel like you’ve got something to say about Invisalign. Go on.

[01:11:42] Well, apart from that, like the dominator. Yeah. Apart from the fact that they absolutely dominate the market. What I find sad about Invisalign is the people that sort of chest, the diamond, the double diamond, the platinum, whatever status you know, that. Oh, don’t do this number. From what I understand, the fees are still incredibly high from Invisalign for their stuff. Even if you get diamond, double diamond or whatever status you’re on. Yeah. And if you talk to sort of certain orthodontists like Ian Hutchinson, for example, yeah, he’ll go Aligners or Aligners and my associates done the in Hutchinson’s course and she would go that well yeah, you can do them with Invisalign and you will get down to site their particular Instagram going, I can do everything on Invisalign, you know that. But there are certain cases on quite a lot of cases that are maybe better off with fixed, but you know, it is what it is.

[01:12:37] But I think that tide is turning though in a way, because I speak to a number of orthodontists who are Invisalign only Invisalign orthodontists, and it can do a lot more than it used to do. I mean, I remember when I trained on Invisalign, they were saying, you know, you can’t rotate teeth, you can’t you can do a lot more than it used to. But but this question of, you know, being aligns sort of ad, you know, like some people say, look, why are you putting Invisalign brand ahead of your own brand? Yes. And you know what? I get it. I do get it. Number one, the discount bit piece is is significant. You know, that that that apex diamond predator, whatever status they get it. I think half the price of of an.

[01:13:26] Absolutely significant chunk of money when you compare it to other.

[01:13:29] Compared to brackets. Compared to brackets. Of course. Yes. Yeah. But the other thing is, you know, align invented aligners. Yeah. They, they didn’t just go stick a name on, they invented it. I mean, okay, totally different management to to it was a totally different person, totally different management to who we’ve got there now. But, but having invented aligners that, that first mover advantage that they had and they’re now bigger than Henry Schein, I think the biggest, the biggest company in dentistry now or they’re definitely up there. I mean it’s basically align Henry Schein and then splice around, you know, there’s three or four investor, you know, the ones who own all those noble bio care and or ASC optic. And so, you know, I’ve spoken to a bunch of dentists about this. I haven’t got a horse in the race. I don’t I don’t mind one way or the other. I certainly know some dentists who’ve left Invisalign and then come back because they were unhappy with the alternatives. And I know others who’ve left and and they’re very happy. Very happy. I know some who print their own aligners, you know, make their own in house. So there seems to be a few ways to skin the cat. But the, the brand is super strong and there’s a lot of very happy people with the brand. I think they could do a lot more on customer service. I mean, yeah, they seem to be very poor on customer service, which is weird. You know, you’d imagine they take care of that.

[01:14:59] Yeah, I think it’s they, they almost are in that position of it and they’re so dominant that they feel they can just treat anybody the way they want. And that’s what the seems to happen. Then the single.

[01:15:11] I don’t think that’s it. I don’t think that’s it. No company thinks that way. I mean, it’s well, maybe, but you don’t become the world’s biggest dental company thinking that. I think it’s probably you.

[01:15:21] Know, there are a bit. But I just think I just.

[01:15:23] Think they’re growing so quickly that they can’t they can’t keep up with the growth themselves.

[01:15:31] So, yeah, it’s.

[01:15:32] The same reason Facebook is such a nightmare to deal with. You know, as an advertiser, it’s an absolute nightmare dealing with that company. But the reason is they’re just growing so quickly.

[01:15:44] Yeah, I.

[01:15:45] Think. I think that’s the reason.

[01:15:46] Yeah.

[01:15:47] Tell me, let’s move on to darker questions. Well, before we do that, before we do that, let’s talk about you’ve run a couple of super successful dental practises, have been around for ages, employing loads of people, treating thousands of patients. What would you say that secrets to success outside of the clinical?

[01:16:10] Well, the sacred success are I personally might. Well, we’ve talked about this already is your personality. You know, you have to be a nice person to deal with.

[01:16:21] It’s certainly outside of patient care. I mean, I’m.

[01:16:24] I’m thinking more staff associates. Yeah. Outside the patient care. What’s important for me having, you know, in terms of what do you mean in terms of equipment and stuff like that or staff associates. Keeping people happy? Yeah. What’s important? I think you’ve got to pay people. Well, certainly nowadays that’s a big thing for staff. You know, that’s one of the big questions is the dental nurse crisis. You know, dental nurses have been absolutely poorly paid for donkey’s years, you know, treated like shit, basically, to be honest with you. You know, my it up. We’ve got nurses retiring. She’s 59 and she’s been a dental nurse since she was 16. And she started off nursing right in four inch stilettos because that was the rule for the practise back then. Four inch white slippers, you know. But, you know, she said we had to have that, you know, that was the rule, you know. And I’m going, oh, my God. Yeah. They’re always been paid a pittance. So it’s treating your staff well. The problem is with it is, you know, with difficulty with staff, your staff are key to the success of the practise. They really are. The front of house is absolutely vital. Yeah. You’re you’re your reception team. Your front of house is absolutely vital. If you do not have people who are reasonably intelligent, reasonably, you know, savvy.

[01:17:59] Resourceful.

[01:18:01] Resourceful, etc., you are screwed it really and you really are screwed. I mean, we have been through in our current practise so many from the past team, mainly because I mean, the thing is, you know, it’s funny enough, it’s what I my favourite programme at the moment is the sewing bee. I don’t know, you watch the great British sewing Payman there you watch the Great Britain now.

[01:18:24] And the great.

[01:18:25] You know, great British sewing bees on Wednesdays on BBC One, whatever it what it is, is basically so or as you come along and make clothes out of material and it’s like great British Bake Off, but for sewing. And as I said to them, it’s all about attention to detail. You know, it’s it’s you look at it and you go, right, okay, you’ve made it, you’ve made a dress. But the hems all wobbly. Why is the hair more wobbly? It doesn’t look quite right or one side’s long and the other it doesn’t quite fit correctly there. This colour thread doesn’t match or whatever, you know. And so all about it, it’s all the little details that go in to make a dress. You may look at it and say, That’s a dress, all right. But then you look at everything that’s gone in to make a lovely, lovely dress, and that’s like a dental practise to me. People sort of say to me, Oh, you know, you’re some we’ve been accused of nit picking, you know, say you’re saying, Oh, you need to be doing it like this and be like I say, no, I call it we have standards basically. And they and everything comes together to form the whole. But if you you know if you cannot and sorry people will Brit me for this but if you cannot write an email back to people and where we are a site of Oxford we get everybody from Oxford, professors of English and to all sorts of places people in fact if you cannot write an email that makes sense in perfect grammatical English, back to patients.

[01:19:51] All right. We’re screwed to start off with, you know, and it’s the detail is the little things like that, making sure you put your apostrophe in the right place, making sure you’ve done this, you’ve done that. But yes, staff are key. Staff are absolutely key. And once you find the staff, pay them well, treat them well, you know, look after them well, make sure that you’re nice to them. But even then, yeah, there’s no guarantee we’ll stay nowadays. Everybody wants to move on eventually. And in terms of the servants, the practise, I just think, you know, people well, I can never understand as you get dentists who will have a lovely house, maybe even a lovely holiday home or a lovely Ferrari or whatever, and then spend a little money on their practise. Yeah. Then they have a lovely practise. Patients appreciate it. They really do notice the difference. And it’s all those subliminal things that go in to make to make it successful personally.

[01:20:47] Yeah. I mean, the other thing is, look, the number of dentists, the number of people you speak to and they say, oh, I really like that so-and-so restaurant because the service is excellent.

[01:20:56] Yeah.

[01:20:57] And you know, in terms of restaurant, you’ve got, you’ve got the food in front of you. So you can, you can judge the food. Whereas in dentistry, our patients mostly can’t judge. What we do at all. Our patients got no clue whatsoever that you’re putting this matrix on and wedging it and not understand. And the example you gave at the beginning about the guy who was the Great Panther wasn’t the best dentist in the world. And so they only have these other clues to go on and obviously the people. But, you know, it’s interesting, I go to a dental practise and with fresh eyes I can see things that people who work there can’t see. It’s a bit of the cobweb in the corner or a bit of something sticking off the ceiling. And these are all clues to the patient. And, you know, interesting thing now, do you do you guys serve coffee in your practise?

[01:21:51] Yes.

[01:21:51] Yeah. So so I’ve worked in practises where the coffee’s been terrible coffee and and was my fault. I was the associate there and I fully understand the reasons why, you know, we’re not a coffee shop where we’re a dentist and all that.

[01:22:07] But.

[01:22:09] When I take my BMW, it’s not a Rolls-Royce, a BMW. I take my BMW for service. The coffee is excellent, and I drive up and the guy, some dude opens the car door and welcomes me by name before I’ve even said anything. But I know how he does it, right? He’s got my number plate. He knows what time I’m coming. It still makes me feel good. It takes me upstairs. Latte or cappuccino? It’s a it’s a car garage. It’s not. It’s not a Starbucks either, right? It’s a car garage. Yeah. And so these and now it’s interesting. I must have been to a thousand practises in my career and even I, who knows the full story exactly, knows what’s going on and, and, and what’s going and what’s happening and whose fault it is and whose fault it is. And even now, when I walk into a practise and they offer me a coffee and I have the coffee and it’s a nice coffee, I start making judgements about this practise about the kind of dentist they are, even me who knows all about it. I know exactly what’s happening, I’m still making those judgements. So imagine our patients, you know, the non-clinical queues that they’re taking.

[01:23:18] Yeah, absolutely. And we will serve bean to cup. We have a bean teacup machine upstairs. Yes, we go to Costco and we buy Lavazza beans but we do bean, we don’t have that was the first thing I got rid of was the instant coffee, you know. I said, I’m going to bean cup machine. I bought it once and some later. We bought it five years ago. It’s still going strong. It’s brilliant. And patients come and go. Lovely coffee. Thank you very much. You know, selection of teeth and, you know, and it’s just not having that level.

[01:23:48] Of attention to detail, as you.

[01:23:50] Said. Exactly. And just having nice cups to serve it in and and the place being clean in the modern. And it’s all under decoration, not being too scuffed. I know you can’t help the odd scuff here and there and all that sort of stuff. I mean, there was I mean, not that I’ve gone to this, but I had in the last practise I remember we had a small tester pots and I used to get the nurse to go round and if there was any scuffs, sometimes I’d do it myself. I’d just paint them every week, just find where the scuffs were, repaint them with the tester so that we got rid of the scuffs straight away. So they didn’t hang around. But it’s things like that. People want to see. They can’t, as you say, can’t judge you and everything and anything else, part of your personality. But they will go often. Yeah. I mean, how many reviews have you seen where they go? Oh, lovely. Clean practise. Very modern, you know. Brilliant. Yeah. How do you know they’re brilliant? How many times have you seen patients where you go, God, they’re singing the praises of the previous dentist. And you go, This dentistry is pretty mediocre. Yeah, but the thing the patients are singing the praises about them. Yeah. And you go well yeah it’s because they’ve got a lot of the other things. Right, you know. But they’re really.

[01:24:59] What about associates and associates? What are your Top Tips? Top Tips? Let’s talk about what you look for when you’re hiring an associate and let’s talk about your bugbears. What’s the thing that pisses you off about associates?

[01:25:13] Yeah. What pisses me off? It was those associates outright who basically seem to think that the boss is ripping them off, that they’re making the absolute bloody fortune out of them. And then they they’re really pissed me off associates.

[01:25:27] Some of them thing was.

[01:25:28] Yeah. That wasn’t them. Who aren’t, who don’t, don’t sort of realise that they’re part of the clinical team, that they’re, that things like I’m trying to think what else. Because for both associates we’ve had associates that were that before I took over the practise had to go and work in as an associate for a brief, very brief period of time. And one of the other associates used to, if there was a gap before the end of the day, so say share the gap. And then the other end of the day, she would just literally walk out and tell the receptionist to cancel that sort of patient know. So would say, I’m not I’m not hanging around for 45 minutes to see Mrs. So-and-so for a check-up counsellor. And I’m going.

[01:26:07] Wow.

[01:26:08] Yeah, yeah. Know that’s extreme. And you don’t get that, but it’s, it’s.

[01:26:14] What are you looking for when you hire them?

[01:26:16] What am I looking for? I’m looking for very much. Can I talk to them? Do I get on with them? Can I talk to them? Because, you know, obviously you want people who are on board with what your way of thinking is. You know, I want to hear a good a good story from them. I want to hear that a certain certainly it will be a lot of I want to hear they can hold their own. They can talk to me. Honestly, I’m not so interested in clinical skills, you know. I know nowadays the thing is a portfolio, isn’t it? That seems to be the big thing. God, that was that. Jesus Christ never even thought about my day but a portfolio. Yeah. I’m not so interested. I can normally think well if you can talk good talk, if you’ve been on a reasonable number of courses, if you’ve done this, if you’ve done that, you know, and you know, you’re normally going to be okay and it’s, it’s yeah. Just saying, can you gel with them at the end. You’ve got to work with them day in, day out and, and that’s basically what I look for. And you know, there’s no I guess.

[01:27:24] If you could gel with them, then it’s likely your patients are going to gel with them.

[01:27:27] Too. Like dentists would attract people, attract people. They like them basically. Then there isn’t that old thing, you know. So at the end of the day, if you’re basically if you’re an irritating, irritable old bastard as a dentist, you know, then you’ll get irritable bastards of patients, you know, then they whereas, you know, you’re fairly relaxed, easygoing, sort of bloke, you’ll lose the ones that are irritable, right. Or the ones that think, oh, he’s a bit flippant. You know, I’m always sort of telling jokes and bad jokes and all that sort of stuff, you know? So lose the ones that think, Oh, he’s not that professional, he’s a bit flippant. I don’t want them particularly. And in that way I want more. So yeah, I want associate. But it is good to have a mix within the practise, different styles, different, you know, so that we, you know, patients always you don’t necessarily want the patient leave the practise, but you might say, well, you can go and see, they might go and see, can I go and see yens for example or whatever, you know. But yeah, the problem is with nowadays. Yeah. Trying to get an associate, that’s the thing. But there we are.

[01:28:29] Yeah. You know, it’s not limited to dentistry, right? There is a global shortage of labour and raw materials. It’s a funny time. I don’t know if you ever remember this in your time, Nigel. I don’t ever remember this sort of weird. It’s not even a recession yet. Is is whenever it is. The shortage of labour and shortage of raw materials.

[01:28:51] Yeah, well, yeah, the raw materials is certainly a big thing. Yeah. I mean, we, I have said to the staff, you know, whereas normally we did it just in time because we got a letter from Henry Schein or my email months ago going We can no longer guarantee next day delivery, you know. So I said, I don’t want to be run down to the last minute. Please give us a months, you know, like whatever. But yeah, no, to be honest, when I first qualified as a dentist and came to England, I could have walked into any area in England and been offered six jobs on the spot. You know.

[01:29:23] There were dentists.

[01:29:24] Yeah, I was a dentist. Yeah. But in terms of going round beyond that with dental nurses and stuff, no, I don’t ever remember such a shortage of dental nurses, such shortage materials, you know, and certainly. But you can see it in the wider economy. We were in Guildford today shopping and some of the staff we had to encounter in some of the quite posher shops, you’d go, Oh my goodness, they really must be struggling. Yeah, because, you know, calibre wasn’t there that had, you know, and whose somebody was saying who lives in London was saying that virtually every restaurant has a sign saying staff on immediate start you know.

[01:30:01] Yeah and I guess pressure on wages as well. Right because staff know that this is the situation.

[01:30:09] The staff staff know the situation, pressure and wages. And again, it’s fine in private practise, you just put your fees up, you know, at the end of the day. But the NHS, I don’t know where they go without, to be honest with you, I really don’t know where they go without.

[01:30:24] Let’s talk about some mistakes. What have been your biggest mistakes? I want to talk both clinically and business wise.

[01:30:33] Yeah, business wise. Clinically. Oh yeah. I’ve had quite a few. Yeah. From the, from the woman that I wanted to do, the woman that I injected bleach into her sinus and doing the nasty and, you know, doing the asked. And as she it’s quite funny, I was about 40 at the time and I was doing the Suede Rubber Diamond. She was quite quiet, everything was going nicely and she was sort of and she suddenly went, Oh, what was that? And I went, I’d just blown the three in one. And I thought, Oh no, it’s just nothing. Just air. And so we’re worked on a minute or two later, a re injected with the hypochlorite and a burning sensation in my eye. And I, I went, shit, I’ve just, just after I’ve done that. All right. So I sat her upright and took the rubber down off. Oh, no. Yeah. Luckily I had the thought, oh, shit, I’ve been injected, so I don’t know why. Just in my head I got let’s get local anaesthetic solution. I just got sinus and then pumped about four cartridges of Satanists through the root canals and just pumped it, pumped unprompted and sat her upright, took the rubber dam off, sat her upright, and as we sat her upright, she Oh my nostrils burning. Oh my God, my nose was burning. And all this clear drip out of her nose. Obviously, the hypochlorite and I can remember at the time exterior going to know this sometimes happens. Yeah, it’s rare occurrence, but it’s fine inwardly I was going I want my mummy, I.

[01:32:09] Really want my God.

[01:32:12] And I could remember thinking and I do need the loo right now, you know. And so definitely bra and trouser moment we ended up taking the two thought because it I just said oh it must be cracked, let’s take the two so send her up to the hospital. And she basically the hospital berates her because apparently she had a sinus thinning operation 20 years previous to that and never told me I said I was at least honest or to say to hell, even if you told me that, I probably wouldn’t have made any difference, you know. But she brought me a box of chocolates and apologised for actually putting me through stress and I thought was quite sweet and surgical emphysema as we discussed this on the on the on that. Not such a good day. There are office we cup the patients. Not everybody has but I think most dentists, if they’re absolutely honest, will have caught the patients. Tongue, cheek, whatever. Yeah, we’ve all had minor things. So things like that. Yes. Have happened. Nothing, nothing, nothing. So irreversible. You know, what.

[01:33:14] About what about where a management or patient management problem, where have the patients lost confidence and you know, or something?

[01:33:23] Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah. I’ve only ever been sued and once in my career and that was over a when I left the practise, my last practise to come and start this one. If I’d been there it would have been managed and handled. But yeah, it was just one of those things. I missed the root canal on a lower seven and blah blah blah patient and I end up being sued. Nice DLP letter came through for that, which was lovely, you know. So the yeah. So no in terms of yeah, we all.

[01:33:53] I’m looking for something. I’m looking for something that someone could learn from because you know I it’s a nice story the non the hypochlorite one but not, not much we can learn from that one.

[01:34:05] No, no, no, no. Yeah. So in terms of I think the things you’ve got, you’ve got to look for at the start with patient management is you will get red flags from patients from early on. You know, they will start throwing them up fairly early on if they’re sort of saying, oh, I can’t lie back, I can’t do this, I can’t do that, I can’t do the other. I think you’ve got to learn to pull out pretty quickly and say, I need to refer you on someone else. I think this is where your bacterial referral comes in. But yes, we do all get patients where we go that things aren’t going well. Right. And maybe, you know, they haven’t gone as well as you’d hoped, despite warning the patients. And the patients obviously very disappointed in terms of patient management. What I tend to do with them is look, I go look that root canal, all right. It didn’t work out as well as we thought it was going to. Unfortunately, it’s cleared up. It’s only eight months ago. I know a bit of crying on it.

[01:35:00] This, that and the other. Why don’t we get that tooth taken out? Because just keep them giving you problems. And I refund money. That’s what I do. Ultimately, people. People say to me, what? You refund money? And I go, Yeah, there’s no point in arguing. I work on that. I probably refund the practise refunds by. Under the practise turnover every year. Yeah. Now, considering we have a really good turnover in the practise, it’s nothing for a quiet line on. Patients will go fantastic. They stop complaining quite often. You don’t even have to refund the refund. You can just leave it as a credit on the the on the account. And they will either say well I’ll go and see so and so we’ll get the implant, that’ll be a credit towards my implant or that will be a credit towards whatever you need to do in the future. I just think personally, you know, it’s in terms of patient management, I think what you’ve got to make sure that, you know, after the money all the time personally patients will.

[01:36:04] Really I mean, refunds a good, good plan I think especially these days when you’ve got DLP around now. But tell me a story where you refunded money.

[01:36:15] Tell me a story where refund it. Well, yeah, I had one recently where basically again, it was a bit of this guy come in to see me for a second opinion. He was he had been somewhere else and what didn’t want to lose this up or six didn’t have a big feral on it. And I went, Oh yeah, tell you what, I can do that. I’ll refill that. I’ll put a crown on it. Hey. Yeah. Deep on the three times and six months, roots eventually fractured and went shit. So I ended up going, right, here’s your 1200 quid back on the wall where so bloody time, you know. And they I should have, you know, I was looking I think because he was, he had sort of gone I really want to keep this tooth, you know, and even though I had to.

[01:37:07] So on reflection on reflection, do you think you overestimated your own skill?

[01:37:13] You probably. I think one of the things about dentists with a lot of us are want to please people. At the end of the day, you know, we want to try and. Yeah, so you want to be the person who says yes, yeah. Yes, we can. I think that’s a danger we can all fall into sometimes. I mean, here rodents is a very good word. And I do like that phrase and I think we’ve all been guilty of here. I certainly have been guilty of Herod antics and that was a hero don’t situation. But unfortunately, I didn’t have my kryptonite with me and it all went head up. So I mean, even though we had been warned it might not work. What do I do? Do I turn around? I mean, how would you feel? I mean, if someone turned around you and said, I know you warned me it wouldn’t work, there was a chance that might work, blah, blah, blah. And my bond, when you said that, I thought you meant sort of like seven years down the line. Not. Not, yeah. How would you feel? You’d be pissed off, you know. So, I mean, refund the money and just chalk it up to another. Life is full of these learning experiences and unfortunately it takes sometimes more than once to do the same thing. I mean, I don’t know how many times I’ve done my career, probably right. But sometimes I just seem to never learn totally. I always go in, but I think it’s back into the people pleaser, into the trying to say, Yes, I can do this. You know.

[01:38:34] I think in private you’re always trying to say yes to everything because you’re trying to be a service orientated place as well. So you’re so you love saying yes. Yeah. And you’re right, you can get you into trouble. Yeah.

[01:38:47] There are occasions when you can you can certainly go. Absolutely. I don’t this worked out really well and patients really pleased with it. But there are sometimes you do have to know and say this is a bit of hero, don’t mix and I’ve got better of that over the years, but I still get all into the traps every so often. Yeah. And I think that’s partly why we wanted to put that page up about the failures that no matter what age you are, we have failures. We cook up basically, but it’s how you handle it afterwards. It’s apologies. One of the things I had a South African associate years ago who we were in the NHS and we got a complaint letter. Wait, this was about in the nineties and they about her, her, her attitude, she was really, really annoyed. So what happened was I used to say to her, you know, she, I’d say, why don’t you just say you’re sorry to hear that? So a patient come in and say, Gee, the way it would go is the patient would come in and she’d go. They’d go, I’ve got a problem that you’re feeling. Yeah. That you did last week. Yeah. And she’d go wasn’t my fault. Get a feeling the first place and sweets sort of out. And I’d say, look there’s nothing wrong with saying I’m sorry to hear that. And she’d go, I’m not apologising to anybody. And I’d go, You’re saying you’re sorry to hear that? And I think people sometimes get.

[01:40:08] Nervous escalating things.

[01:40:10] Exactly. Sometimes people get mixed up with the fact that, you know, saying sorry doesn’t mean you’re apologising. You know, you’re saying you’re wrong. It’s just say you’re sorry you had a problem, you know? And I think sometimes if you look at what. Say What do people want from the NHS? Sometimes they get complaints. They just want someone to say, I’m sorry that happened to you and this is what we’re going to do about it to make sure it happens again. Here’s your money back in case you know, this is what we and this is what we suggest we do is the next step they want. Quite often what people want from their dentist is just confidence. You know, they don’t want to be left hanging. A lot of dentists get in trouble because what they do is they just almost like things start going wrong. They abandon the patient. And I think that’s the worst thing you can do.

[01:40:55] And what about from a business perspective? I want you to tell me one of the like the best move you ever made and the worst or the worst day you had as as a professional, you know. From a business perspective, what’s the worst day and the best day? Best thing you did.

[01:41:09] Best thing I ever did. And I have to credit my wife for this. To be fair to her, was actually building the building the actually going ahead and taking a huge financial risk and knocking down her old practise building in in Sanderson Berkshire and building building that we’ve got currently because that a it won best practise of the year in 1999 building practise building 99 nine but it has.

[01:41:37] Did you build it from scratch?

[01:41:38] Yes, totally. We got architects.

[01:41:40] In. Oh, amazing.

[01:41:42] We got knocked down. We worked out of port cabins for a year. We decided we did. So then there was a double height, double bolted, all glass word. It was a way at raptures to come on and go, Oh my God, I’ve never seen a place like this before. Absolutely brilliant. And that was fantastic. And in terms of financially, that has worked out very, very well, a huge risk. And I remember at one time crying, crying just had my first child, Rory, who’s now 25, and I remember coming off the phone and the bank going, We can’t lend you any more money. And the Arctic going, We need another 50 grand. And I’m going, Gee, I’m crying, going, Where am I going to get this money from? You know, and I wish that I managed to get it from somewhere. Finished it. Yeah. Wouldn’t look back on that one.

[01:42:33] Is your wife is your wife is your wife more a risk taker than you.

[01:42:37] Would you say? And trust me, not. No, not but she got good judgement. She married me now she got you know she’s got very good judgement.

[01:42:48] So when you think, if you think of an idea oh really. When you think of, when you think of an idea and if she thinks it’s a good idea too, then you sort of go full in on it because you feel like she’s got good judgement.

[01:43:01] Yeah, the worst financial decision you want dentistry or just generally financial decisions you like? Yeah. Well, we see again, I have to say my wife, she warned me there was this sort of investment scheme I was desperate to back in. I had a bit of a low period in my in the mid 2000 so when I was about just turned 40, a mid-life crisis which you could call it, you know, and I’m desperate to get out down the street, desperate to try. And I really had and I somebody come along and said, oh, invest 35 grand into this property scheme. It will be brilliant. You’ll make a fortune. That’s something the other my wife went, don’t like them, don’t like them, don’t like them. And I went, Oh, you’re wrong, they’re fine, they’re fine. You don’t want their space, you know. So then you know. And I went, No, no, no, no. So I basically, against my wife’s judgement, took 35 grand of our money and invested. Yeah, it went tits up. Lost it all. Yeah. Loss of all. Yeah. So you know it’s one of those desperate and this factor when you’re desperate for the money, you make poor decisions, you make.

[01:44:12] Bad decisions.

[01:44:13] You make bad decisions, you know? And I think that’s what young guns don’t be desperate for the money. You know, money will come if you treat people correctly. Money will come and and you do. Yeah. So it’s not but yeah. Yeah, no. My wife, she will say I told you about them. She still brings up from time to time now and I’ll go, that was, that was 15 years ago. Now I play Sarah. I think we’ve gone past that, you know. But yeah, you know what? I still beat myself up about it. I didn’t see that coming, you know, I stupid it was, but yeah, that was the place I was in at the time, you know. So, you know, and probably going back to be an associate for too long. I sold the practise. I sold the practise in 2009 and then stayed in it for a few years. Yeah, I was probably wasn’t the best decision for that actually. But apart from that, yeah, I can’t say I actually have been, let’s say, very lucky with where I’ve ended up in life. I can’t complain.

[01:45:15] Excellent. We’re coming to the end of our time gap. So I’m going to ask you the same questions we ask all our guests at the end. Am to two questions. One is fantasy dinner party. Three guests, dead or alive. Who would you.

[01:45:31] Pick? Well, the weird with the first one is a weird one. It would be my wife’s great grandfather I use called Surfside Wazir Hassan. All right. Who was the founder of the All India Muslim League. All right. Okay. My way out. My father was from North India, originally from Lucknow area. I went to medical school and whatnot and was meant to go to Cambridge, but couldn’t go because my father in law was born in 1929. His grandfather was Uttar Pradesh. He was the Lord Chief Justice of Uttar Pradesh. Rajesh sounds fascinating bloke, absolutely fascinating and so much so. When my father in law grew up, he went to medical school, right? With a servant. Right. And I said and then looked on. I went and I said to him, Sir, your life when you grew up was very like Downton Abbey. And he went, he thought, Oh, yes, I suppose it was. He said, we had more staff and I mean, and so he had but his his his his grandfather was a fascinating character and actually has a street named after him in Lucknow. So, you know, he’s fascinating to meet, you know. The second one is my love of rugby, the Brian Driscoll of it’s simple but probably the world’s best centre, arguably. But we met him at London Irish when my son was seven and my son took fright and couldn’t go over and see him and God bless him.

[01:47:10] Brian O’Driscoll noticed that my son Rory was sort of cowering by a tree crying, and he went over and actually tapped him on the shoulder and said, And I just thought, You know what? You’re a decent bloke, actually. You know, you noticed that child was, you know, like that. And, you know, I suppose the last person I sort of I struggled with to think who I would like to have have along. Yeah, I really because there’s nobody I sort of hugely go, Oh God, yeah, it’d be great to have so-and-so along. It would be nice to have, you know, I think everybody would say this, but it’d be nice to have my father back just to see, because I think he was such a businessman. He’d be very proud of what I did. I think it would be nice he died before because I was very much he was 47 when I was born and he died when I was only turning 40 and I hadn’t hit quite the success I have now. And I think it would be nice for him to come along and then he could be very, very proud. You know what you know? So yeah, but yeah. So that would be basically my mix. Yeah.

[01:48:13] Very nice, man. Very nice. Interesting mix of people as well. The final question. It’s a deathbed.

[01:48:23] Question.

[01:48:23] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not that far. Not that far.

[01:48:28] Enough. Sure. You’ve got plenty of time on your deathbed, your nearest and dearest around you. What three pieces of advice would you give them?

[01:48:38] My first one is Don’t be a sheep. All really don’t be a sheep. In other words, do not follow the herd. The flock stand up for your own opinion because ultimately you end up with a very dissatisfied life. If you try and mould yourself, you are your own person and what you what you believe in is right. So definitely don’t be a sheep. The second.

[01:49:06] Voice.

[01:49:07] Yeah, the second one would be I had a couple I was torn up between exercise more, which is important to realise that later on in life. But I see trust that I think that’s what a lot of people would say. Wouldn’t it be trust your trust, just literally listen to your gut. If I’d listened to my gut about that investment I’ve made. Yeah. And the final ones are probably true, but slightly more tongue in cheek is yeah, don’t drink cheap red wine. Make sure you drink less of it, but drink better.

[01:49:45] Yeah.

[01:49:47] I like that. I like that. Well, it’s been it’s been wonderful. It’s been it’s been probably our longest podcast ever because we had to go through the red wine bit. I hope you keep the red wine post going. Yeah. So you don’t get put off by by some of those negative.

[01:50:07] You can do. You can’t do. That’s the problem. Yeah.

[01:50:10] But, but you know, there’s a discipline in doing something and sometimes you feel like you’ve got to do every week. I don’t think you should do it every week. I think you should do it every time you’ve got something where you’ve spoken to someone, you know, that’s that’s the important thing. And you seem to speak to a lot of people. You seem to know a lot of people. So, yeah. So you seem to get a nice different views of of what what is and isn’t controversial. It’s lovely to see those. And I really hope the new group goes very well as well. Not such a good day at the orifice. I think every dentist should be part of that and and encourage everyone.

[01:50:40] To.

[01:50:41] Contribute.

[01:50:42] It’s the posting is important. Yeah. Just to help other people.

[01:50:45] Contribute to that because you know the key point in this podcast is what were your mistakes, what can we learn from them? And you know, we don’t talk about our mistakes enough in this profession. We need to talk about them more. Absolutely. It’s been an absolute pleasure having you. Thank you so, so much.

[01:51:02] Now yeah, now I know it was a great. Thank you very much. Payman.

[01:51:07] 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.

[01:51:23] 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 had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

[01:51:37] 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.

 

[00:00:00] Does it get any easier for you?

[00:00:01] Martina It might sound bit harsh, but yes, it does get easier. And you know why? It’s because I now know you do no one any favours by having people on your team that are disruptive, that do not work hard or lazy. And you soon realised when you get rid of those people swiftly, what a favour you’ve done for your team, because afterwards no one wants to recommend to you that you should fire someone. But when you’ve done it, suddenly all the stories come out, all the reasons why you should fire them, come out and you realise that you’ve actually done your team a massive favour because when you have people like that on your team, it frustrates those really, really good team members and you don’t allow them to do their job properly and you’re hurting your team by allowing that behaviour within your team. So I’m actually really quick to fire now.

[00:00:59] 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.

[00:01:17] It gives me great pleasure to welcome Martina Hodgson onto the podcast. Martina is a multi award winning, multi practise owning now that she’s just opened her her squat very publicly on on Facebook. Having having everyone watch your opening. Martina Inspiring women in dentistry a lecturer really quite an inspirational person. I mean, I met you, Martina, the first time the minimalist conference and I want to think and just watching you over the last four years, how far you’ve come in that period. And I know it’s one of those iceberg kind of things that you’ve been working at it for years and years and years. But it’s great to have you on the show. Thanks. Thanks for doing this.

[00:02:00] Thank you so much for having me. I’m very excited to be on.

[00:02:04] So we normally start with you kind of backstory. Where were you born? What kind of kid were you? Why did you choose dentistry?

[00:02:14] And so I was born in Colchester, in Essex. I’m a six girl and I think as a child I would say I was very I was quite driven as a child. I was very conscientious and I worked incredibly hard at school. I wanted to do really, really well. But I come from a very, very normal background. My, my mum was a housewife and my dad was an engineer for BT his whole life. And so I was the first one in my family to go to university and I decided I wanted to be a dentist. When I was about 13, I had braces and I actually really thought the whole experience was really, really interesting, really loved going to the dentist and decided that I was either going to be a dentist or a violinist because I play the violin. And so I think I got to the point where I was applying to dental school and to university and kind of weighed up the pros and cons of each and decided that dentistry was probably a more sensible career. And that’s the way that I went. So so that’s me in a nutshell, really. It was it was just kind of I’ve always been very independent, wanted to make my own way in life with a little help from other people as possible, which isn’t a very good idea. And, and that was, that was me really so quite focussed from quite early. I knew what I wanted to do and just I suppose that is me really just I get an idea in my head and then just go for it.

[00:03:51] Are you the oldest? I am. Have you? How many siblings we go by?

[00:03:57] Younger brother.

[00:03:58] So this thing about independence and doing your own thing. Where do you see that? When, when? When was the first sign of that? Why? Why are you that, Kat?

[00:04:08] Why? Why am I like that? Yeah, I asked myself this question. I’ve never had therapy.

[00:04:15] To start right here.

[00:04:17] I do know. I just know it’s going to come to me right now. It’s quite nice, actually. I just think it’s in me. I think it was from day one. I’ve always been like that. I just think it’s in me a lot of the time. I wish it wasn’t. It’s got its plus points, but it’s got big negatives as well. Being so driven, it’s I actually think it’s an affliction, to be honest.

[00:04:45] What are the downsides to being so driven?

[00:04:48] Martin I’m so single minded that everything else falls by the wayside, including a family, which sometimes which isn’t good because I. Just a lot. I get so engrossed in what I do and I love doing what I do so much and I want to achieve all these amazing things that like pop in my head because for fun, just because, like, I don’t even know why I do it. I just have this innate drive that is getting worse. And you said over like the last four years, I seem to have kind of really come from nowhere. And I think that when I hit 40, it was a watershed moment for me. I think as a woman, my confidence kind of came into its own, and that’s when I think my true potential started to to flourish.

[00:05:42] Have you got an addictive personality, Martina? Are you one of these people who sort of like all or nothing I’m going tunnel vision into this thing or.

[00:05:51] I wouldn’t say I have an addictive personality. No, I wouldn’t, actually. I’m quite I can do everything in moderation. But I think when it comes to work or achievements, I think it’s almost like I find it fun to come up with these stupid ideas and then follow them through, like opening a squat practise.

[00:06:13] Would you say Martina would say you’re better at the ideas or or the following them through the operation?

[00:06:19] To be honest.

[00:06:20] Because it’s rare to have both, you know.

[00:06:22] I think it is I am an ideas person, but I very much follow through such a thing. Yeah. And I think I start like things like opening a squad. Like the idea came to me and you know, for me while I can tell that story of how it started. But once I start going on something, you get to a point where there’s no backing out as much as you want to. You’re in too deep and you have no choice sometimes, but just to keep going and going for that goal that you have in your head.

[00:06:51] So let’s just let’s fast forward to the squat quickly, because it’s so recent, because it was last week that you opened it. What was the thinking behind a squat when when you, you know, you shown your successful at the other way of doing things. Well I guess you bought the other practise right? You bought part of it and then.

[00:07:13] Yes, yes. What happened with. So I came up to so I studied in Leeds, I qualified in 2001. Yeah. And then I went back down south for four years and I was living in London, working in London and I met my husband who is from Leeds and he, he said to me when we met I would like to go back up and live in Leeds. And I said, well that’s cool, I really like Leeds, I know lots of people up there. I’m up for it. So we got engaged, we moved up to Leeds and I went for this interview for an associate. So I was a young associate, you know, quite newly qualified. And I went to this interview in this village in Wakefield, and it was a couple of terraced houses not together in a working class coal mining village in the Triangle in Yorkshire. And I loved it. It had this lovely vibe about it as a lovely family practise. It was a private practise and I’d never worked in a private practise before. And the next day I had an interview booked at There used to be an optical express, you remember they used to do dentists and it was next to Harvey Nichols in Leeds, which was the only Harvey Nichols outside London at the time. So it was very glamorous and exciting and I had an interview booked there and the guy at the practise in Wakefield who offered me the job, I said, Well, can I let you know tomorrow? Because I’ve got another interview tomorrow and I really wanted this job.

[00:08:40] It’s like 90 grand a year working next to Harvey Nichols. And he said, Why do you want to go and work for another corporate? And I went, I don’t, actually. So I took the job. And then after a couple of years, there was two partners that a man and a woman and he belly ate at me for two years to buy him out. And I had no aspirations ever before this to be part designer. I was quite happy being an associate, but he banged on at me to buy him out, so I bought him out. And when I look back now the of money that I borrowed from the bank, just, you know, at the time it was so much money to me. And now I look back and I was like, I got a bargain there. And then I had so I had a business partner, a woman for about 12, 12 or so years, and then she retired. So I bought her out. So it’s a very organic kind of process into practise ownership and it was a really nice way to practise ownership. And I’ve been there 17 years now and I think it’s in my heart and soul that places that some of the staff are still there that were there at the beginning.

[00:09:46] How many years, how many years have you been the sole owner?

[00:09:49] I think about four or five years now.

[00:09:51] 35 years. Did you make big changes?

[00:09:54] Yeah, massive.

[00:09:55] So. So was that something that you were. You were having some issues, the wrong word, but. You weren’t you weren’t having similar direction of thought with your partner.

[00:10:04] Because she was a completely different generation of dentist. And I had all these ideas, but they were all quashed and I wasn’t allowed to express myself. And I think the first six months of full practise ownership, I, I think I had anxiety, but I didn’t know it because I didn’t know how to be a leader. And it was suddenly the spotlight on me. And I used to get like these palpitations. I remember like, just sat watching TV, and I was like, I’ve never had this before. And it was because of this sudden burden on my shoulders of of being the leader. And I’m the only one responsible for these people and for these patients. And so I had to start to learn what being a leader meant. And so that was an incredible that has been an incredible journey for me. And it’s not anything that you ever stopped trying to learn how to be a leader. But my watershed moment in that I think we’re going off course the topic here. But I think my watershed moment for me as a leader was lockdown, the first lockdown when we got flung into shutting our practises. In fact, I shut my practise a day before we were told to. I made that decision and suddenly I had to start making very hard decisions very quickly for the good of my team and for the good of my patients. And there was a lot of people have very different ideas about what I should be doing. So very prominent dentists, people that I look up to and respect were telling me to sack staff. This was before furlough came out.

[00:11:40] They were saying, you’ve got to you’ve got to get rid of. You’ve got to shed, you’ve got to shed. You’ve got to keep your head above water. You’ll go under. And I suddenly started believing in myself and being true to myself. And I was like, No, I don’t want to do this. And I remember standing in front of them the day I closed the practise and saying, I’m making a promise to them. And I said I would never I’d never heard of it before. And I promised them all their jobs, and I promised I would keep the business going. And I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I knew that I had to and that I would. And then Rishi came out and announced furlough, and I think I nearly cried that Friday. You will remember all nodding. It was a Friday evening, and I think I burst into tears because it was like, Oh, I’m going to be okay. It’s going to be all right. And I think then I learnt the true meaning of leadership. And to me the true meaning of leadership is being true to yourself and your own values and being authentic. And when you when you understand that and that clicked in my head, like I literally felt the penny drop in my head then. It’s easy after that because you’re just being authentic to yourself. And I have to remind myself time and time again to listen to my own instincts and my own heart on that subject of leadership. But we did go off track there. Sorry.

[00:13:01] No, no, that was.

[00:13:03] My leader. What kind of a boss are you? If your team were to describe you as a boss, what do you think they they’d say about you?

[00:13:12] I think they’d say, I’m infuriating. I think they would say, let’s keep up with I think I’m fair. I think I’m loyal. I think I make decisions for the good of all of the team. And sometimes it can be hard decisions, but then you realise afterwards that you did everybody a favour. I think I’m a very supportive boss. I love to push my team. I love to see them grow. I love to get them on courses. I love to progress them as far as they will let me. I’d say there’s people that want to be like that will really flourish with me.

[00:13:56] But when you said.

[00:13:56] It may sound really annoying as well.

[00:13:58] When you said that being a leader is being true to yourself, that implies a set of sort of. Basic principles that that you run your business by. What would you say those basic principles are? I mean, would you say that they’re different for you than they are for the next day? They should. They should be. But what would you say they are? I mean, if a situation presents itself that hasn’t presented itself before, like like lockdown, often the thing to do is to go back to your basic principles and check against those. What would you say yours are?

[00:14:35] This really is like therapy, because these are the sort of questions which you never even ask yourself. And I think that I would always. First and foremost, my team and my priority. Financial gain has never been. Anything I’m particularly interested in. And I know that sounds strange for a business owner. But the less I worry about the money and more I worry about my team and my patients and providing a good experience for my team and my patients and giving them the best that I can possibly give the more financial gain by REAP as a result. And I see too many practise owners focussing on their profit and their bottom line and not focussing on the really important things that I think are really important, which is looking after your team and looking after your patients.

[00:15:37] So what is the experience of working for Martina? I mean. How does it differ to working at the next place?

[00:15:45] I mean, I don’t know of any maximum practise, like most of my life and. I hope I’m fair and I hope I’m supportive and I maybe I’m not always present because I spread myself too thin.

[00:16:00] Let me give you an example, MARTIN Let me give you an example, because I like to think I’m a real touchy feely boss. Yeah. And generally, whenever someone asks a question, which is outside of the norm, can I take another half a day off because my mom is sick or something? One of these. My my general answer is always yes. Sure. But. Sure. And the experience I want to provide to my team is one of family experience.

[00:16:25] Absolutely.

[00:16:26] But my partner, he’s very clear on this idea of fairness. And he’s very like consumed by fairness. He’s like, well, you told that person they can have half a day off. What if 43 of them, there’s 43 people in there? What if 43 of them ask for half a day off? And he’s very much into policies. You know, what is and what isn’t and the rules and regulations and all of that. And I guess between us we get an answer. But, you know, for me, one of the benefits of a small business, one of the few benefits of a small business is that flexibility of being able to let people, you know, do things slightly, ask a question of the boss, something you couldn’t do at Microsoft. But but where do you sit on that? I mean, because it’s difficult. Someone asks something. Maybe it’s the course they want to go on. Maybe it’s a holiday, maybe whatever it is. And you and you want to give that person the thing. But the implication then becomes favouritism on the staff. With the staff. Did you have to juggle that?

[00:17:25] I think you’re right. And I am probably that person whose instinct would be to go. Yeah, of course. But then there’s people around me in my management team who are on the ground, who are working with the nurses day by day and working with the receptionist, and they will soon bring me back down to. That’s not fair, because if you do that for her, you’ve got to do it for everybody else. And they’re right, actually. And you’re not doing your whole team a favour by, you know, the ones that have got the, you know, the courage to come to you and ask these things. Yeah. You know, some of us might not want to ask you that. And you aren’t doing your team a favour really by working in that style. And I think you do have to. And the bigger your team becomes, the more you have to kind of stick to your rules. And that doesn’t rules are there to be bent and broken like we know that and no one’s going to blame you for extenuating circumstances. But I think in general, you have to try and be fair. I do think that.

[00:18:27] Due to the hiring and firing Martina.

[00:18:32] Sometimes it’s becoming less and less. So I like to I think it’s really nice. You know, as my team grows, as my management team grows, I’m quite happy they know me, they know the kind of people I want on my team. So I’m quite happy for them to hire, unless it’s obviously a really very individual role or quite senior role. I would be happy for them to hire a nurse and they do regularly without me even meeting the nurse. However, when it comes to firing, I don’t think it’s fair to get your team to do that and I always think I should be there. At least I should be there when someone’s fired.

[00:19:15] Does it get any easier for you, Martina?

[00:19:19] It might sound be harsh, but yes, it does get easier. And to know why, it’s because I now know you do no one any favours by having people on your team that are disruptive that, you know, work hard or lazy, that the and you soon realise when you get rid of those people swiftly, what a favour you’ve done for your team. Because afterwards no one wants to recommend to you that you should fire someone, but when you’ve done it, suddenly all the stories come out, all the reasons why you should have them come out, and you realise that you’ve actually done your team a massive favour, because when you have people like that on your team, it frustrates those really, really good team members and you don’t allow them to do their job properly and you’re hurting your team by allowing that behaviour within your team. So I’m actually really quick to fire now.

[00:20:15] If you have you ever hired someone and then maybe like this has happened to me quite a few times, I’ve hired someone in I thought shit like three or four days in. Right. And you think they’re not quite right but I’m still going to give them a chance. Right. And then a little bit later, maybe a week or two later, you realise, right, this person’s got a goal. And then you say to yourself, Well I’ve got give until the end of the month, it’s only fair, give them a month and then it drags on a little bit. Have you ever been in that situation where you’ve had somebody in the business where you think, I’ve got to let them go? But but the nerves and the anxiety of building up to letting them go, how are you going to let go? What conversation are you going to have with? Because I find that’s that for me, it’s been one of the hardest parts of running a business. A finding the right people. But once but then you. Sometimes I find.

[00:21:03] People and they turn up at work. Then the person you interviewed, you’re like, yeah, sorry. The same person. Very. I mean, I had this quite recently. Now I am quite you can tell, you know, at that point, if they’re not going to work hard on week one and try and impress you what they’re going to be doing it in and everyone can see it like everyone will come to you or they won’t necessarily come to me or that comes to my manager. And you know, if all your staff are complaining about a new employee, it’s not going to work. Just get rid, do everyone a favour, let them move on.

[00:21:42] But let’s say it’s not that all your staff are complaining, but sometimes we’ve all got this spidey sense, haven’t we? This, this, this feeling inside us where you got tells you maybe they’re not right. But but everyone’s saying give them a chance. Have you ever been in that situation?

[00:21:58] I think that my team are better than me at knowing whether someone’s right for the practise or not. To be honest, they’ll tell me before I even spell it sometimes.

[00:22:09] So when it comes to hiring, what are you looking for? What? What do I need to be to work for you? Who do I need to be?

[00:22:18] Well, what’s that saying? Hire on. Is it aptitude? Or you can teach anyone with the right attitude and personality. Anything. I would hire an attitude any day over qualifications, you know, skill, you know, their CV. I think if you’ve got the right person with the right attitude, it’s absolutely worth its weight in gold, to be honest. And it’s much it’s very hard to find those people, I have to say.

[00:22:50] And how do you tease that out during an interview process? Attitude Have you got any specific questions or tasks or anything that you.

[00:22:59] I think it’s just so like I say it. I think people can be very different in interviews and I’m seeing a lot of this at the moment that they’re coming across amazing in interviews and they’re answering all the questions correctly and you’re thinking, wow. And then they turn up at work and they’re lazy and you’re like, Where did that person go? So I’m starting to think that we should be definitely doing trial days with people. But yeah, I mean, you’ve got the standard set of interview questions that you can download from anywhere, but at the end of the day, it’s the gut feeling for me and I know, you know, you know, within seconds I think whether you’ve got a winner or not, you’re not always right. I Yeah.

[00:23:49] I’ve been wrong loads of times.

[00:23:53] What’s the structure of the Dental studio? So when you say senior management, what have you, what have you got? The the non-clinical team, who are they?

[00:24:02] Well, because I’ve just opened a second practise, I now have an operations manager, so he works across both sites. So below me it’s the operations manager. And then I’ve just promoted my head nurse at the Wakefield Practise to practise manager. So she’s in training. So my operations manager is going to be working closely with her. And then we have like a management team, so we would have head nurse, your practise manager, you had receptionist and you had TKO. We have a meeting every week. On Monday morning we’ll go to the local coffee shop and we just look at our heads together and they kind of report back and any like feedback and you know, we knock ideas around and problems and that’s really great because as you grow, you need to have those key people in charge of each of their departments. Even if there’s only two receptionists, you need a head, one, I think, who just wants to keep everything ticking over because the more you grow, the more you have to step away and you have to let that control girl go to other people. And if you’ve got people that you really, really trust, which I do, my management team, I really, really trust them that they have the best interests of the practise at heart, then it’s very much easier to step away and let them do the day to day running of that practise. And so that’s that structure is well in place in Wakefield and Leeds. We have a similar structure that we don’t yet have that practise manager in place. But eventually, you know, we have that pathway, that career pathway, but we do have a head nurse, we have the head TKO works across both sites and we have a head receptionist as well.

[00:25:40] What about as a dentist? How do you come across? I mean, I know most of your work is clear, aligner now. Is that right?

[00:25:49] Yeah, but for a very long time I was just a general dentist. I had a demo panellist two years ago. Same panellist for 17 years. So how do I come across to my patients as a dentist?

[00:26:01] Yeah, I think I do. One thing I’ve realised is that many dentists actually have totally different styles, you know. There’s some very relaxed ones and then there’s some very formal ones. What’s what’s your what’s your sort of the USP of of Martino. If I come to you for a for a consult.

[00:26:19] Yeah, well, we have some banter, definitely all about having fun, but being professional at the same time. You might. Those two things aren’t exclusive to me. Yeah. And I try and instil that in all of my team. You know, I want patients to come and have a nice time and be comfortable and relaxed. I’m a quick worker, as most principals are. I work very quickly, but I think you can work very quickly to a high standard and be efficient and be fun and have fun. Make your patients relax because but that comes with years of experience. That becomes knowing your trade so that you’re not even thinking about how you’re doing that treatment plan. You’re just doing it at the same time as listening to a dirty joke or something. You know, I mean, it just it takes a long time, I think, to achieve that where you can get that balance right. But yeah, I think if you came to see me for a consultation, you’d have fun and you’d come away with a great treatment plan and feeling really confident that you were going to get the outcome that you wanted. And that just comes again from 20 years.

[00:27:25] How do you how do you how do you get it across to them that you are, Martina? I mean, at the end of the day, the patient’s a patient and they walk in and they don’t know your level of experience. Do you make that clear?

[00:27:38] I don’t think I need to. I think they can tell from my demeanour.

[00:27:46] Do you know what you’re talking about?

[00:27:47] Confident with the work I’m carrying out and that is just 20 years of experience. I wouldn’t have been that person at 23. Yeah.

[00:27:58] And how does the TKO beat work? I mean, what at what point is the TKO? Does the TKO do the initial consult?

[00:28:07] Yeah. So we our patient journey say for example, with Invisalign, we have a new patient coordinator. So she will be the person that deals with the leads that come in. So we would be running Facebook ads, Google ads, you know, interested people coming from social media. And she will be the person initially to to speak to those patients, to build that initial rapport, to give them those basic facts about Invisalign, and to qualify that patient and start that consent process for that patient. And her role is to book that patient in with the treatment coordinator. So she works very closely with the treatment coordinator. She’ll take a £20 refundable deposit. So that agreement with a TKO and then the TKO will run that consultation with the patient, where she’ll go into more detail about what Invisalign is, how it works. We use a software called Smile Mate, and every patient that’s booked in with a TKO is sent this link. Or it’s actually a whole the whole process is automated now, actually, but they’ll get sent a link where they can upload their photographs onto Imamate and it will use artificial intelligence to generate an oral health report for them, which is fine, that’s great. But more importantly, I review all the photographs that come in and I will then make a note to my TKO and I will tell on the notes. It will. It will tell her, is it a light case? Is it a full case? How long do I expect it to take? Can I see tooth? Where do they get any composite? So if they got missing teeth, have they got baby teeth? Are they suitable for Invisalign and the ones you know, the odd case that looked like they’ve come from a different partner or something.

[00:29:57] I’ll send them to my mate. Up the road is a specialist. She loves mix so. But it’s good because they don’t even have to come in and waste that appointment and waste that time. So we filter out the ones that aren’t suitable, which is very rare. But so by the time that patient comes to that treatment coordinator consultation, they’ve left knowing how long are they suitable, how long is it going to take, how much is it going to cost me and all our USBs as well to go along? So they leave that consultation ready to go. So they the next step would be to book in for the assessment with the dentist. And by the time they’ve looked at that point with the dentist and paid £100 deposit for that, they’re good to go. They’re ready. It’s not a question we can’t even ask in surgery. Do you want to go ahead? It’s more of like decided already. So it’s it’s a process that has taken years, a lot of hard work, a lot of refinement and tweaking. That process never ends. We always trying to perfect our patient journey, and it’s something I’m very, very proud of and it works for us really, really well.

[00:31:03] Martina, do you know the front end of this game? Obviously you’re generating lots of enquiries through your marketing campaigns. What’s the qualification process that happens before they get in with a TKO? Because if we let everyone in with the TKO who enquired Utico would be busy with a lot of tire kickers or kickers as I as I tend to call them. But I call them shit kickers. Yeah. And you know, I guess for me, certainly in my team it’s the lead ninja who’s, who’s definitely the most talented person in the team because they.

[00:31:42] Believe in it for sure. It’s the new patient coordinator. That’s her job. Yeah. And we had a management meeting this morning and our TKO, I think in the last two weeks it converted and it was 18 out of 21 of her consoles.

[00:31:56] Wow.

[00:31:57] Yeah, but that is testimony to our lead ninja and the job that she is doing qualifying those patients because that’s an incredible conversion rate.

[00:32:07] So can you share with us what it is? What are the sort of what you need to do to earn an appointment with your TCL? That’s what I always say, is that for you to step into my practise and have an appointment with a TKO or a dentist, you’ve got to earn it as a patient. Do you have some criteria that they need to meet before they I mean, that 20 quid or 30 quid deposit, whatever it is that that’s incidental, it doesn’t really matter. But what boxes do they have to tick to get through the door?

[00:32:37] Firstly, you’ve got to find out, is it actually Invisalign they want or need because half of them think it’s an implant or a veneer or they’re going to get full set crowns. So they need to understand, is that consent process really starting, isn’t it? It’s understanding what is Invisalign, it’s understanding their kind of key questions that they want answering. Is it her? How long does it take? What does it look like? Can I leave my life normally? And it’s, you know, where do you live? Can you get here? Do you know where we are? How old are you? We don’t treat patients under 18. Have you had braces before? Have you got braces now? You know, it’s all these things. But I find it interesting the way that you put the question across, which was what? How do you earn the right to come and see my Mitsuko? It’s an interesting.

[00:33:26] You didn’t actually say that to you. Who? Me, not you in the practise. Don’t say.

[00:33:32] No. But that’s what that’s what I do as part of our training. So I always say to my team that they need to earn a place in the practise. Right? So we have I have minimum criteria that they need to hit. And Martina, obviously you’ve got all your ups there, but no one should be, like I say, the most expensive part of a patient stepping into your practise is someone walking through the door, not having a clue what they’re there for and not having a Scooby Doo of a price range. Yeah, I don’t believe in this whole. You can sell them the value when they walk through the door. Like if they think they can walk in your practise and get their teeth straightened for 750 quid, you’re wasting their time. You’re wasting your time, you’re wasting everyone’s time. So I just sort of say, in order for somebody to earn a place in my practise, they need to know where the star in price is. And it needs to be realistic. We need a little bit of history behind them, their motivations when they’re looking to get started.

[00:34:35] Is this something they’re just looking into in the future as it’s something they’re motivated to get started with fairly soon? What do they know about the treatment? And then they shouldn’t step into the practise without knowing. You’ve got 20 years experience, you’ve straightened so many sets of teeth, you’ve got a gallery of X, Y and Z. We’ve got over 200 Google reviews with five stars, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So like I say, successful phone call is when all of those have been hit by our lead ninja. And if they still say at that point, I don’t want a book, fantastic, you’ve done a great job because you’ve just pushed someone away, was going to come in and waste our time and then vice versa. So yeah, I kind of like flip it on its head that you may never have thought about it like that, but your process must be pretty slick for your SEO to be converting 18 out of 21 patient. So you’re leading in just definitely doing something right and qualify in the patients that were coming through.

[00:35:33] Definitely. And it’s you know, it’s an educational process for that patient. You know, it’s important. It’s our duty to educate them on price, on time, on what is Invisalign? What does it look like to take it out? You know, that’s her job. They should be coming in with all the basic facts. And why? Why are they picking us? They should know why they’re picking us. And you have your list of USBs, say, like you reeled off, you know, here’s my USP.

[00:36:02] So, Martina, can you see I’ve got a gut here. I’ve got.

[00:36:07] Yeah. I’ve got my glasses on. You need an implant?

[00:36:10] I’m in. No, no, no. Definitely not an implant. But I’m interested in getting my teeth straightened with you. Why should I come to see you?

[00:36:18] No, I. No, no, no, I don’t. Whatever. You want me to tell this to my. Now I’m going to do that.

[00:36:27] You’re going to just sell yourself.

[00:36:29] To selling myself? I don’t mind other people selling me. I’m not selling myself.

[00:36:34] How would you? How would you. How would your team sell you? What would they be? What would they say?

[00:36:40] That’s why you’re going through press practise training programme.

[00:36:47] It’s pretty. It’s pretty neat. I said, I’ve got some receptionists out there.

[00:36:55] And.

[00:36:56] It’s nice. It’s nice when you can start two boxes and it takes a long time to earn all these USBs that you can start telling your patients that we’re a diamond provider and a top provider in Leeds and Invisalign Diploma with Dentistry Top 50, all these, you know, awards, blah, blah, blah. It’s all, you know, it’s all just guessing, isn’t it?

[00:37:22] It’s a lot easier for somebody else to. I was going to say I’m low. You’re very.

[00:37:26] Uncomfortable. This conversation you said at the beginning, is there anything you don’t want to talk about?

[00:37:32] Let’s let let’s move on. Let’s move on.

[00:37:36] Now.

[00:37:37] Martina, there’s been quite a lot of talk about Invisalign as as a as a partner and people saying, you know, we’re working for them and you’re making the brand stronger than your own brand. You must know what I’m talking about. Yeah. Do you how often do you look at alternatives to Invisalign or are you just, like, completely head? I’m not not I’m planning to bring out an alternative, but there are loads of alternatives these days. Yeah. How often do you look at those or have you not? Are you single mindedly behind.

[00:38:11] Because that other people do that? So people that I respect, people that know what they’re doing. If they want to try Karolina Systems, I’ll ask them about how do they get. They will go back to Invisalign though. So to me that says it all. The big, well respected orthodontists, they mainly use Invisalign and there is a reason for that.

[00:38:33] But do you think that reason is the way it works, or do you think the reason is the brand, or what do you think the reason is?

[00:38:39] No, I wouldn’t use Invisalign just for the brand. I don’t think I need to. I don’t think it’s it’s just a name that’s become a household name that people use to refer to clearer lines. They, they’ll, they’ll ring any practise and ask for Invisalign but they don’t really care. I don’t think if they’re getting Invisalign or not as long as what the, what they’re saying is they want clear aligners provided by a professional dentist and.

[00:39:06] You know what I mean, that if you walk into Harvey Nichols and you want to buy a coat, there’ll be a kind goose coat there. And there’s a reason why they’re stocking Canada goose and not the number to whoever the hell that is. You know, there’s people walking in saying, I want to use.

[00:39:21] Yeah, I suppose. I mean, it’s a massive brand name now, but that doesn’t really sway me as the reason to use it. I think there would be loads of other ways you could market clear aligners without having to use the word invisalign and still do really, really well. I use Invisalign because I believe in it as a product. I think it’s predictable. I know how to use the system, I’m comfortable with it and that’s why I use Invisalign, because I know I’m going to get the results. I know the research that they put into it, the continuum of development that’s more important to me than the brand name. Maybe, maybe someone who’s like a young associate that maybe doesn’t have much of a profile, maybe it might be important to someone like that. I don’t know. I don’t know.

[00:40:10] I mean, Prav you work with a bunch of different aligner companies with is, right?

[00:40:18] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I work with a lot of clients who are top invisalign providers. I work with Claire. Correct. Directly. Sure. Smart, sure. Smiles SPARC who’ve been around been around for a long time. I mean, you know, I’m not the guy to ask, you know, which one’s better than than the other and all the rest of it. Obviously Invisalign, they’ve got more volume behind and more research and much bigger company. Right. And I’m not a clinician, so I can’t really comment on that. But you know, you speak to various people out there, they have their reasons for using, let’s say, Invisalign or not or having an alternative, whether it’s a business reason, whether it’s a clinical reason or whatnot. Some people are looking for, you know, I speak to some practises or a top Invisalign. Eighties, but then look at it from a profitability point of view, say, well, they’ve hit this status and now they’re going to move over to, let’s say, spark or clear. Correct as a share of wallet because they know their lap fee is going to be less with that. And they still believe clinically they can get the same or similar result. Right. So there’s loads of different ways in which people, I guess, mix it up. I don’t think anyone can deny that, you know, a Invisalign is the market leader and the number one brand out there. However, I do feel that Invisalign is becoming commoditized in the industry. You only need to flick your Facebook up, open on your phone, wherever, whichever city you’re working in, and you get bombarded with Invisalign ads. And it’s a combination of roll up fee free consultation, will throw in some retainers, will throw in a bit of free whitening, and we’ll do a bit of free composite edge bonding while we’re at it, all combinations and permutations of that.

[00:42:05] And what I feel is that with that type of marketing, what we’re what we’re seeing is almost like it being commoditised, commoditized, like whether you go to get a tin of Heinz baked beans from Waitrose, Tesco’s or Morrisons, it’s the same tin of Heinz baked beans. And people are not looking at Invisalign, for example, based on the fact that you’ve got 20 years experience, you’ve got awards, you’ve got you’re a diamond, whatever that is, right, is patients are just looking at Invisalign like a product they can buy off the shelf rather than the skill that sits behind it, the treatment planning, the the ability to know what to do when things go wrong, whether it’s refinements, adjustments and all of that sort of thing. And, you know, that’s my problem at the moment with, with the marketing of Invisalign at the moment is everyone’s getting on that bandwagon, everyone’s doing an open day, everyone’s got a Invisalign offer. And whether it’s tooth whitening worth £300 or tooth whitening worth for 50 or retainers worth 300, or whether you’re talking about varied retainers or fixed retainers, blah, blah, blah, it’s a combination of that. And I know recently, Martina, you’ve got a little bit of stick online. I think there was a post that went up and then was deleted because you’re opening Invisalign off, right? So I guess first of all, let me know your thoughts and how you feel about Invisalign as a commodity and then just tell us about your opening offer and the generation of cash flow for your new business. And and just give us a bit more insight into this.

[00:43:42] And I agree with you, so to an extent on it being seen as a commodity. But I think that you underestimate the IQ of some of a lot of our patients. Maybe I particularly attract those with a high IQ, I don’t know. But I do think that people search me now and and I do think a lot of people do their research. And there will always be patients who just want the cheapest treatment, who just don’t really understand what it is and the skill behind it. The same as for composite bonding, it drives me up the wall. The DMS, I get saying, what’s your price for composite bonding? Because I’m shopping around and I’m looking at prices and I’ve still you’ve got a way of like me explaining to them that not all composite bonding is the same. Please tell me without sounding like I’m trying to like push them to sell it because I’m not. But I just want these people to realise that not all composite bonding is the same and they think there is a cohort of patients who think that all dentists have the same level of skill and experience and everything is the same.

[00:44:59] Like we’re robots and it’s not true. And don’t ask me to do a root canal and don’t ask me to do a surgical extraction because it’s not going to happen. It’s going to be a screw up, it’s going to be a massive screw up. And the dentist down the road is much better off doing it than me. Right. But I am better at doing clear aligners. And some will do their research and some will specifically say, I’ve looked on your Instagram, I’ve seen the work that you do, and they will come to you and they will find you. And they’re the best kind of patients, obviously, that we like. But it does frighten me when I see the level of skill of some of the dentists that are providing Invisalign. It frightens me a lot is that they don’t have the support. They are blindly going into some of these treatments and I think it honestly gives me the heebie jeebies and they might be charging more than me, but that’s fine. So that’s how I feel about that.

[00:46:00] Regarding that, do you think this this Invisalign should spend a bit more time and a bit. More skill and effort on treatment planning.

[00:46:09] I think at the end of the day in educating.

[00:46:14] Know well you know that clean check that comes back.

[00:46:16] You see they should be responsible for the treatment. No, not not legally.

[00:46:20] But, you know, nowadays people are saying, well, look, the clean check that comes back from Invisalign, you can pretty much ignore. And you have to do your own do your own treatment plan. And then there’s a bunch of people outsourcing that.

[00:46:31] Yes. Yeah. No, no, I do my own. But I think the clinician should be responsible.

[00:46:40] Because the Clinton is is responsible legally. But my point my point on it is Invisalign is by far the most expensive product. Right. It’s the product that’s been there the longest. It should one of the value ads of Invisalign should be that the treatment plans are done really well. Yeah.

[00:46:56] But it’s that technician who’s producing that clean check going to understand what’s going on with the bio type and gingival recession and bone levels and TMJ function and occlusal trauma and all these things that we take into consideration when we’re planning on our treatment plans, short routes, all these kind of things. They’re not they’re not there to do that, and that is our job.

[00:47:21] But I think these guys who are going off the rails, are you saying some of the bad treatments you’re seeing? I guess they’re guilty of trusting that technician.

[00:47:29] To prove like it’s. There you go click approve. Yeah.

[00:47:35] Just says yes. Let’s let’s talk about let’s talk about that thing. Let’s talk about that offer now.

[00:47:44] So we sidestep that.

[00:47:45] No. So what’s the offer? What was the offer? You might as well for people who don’t know the story, just just tell us go through what was the offer and why did you get. Stick over it.

[00:47:54] And the Alpha. I loved that I got sick over that, by the way. It made me so happy because I thought, I’m doing something right. I’m getting under people’s noses. This is great. The ulcer was ending Invisalign, so we had like four, four, two, four, nine five, including whitening and with errors and a hygiene. And the stick that I got was I wasn’t quite sure what their beef was other than it was like, how are we supposed to compete with this? And da da da. And I thought, well, how you can compete is you can work your absolute arse off for 20 years to get to the position where you are, you know, getting a nice big discount from Invisalign and people want to come and see you and you can still do that and make a really good profit. And by the way, you can spend years refining your patient journey and recruiting the right people, getting your lead ninja, getting your TSO, getting other dentists to come in. Oh, you can by the way, you can spend another few years training all the other dentists that you got to come and work for you to learn how to do Invisalign. And you can do a diploma and you can learn how to teach Invisalign. So when you can do all that, then you’ll be in a position I’m in to be able to offer Invisalign at two, four, nine, five and still make a profit.

[00:49:16] What’s the what was the profit do you mind sharing with us.

[00:49:19] If I break it down? I think it was I think it was it was over 1000 times profit still, I think.

[00:49:25] Oh, really?

[00:49:26] Yeah. This is it, you know. And it comes and sees, right? I’ve got a brand new squat practise and you bums on seats I’ve got mouths to feed and they seem to practise loads and loads.

[00:49:37] Loads of people, loads of people jump to your defence as well. Let’s be fair about it.

[00:49:41] Yeah, it was really nice. I loved that. You know what? That post didn’t upset me at all and I was quite pleased that I was creating a bit of a stir because it made me laugh.

[00:49:50] And and I guess if you do in a fixed price for four light and fold, you’re taken into account. There’s going to be a proportion of light where your margins are going to be higher and they’re going to be a proportion of four way imagine will be slightly less. And it all works out in the mix, right? So if you get more lights through the door, you’ll know more than anyone else what proportion are going to be lights versus full. Right. In terms.

[00:50:13] Of, you know, I have a business model that makes sense as well in terms of the way my set up was with my associates and the way that they get paid for the cases and the support that they have from assistant dentists and the support that we give them in terms of education and study clubs and support with the clean tech planning in house, everything’s in-house. And you know, I’m here as a mentor, as a teacher to these people, but I’m then able to attract those dentists that are willing to work for less of a wage. But in return, they’re getting experience, they’re learning the growing, they’re getting support. So I got myself into that unique position, which.

[00:50:54] Is that £1,000 is then split with your associate.

[00:50:58] No, that’s not my business model. That’s my profit.

[00:51:01] That’s your as the owners profit.

[00:51:03] Yeah. So they, they get paid on a case rate. Yeah. And then I have like we have levels of dentists, so we have like a level one dentist who does the IPR and the attachments. Then you have like a level two dentists who’ll be in charge of the case. They’ll do the, the planning. You know, they are they start the case and finish the case. They’ll do the refinements, all that. But they can refer to the level one, dentists, things like attachments, IPR, simple fillings, and those level one dentists are on a day rate. So the set up of the whole practise allows for me to be profitable from that case.

[00:51:39] And what’s in it for the level one dentist that he’ll eventually become a level two dentist? Is that the idea?

[00:51:44] Just a pathway to growth to learn, to grow, to become a good dentist? And that is the whole ethos behind my new practise. Is that really that whole education pathway that grows pathway for associates to come through and learn to be really, really good dentists with the support that they wouldn’t get anywhere else.

[00:52:06] So let’s let’s talk about the squat, the Dental guy, the architect. The Dental architect. First question why did you decide to change brand? Why didn’t you say another one?

[00:52:17] Yeah, why didn’t I keep my. So the other practise is called the Dental Studio. It’s a completely different beast. And I obviously I did think about keeping the brand and having a sister practise, but it’s just not the same. Like it’s my wait for practise is Heart of Yorkshire, you know, farming community combe, old coal mining community families, very, very long term loyal patients. The dental architects is slap bang in the city centre is compared to Wakefield, which is a couple of terraced houses not together. It’s a beautiful grade two listed building, it’s an old leather warehouse and it’s just, you know, the whole demographic of our patients is different. It is office workers, it is students. It’s a younger kind of generation of patients. So the branding that I have for the dental studio just didn’t fit with what I wanted for here.

[00:53:25] And how long was it from when you said, Right, I’m going to do this to the day that you opened your doors?

[00:53:31] Do you think it was about 18 months, I think.

[00:53:35] And take us through some of the. For someone who’s never done a squat.

[00:53:38] Yeah.

[00:53:39] Take us through that process.

[00:53:42] Well. I mean, how it came about was. My husband is a property investor and I don’t really take much notice of what he does for a living. But one day he invited me to come and look at a new property that boy needs. So I was like dragged along. And I walked in and I wasn’t looking for a second practise, something that had been on the back burner for maybe ten or so years but had kids. I never really made much of it. And I walked into this completely derelict building, which is on a really, really busy street and leads literally a minute’s walk to the train station. And I just it hit me like a ton of bricks that this was going to be this should be a beautiful dental practise. I’d just taken the grout. I was just going to have the ground floor. In the end, I ended up having a ground floor in the first floor. It’s a five story building. And really that was that was it. And I said, I have stupid ideas. And then I get in too deep and it’s too late to turn back. That’s what happened. But it was, I think to me when I reflect on why I did it, why, you know, why did I do it? I asked myself that question a lot. I think a lot of me did it just because I could. I knew what I wanted. I knew what I could do. I had the experience of running a practise. And I knew what I could create and I could see more important than all of that. It was that I saw the opportunity and I took it. And that’s what happened. And at the end of the day, I think this practise because it’s mine from very the roots of it I think it’s been an expression of me actually was I was quite sound quite deep but I think it’s my creative expression of my values, of what I’m about, the aesthetics of it.

[00:55:43] So is this your magnum opus? Like every dentist, every dentist has this dream of like this ideal practise, I think is this is this is this what it was for you?

[00:55:54] Yeah.

[00:55:55] Amazing.

[00:55:56] What did the name come from? Well, you know, when when I when I’m approached by either wannabe practise owners or people who are in that discovery phase, like, you know, there’s there’s every spa, studio, spa, studio, smile, spa, smile, practise, smile, clinic. All the names are gone, right? And so picking the name is you can go and then you go look at domain names and all the rest of it. It all goes through that process.

[00:56:26] You know. Well, picking the name is actually if I was to write a book on how to start a squat, I would say the first thing you need to do is pick a name, because until you pick a name, it holds up everything. You can’t do your branding. You can’t do your interior design until you’ve done your branding. You can’t design your final build until you’ve got your interior design. It’s like until you’ve got that name, nothing else can actually follow. Yeah. So the name is obviously one of the first things that I did. I had this really good branding consultant I work with. She’s called Car Abandon. She deliberately all the people that I’ve worked with throughout this whole project, apart from like very specific dental supplies, mentors that I’ve had have got nothing to do with dentistry. They’ve never done a dental practise before because I didn’t want it to be a cliché name, I didn’t want it to be a cliché brand. I wanted it to be very, very special and unique. And she, she we did have that whole kind of discovery process of a name. And in the end, I did spend a whole afternoon with her on this whole discovery process and the name and everything. But that name had been something that I’d already thought of before that process. And I’m glad, I’m glad I still went through the process with her to know that that was the right name, but it was my favourite name and a lot of people said they didn’t like it, they couldn’t spell it and all of that, and I just stuck with it. And it’s like one of those things where I was like, No, I’m going to go with my gut. I really like it and I’ve had so many compliments ever since on it. And the architect, the name architect kind of comes from the building itself, the beautiful building. But the fact that, you know, we we are the architects of smiles. So it was all kind of stuff really.

[00:58:15] And I think the branding and everything just flows beautifully when when you think of the name, just the logo, everything that you’ve seen in evolution on social media is your brand and your and your. We’ve all shared that. It’s almost like we’ve been on that journey with you, right? Because we’ve seen all the little steps and the little reels and the images and stuff like that, that, that, that whole brand has come to life. Yeah. And you right, you nail that name and everything else has followed after it and the brand is so suited to what you see.

[00:58:51] I always felt, I think before as I was starting the project, I felt like the name was like a bit of a luxury to be worrying about the name. But looking back on it, it was so important to get that name nailed and be comfortable with it. Right at the very beginning, because if you change the name, then your branding changes and then everything else changes.

[00:59:10] And what’s been your lowest moment in this whole journey of launching the Dental architect? You said you. You said you found the building. And then you got into deep and then you thought, Right, I’m in now, so I might as well figure out whether I’m going to sink or swim. Were there any sinking moments during this journey?

[00:59:33] Yeah, there’s multiple sinking moments. That was the build is starting work before I even had the funding. So, you know, I said about, like, holding your nose. Oh, man, I held my nerve. I walked into that building site every day, not knowing how I was going to pay the builders. I was like, I’ll call this mine. So for a long time, I didn’t have the funding. I think my, my, my, my absolute lowest moment was a clash I had with one of my the people that I was that was providing me a service for the bills. And we had a very big clash. And I was literally ranting and raving down the phone to him and bawling my eyes out and crying. And because everything had just got so much and everything was being delayed and it was like day after day after day, a new kick in the teeth. And it really has been an exercise in getting kicked, knocked down and getting up again and just doing the same again. And it takes fucking so I don’t know if I’m allowed to sweat balls and it takes grit and I’m not picking myself off it. I’m just putting it out there so everybody knows.

[01:01:05] What’s in it. Give me a bit more detail. Go on. What happened.

[01:01:08] About this?

[01:01:10] Yeah.

[01:01:11] Confrontation. Yeah, I don’t I don’t want to know because I don’t want to badmouth anybody in the industry.

[01:01:19] Don’t, don’t mention the name.

[01:01:21] Well, it’s like, I think if I tell you what it was about, I might give it away. It’s a company that I worked with, but it was just it was a big clash. And, you know, it was just it was it was about you can get over building problems and problems with the QC and staffing problems and all this kind of stuff. Funding problems. I can’t even think of the millions of things that held me back on a daily basis. But it’s that really it’s the relationships that you have along the way. And when that breaks down, that’s what really kicks you in the gut.

[01:02:00] Yeah. Is it a trust thing, Martin? It was. It was it that there was there was some kind of trust there that was broken or a promise that was made?

[01:02:08] I felt that that. I mean, there’s two sides to this story, but I felt like I’d been let down big style.

[01:02:15] Martin Are you the kind of person who works on a handshake or are you the kind of person who sets out the sort of the milestones of what’s going to happen? So if, for instance, for the sake of the argument, if you’re going to have a website, which would you say right by this date, I want this done by that date, I want that done, or are you more intuitive? And if you trust the person, let them get on with it.

[01:02:38] You have to have a timeline. When you when you’re building a practise, you have to have a timeline. And the timeline becomes I’ll tell you why. The reason I got upset with that person was because I was letting down other people and it was delaying the opening of the practise. And, you know, when you’re hiring associates, they need three months to you know, you need to give them three months notice. So you have to pick a date and you have to go with what you told within a day. You know, and what I got so upset about was, yeah, okay, the employees can’t start yet. That’s fine. I can pay them. I don’t care that I’m losing money and I’m, you know, handing the notes and they’ve left the job so I can pay them. But it’s so since you come on and I was just so gutted that these people had left their jobs and followed my stupid dream and believed in me and trusted me. And I felt like I was letting them down. And that’s why that is why I was so upset at that point, because I knew it was going to delay the opening. And I forgot your question. So so in terms of you have to have these timelines, if you do, you do you have to be quite organised. You have to plan in advance and you have to say, right, my landing page needs to be ready now because I need to start marketing now because my TCO needs to start doing virtual consultations now. So I need this, this, this, this and this in place before my TCO starts doing virtual consultations. And so you do have to.

[01:04:02] Be so how much how much ahead of time? How much ahead of opening were you doing virtual consultations?

[01:04:07] Well, in the end, we did. We were supposed to just do a month that we did six or seven weeks because we opened late, which was no bad thing because it meant we got more patients in the chair when we opened. But yeah, so we started running, so we started doing the consults. Now if I did it again, I probably would say six weeks before opening, and then we started running the ads a month before that. So my lead ninja, my new patient coordinator, was booking in with the CEO for the virtual consults for that month before.

[01:04:39] I mean, how involved do you get in the creative? For instance, they’re putting ads out on social. Yeah I help who comes up comes up with the words. Is that you.

[01:04:49] Yeah, I do. Yeah, I have I definitely have a lot of input.

[01:04:55] But then, you know, the process, how the process is where I mean privacy expert. Right. But the process where they try lots of different words and try lots of different pictures and split test.

[01:05:03] They can do that. I’m not that’s that’s for the professionals to do.

[01:05:07] So you give the basic tone of voice. Yeah.

[01:05:10] Yeah.

[01:05:12] Yeah, I get it.

[01:05:13] I think because I think I’m a little bit I’m okay. Like, if I thought it was a bit crap at it, I wouldn’t do it. But yeah, like you say, I’m not going to be A and B testing the arts. That’s for the professionals to do.

[01:05:24] Yeah. And plus, it’s a reflection of you, right, that’s going out there.

[01:05:27] It’s my voice, isn’t it?

[01:05:30] Yeah, it’s. It’s got to be it’s got to be close. I mean, it’s interesting, because sometimes someone else can do your voice better than you. It’s interesting. Perhaps I’ve got a guy. He’s he’s.

[01:05:41] A podcast. I can’t remember the name of the guy. He’s he does loads of implants and stuff. It’s quite a young guy. And then you were talking about. No, no, it was it that one. No, you it was one of your podcasts about building a website and you have a guy that writes everything for you. Just crap. So it sounds.

[01:06:00] Amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:06:02] Word ninja. I feel like everyone’s a ninja word. Ninja.

[01:06:08] Just that phrase.

[01:06:10] But this guy, Martin, this guy, for instance, when he’s writing, he’s writing copy for the owners website here. You can literally hear his voice onto he wrote it and write it, the particular thing that he’s written. But you can hear Ronan’s voice. It’s like you can hear it in Ronan’s accent and voice. And then when he’s writing copy for Enlighten, it’s not my voice. It’s enlightened voice comes over and it’s the same dude sitting there saying, Yeah, yeah, I guess that is a pro, right?

[01:06:40] It’s you. Sometimes other people can express you better than you can express it.

[01:06:46] Just just like right now. You wouldn’t. You wouldn’t. You wouldn’t sell yourself.

[01:06:50] No.

[01:06:53] Well, let’s stay on the dark side.

[01:06:55] Well.

[01:06:56] What’s been. What’s been your darkest day in dentistry?

[01:07:00] Oh doc dentistry.

[01:07:04] If you want wrap it into your biggest mistake clinically or you’re the patient that that complained the loudest or caused you the most pain or any of those sort of things.

[01:07:13] Yeah. You instantly think of something when you say that. You think of that patient, don’t you? Yeah. I don’t think we did any. It was yeah, there was a really, really horrible patient and she complained about literally all the dentists in the practise. And she made me feel anxious for months. She was a lawyer.

[01:07:34] Oh, God.

[01:07:36] It was horrible, horrible, horrible. I haven’t had many, honestly. Oh, mistakes. A million. Of course. Of course. But you know what’s so important? You know, if you would tell young Dennis, what’s the most important thing you can do in your career? The most important learning point is to build those relationships with your patients, because when you do screw up, they’re a lot more forgiving if you’ve got a relationship with them. And of course, yeah, I made hundreds of mistakes. Yeah, but I haven’t had many dark days and I’m sure I’ve had a wonderful career. I love my career. And have you.

[01:08:12] Never had a member of staff let you down big time steal from you? Something like that?

[01:08:18] Not still, no. I mean, I’ve had just. Incompetent members of staff. And just looking back fondly. So. But no, I’ve never had. Yeah. I’ve been very lucky.

[01:08:37] I’m not buying it.

[01:08:39] Well, the gnomes have stolen from me.

[01:08:41] No, no, no. You’ve never had a dark day.

[01:08:43] I can’t. I would say this.

[01:08:46] How can you go 20 years without a dark day?

[01:08:48] No, not so dark days, I’m sure.

[01:08:50] Come on. What stands out? What stands out as dark days?

[01:08:54] Oh, I don’t know. Patience can be annoying and all that and horrible, but I think for me it’s the relationship with your team and I think that would be the thing that upset me the most is if I upset a team member or hurt a relationship with a team member or broken a relationship or done something wrong like that, that’s more important to me. I think with patients, you can you can get over it a little bit, I think.

[01:09:20] I feel like this dark story you’re not telling us honestly.

[01:09:24] I’ll think of one. Ask you is I’m sure.

[01:09:27] All right. All right. When it comes to you.

[01:09:31] I’m never I don’t want to say that I’ve not ever had been sued or anything because then I’m going to get sued. It’s about the way you do allegations, isn’t it? Yes. In dark days.

[01:09:42] It might not just be a patient thing, right, Martine? It might be something unrelated to patients, but it’s in dentistry, right? But I see dark waves manifesting themselves in two ways. Have you ever seen the movie Falling Down? Michael Douglas.

[01:09:56] Yeah.

[01:09:57] Walks into McDonald’s and it’s 5 minutes past breakfast time in the world. Give him his breakfast. Right. So he pulls out his machine gun, pulls out his machine gun and goes batshit crazy. Right. Because he can’t get breakfast. Right. So that’s one that’s one way of manifesting your dark day. And then the other. The other way I see is just crawling into a corner and crying and thinking, what’s the actual f? Why? Yeah. Can you relate to either of those moments, either a falling down moment or just burying yourself?

[01:10:31] I’m sure there’s many days I wanted to get my gun out and shoot everybody in the process. And all the patients and. So like you said online.

[01:10:51] No, no, no. Okay. Doesn’t matter. Let it. Let it. Let it. Let it marinate.

[01:10:55] Dark days that have been dark moments.

[01:10:57] Let it marinate.

[01:10:57] Let it let me.

[01:10:58] But let it marinate for a while. What’s your biggest weakness?

[01:11:02] You. I do know that I’m very good at making plans and things happening in my head and not telling anyone else about it. So like with my team, I would be, you know, I come up with all these ideas and all I have conversations and I’ll agree something with a team member and then not tell anyone else about it. Because I, you know, I just think that they can read my mind. I’m really moody, but I try work, I try and you know, you put on a show, don’t you? But at home, I’m really moody, very quick tempered.

[01:11:41] Really. I will ask for one, but keep going.

[01:11:44] I know I can keep going. Yeah, I think it’s really annoying to my team sometimes.

[01:11:51] What’s been your biggest mistake?

[01:11:55] In life or in life?

[01:11:57] Both.

[01:12:03] I don’t really believe in mistakes. Or like grapes. I think everything in life should be a learning experience, but I do wish I’d had the confidence I have now. But when I see all these young dentists out there doing crazy, amazing stuff and achieving all these amazing things, and I think, oh, this I’d have that confidence 20 years ago. Imagine what I could have achieved.

[01:12:33] Yeah, I know what you mean. I interviewed a fourth year dental student for this show, and he’d figured some stuff out that I figured out last week pissed me off a little bit.

[01:12:48] I think that, like, these young dentists are so different to how.

[01:12:54] Yeah, but they’re big stress heads. They’re big stress heads. Well, I was going to go on to the empowering women in dentistry. Yeah. How did that come about? Was that was that kind of this thing that you found yourself? You found your confidence, then you wanted to share that with other women.

[01:13:12] So what happened was I went into this into Costa Coffee and Weatherby, where I live, and there was this. Amazonian glamorous women stood in front of me in the coffee cake, and I looked at her. I was like, Oh, it’s Andrea Eby and Andrea Eby. I’d always this top 50 dentistry failure, like every last 20 years it’s been coming out. I’ve been reading it, and she was always in it. And she was she was quite the trailblazer, you know, in terms of marketing and all this kind of thing. And I’d followed her for 20 years, never met her. And so I introduced myself. I said, Oh, hi, I’m a dentist. And we just hit it off and we got chatting and then we met up again and we sort of both female practises, owners of which obviously we are outnumbered by men in terms of practise ownership. It was it was a real delight to to speak to another female practise owner. And we both really enjoying our conversation and the way that we approach running. Our practises seem to be different from maybe the when the way that men do it. And we felt like there was this big need out there for women to come together in dentistry because we recognise this huge lack of confidence amongst women and this kind of imposter syndrome, this feeling that you’re never, you’re not what people think you are and you’re never going to achieve what people think you can and all this.

[01:14:44] And it’s huge. It’s a huge problem that I’ve always suffered from as well. And we just felt like it would be fun. It was like, Yeah, it’s just one of those stupid ideas. Again, it was like, Oh, wouldn’t it be fun if we just did a conference and got loads of women together and got some cool female speakers in and just tried to be a bit inspiring to women and tried to help other women in the way that we were helping each other and that Andrea was helping me and growing my confidence. And so we did. And so we started doing it and we got this really amazing response and through lockdown and everything, it was really incredible. So that’s how it came about, really. It was just seeing that kind of opportunity and seeing this thing that was missing.

[01:15:26] Who spoke at the conference.

[01:15:29] What we had. So we had mind Ninja Lady, we.

[01:15:35] Had Maro.

[01:15:38] Lawson. You have Sally Garneau. She was like our keynote speaker. That was amazing. She took us through that whole mindset of how she won gold at the Olympics, at the 100 metre hurdles. And that was crazy, like the way she rehearsed that in her mind thousands of times before she did that run. And she just every set, every step was rehearsed in her mind. And it’s that a whole kind of visualisation. And I think successful people do that a lot this visualisation of of what it is you want to achieve because you naturally think about your goal all the time. So inevitably it becomes something that’s going to happen. But yeah, we had some amazing speakers. It was a fun day.

[01:16:24] Would you say juggling motherhood and business ownership has been a challenge to you?

[01:16:32] Yeah. It’s a challenge because it’s a psychological challenge to me. I have huge working mother guilt and I have a massively supportive husband without whom I couldn’t do achieve what I have achieved. He’s very flexible in his job and he’s very willing to do a lot of the childcare. But every day I struggle with my guilt of not spending enough time with them or not being present enough. But this comes back to this, and I think I do, by the way, I do think I do spend a lot of time with them, but I’ll never stop feeling guilty. But then that drive side of me knows and my husband knows that if I was to give it all up, which, you know, I want to do every day sometimes, but if I was to give up doing what I’m doing, I would be miserable, depressed, very bored person.

[01:17:34] I was I was reading I was doing some research on you. And I came across some article in dentistry where he said, every Sunday I go to the spa and recharge Sunday evening. And I think it’s such an important thing because too many ladies in particular, I think I’m sure there’s some men like this too, but too many ladies in particular are sort of martyrs to the everything that they do, and that leaves nothing for them. And there is some there are some particularly sort of more, I call it enlightened or forward thinking people who realise that that there’s like if you’re not taken care of, you can’t take care of anyone else. When? How long? How long ago did you do that? He’s still doing that. He’s still going to do that.

[01:18:23] Excellent. Let’s go to something I like. I cook some more dinner. We’ve had a nice weekend, and then I just go off to the spa for 2 hours, and I just sit there and think about stuff, and it’s the only time I get headspace sit and think of. Unusually, I think about work, my next idea. But yeah, it’s just my headspace, really.

[01:18:44] And would you would you would you say more people should do more of that? I certainly think so. I mean, whatever.

[01:18:48] It is that gives you headspace, it might be fishing, it might be running.

[01:18:53] Yeah.

[01:18:53] Whatever it is you need, you need that moment. Like I’m addicted to my phone, mainly because I just sit on there and actually probably don’t think for half an hour. Which is also good for you.

[01:19:08] Definitely. I think we’re coming near the end of our time. I do want to ask you about the future. Have you got plans? Are there going to be many more of these architectures? Are you going to start teaching this process? So. Oh, God, I bet it would work. I mean, if you put on a course on how to do a squat, I’m sure. I’m sure people would want to to check that out. But, you know, putting a course on, it’s hard work, too.

[01:19:35] Yeah. I mean, I’ve never been someone that has long term goals. Actually, I’m an opportunist, I think. And I like to grow organically and go where my whim takes me, whether it’s teaching or speaking or building a practise, whatever it is. I just like to be passionate about what I’m doing and enjoy what I’m doing. And so I don’t make long term plans. And, you know, you never say never right now I’m saying never, never again. I think I mean it, but I’m just going to carry on with that journey and spotting those opportunities and and going where those opportunities take me.

[01:20:24] And you said when when when you had the stick about the offer kind of made you happy. Which is kind of counterintuitive. A lot of people would have said, oh, that was horrible. But but but there’s sort of this mischievous side of you, I guess. Does that come from.

[01:20:44] Because I thought. Well. If people are sitting up and taking notice and getting annoyed by this. It must be because I’m doing something right.

[01:20:57] But why would you say that? I mean, a lot of people would say it must be because you’re doing something wrong.

[01:21:02] I don’t really care what other people think. Like, I just I do my own thing and I never really compete with other practises or, you know, I look at, I still look at what the practises are doing and stuff, but it’s my thing, it’s my practise. I’ve got no interest in competing with anyone else. All I want to do is fill my clinic. So I do really care what other people think about what I do as long as what I’m doing is ethical and I’m not hurting anybody and I’m giving these patients an amazing service, like it’s somebody I tell them, I’m like, This is incredible. You won’t get this anywhere else. I’m not just saying, you know, and you’ll get.

[01:21:43] What I mean. It’s clear that that’s the kind of person you are. But why?

[01:21:47] Gosh. It’s just the depth to me, isn’t it? So I.

[01:21:53] You know, you know this thing about women and confidence. A lot of women would would would be very scared about that that level of attention. I know why I’m saying women, but it’s true, right?

[01:22:06] Yeah.

[01:22:07] And and and yet you you go on and you love it and you come out and say, yeah, I am doing it. And you go and set up the Women in Dentistry Empowerment Group. Why? Why? How did you become this cat? Like I want to do. I want to. I want to teach my daughter.

[01:22:27] You can’t teach. You can’t teach it. I love having the drive that I have. But sometimes I wish you could just take it away. And I could just be. And I could just sit and I could just be. And I could not constantly want more and bigger and better. And I’ve had a wonderful life. I’ve had a wonderful childhood. I have wonderful, supportive parents. I’ve never had trauma in my life. I’m was going to say blessed to that word, but I am. And so there’s no kind of there’s no yearning in me for something that I’ve missed out on in life. It’s just a me. There’s no I don’t think there’s a secret to it.

[01:23:11] What about what about an inspiration? Did you have someone?

[01:23:15] Oh, I’m always inspired by people I love seeing. So like, I don’t know, I was seeing I got into Invisalign and then I was seeing like these, these speakers for Invisalign. So one day I was like, I’m to be Invisalign speaker. And that was, you know, in my head I wouldn’t do that. So then you just make it happen. You do what it takes, you take the steps and you make it happen. And I saw what they would do and I was like, What are they doing? How did they get there? I’m going to do that. So. Yeah. I’ve gone off again. I don’t know what we were talking about, but.

[01:23:55] Okay. Well, I still I still think you owe us a traumatic story.

[01:24:01] But I think of it. I miss you.

[01:24:04] Yeah.

[01:24:06] I mean, I’ll tell you what. I’m going to start. Yeah, right. Oh, excellent. All right, here you go. Excellent. So I was born dysplasia. So it’s where your hips deformed and the. My finger was deformed and the peri acetabulum, which is the bone that goes around it. Right. And I didn’t really realise it was problem until I was in my early twenties. I was living in London and I was walking around and my hip kept falling out my hip socket. So I’d be walking along and I’d collapse. And for some reason I just thought, this is normal. Don’t know why. I just got too busy. I was like hanging with stuff, so and it really started to happen. It’s awful in London cause you have to walk everywhere, so it’s crippling. I became really crippled with it and I could hardly walk. So eventually I went to the doctor. They took an X-ray and like, Oh, he’s got hip dysplasia now. Oh, okay. Well, at least it’s a thing that I’ve got. And so I, I had to go through a lot of surgery and it was big, nasty surgery and I had quite a few of them and I had my hip, my femur. They cut it in two and they re angled it and then they stuck a pin in it. And then the first time I remember like three months later, I still couldn’t lift my own leg. And I had this horrendous limp and I remember my best friend coming to visit me. I was like, Look at me walking. I was so I was so pleased with myself. And she was like aghast. Look, she’s like, What’s it to you? Well, I was doing quite well.

[01:25:45] So I got to the doctor and he took the X-ray and the two parts of the femur were completely separate. And I’ve been trying to walk around on these broken legs for three months, so he had to then redo it. And then that really didn’t help my symptoms and I was still quite crippled with it and I couldn’t really walk, I couldn’t do it. And I was in constant, constant pain. And this went on for a couple of years and it really affected my life. And then I had the final surgery, which was the peri acetabulum, so it’s your hip bones. So they took a big chunk out of my hip bone and then re angled that and I was laid off in bed for three months and I was getting married. And I organised my whole wedding from back from my bed and my goal was to walk down the aisle without crutches. That was my goal. So I kind of even hired the band without hearing them. I did everything. The Internet hadn’t been around all that long, but I had a laptop and I did it all. And what was really interesting about that period of time for me was not only firstly finding out who my friends were, the people that were there to support me and my husband who supported me all the way through and my family and going through that crippling period of pain for three or four years, not knowing if I was going to be able to walk at the end of it or if I was going to be in a wheelchair. They were. Yeah. There you go. There’s some dark days for you.

[01:27:18] I forgot about that. That qualifies.

[01:27:22] But I got there and well, that was nearly 20 years ago now. And I can’t run and I can’t walk very far. But I can get on my bike and I can day to day I can get by and I’m not in pain. And every every day I am grateful for the body. I’m in the ability it has to get me from A to B and for me, you know, the opportunity that that gave me to be grateful for for every breath that I take, because we take our bodies for granted until something like that happens. And to go through that when you’re quite young and you’re out clubbing and all this kind of stuff and you can’t do it. It was really hard when you’re 23 now, but I’m forever grateful to that surgeon who who fixed me and it’s still working.

[01:28:17] What an inspirational story, Martina. Just the whole story. Not not this justice, but the whole thing. You seem you seem to carry stuff off with relative ease. And I don’t know, I guess it’s the way you put it over, because nothing, nothing significant is easy. As is never easy.

[01:28:35] Not all.

[01:28:37] Let’s. Let’s end it with the customary final questions.

[01:28:43] Martina. She stay on the planet. You’ve got your kids, your beloved ones around you who’ve been there, supported you, and you’ve got to give them three pieces of wisdom, parting pieces of wisdom for life. What would they be?

[01:29:03] So. The first piece of advice that I would give is. If you want to be successful, if you want to grow and you want to become a better person, I think you have to spend every single day out of your comfort zone. And that is why I do. And, you know, it’s not always a pleasant place to be, but very great fun things can come out of that. My second piece of advice, I think, is something that I we talked about earlier, and it is to be true to yourself and to learn to trust yourself and your own values and your own instincts and learn. And it’s a hard thing to learn, but to learn when to listen to other people and to when to when to listen to yourself. And if something doesn’t feel right and it’s not comfortable to you. Then it’s the right thing is is to do what is comfortable to you and how that you treat other people, the work that you do and and the people that you surround yourself with. And what would be my third piece of advice? I wish I could take this advice myself, but I would. Just to learn to be. Just to be. Sometimes. To sit and look around everything because it’s a wonderful, wonderful world. And I’m incredibly lucky. And sometimes I think I take it all for granted because I’m too busy trying to do more. Just be.

[01:30:54] Lovely. Lovely.

[01:30:56] Especially that last piece.

[01:30:57] That last piece. But and also what you said about comfort zone. It’s quite interesting that being comfortable outside of your comfort zone sort of it’s a cliche, but what you said about interesting things come from it. I think that’s a key point because you’re you’re bloody uncomfortable. Right. So that’s an uncomfortable thing. But then when you when you’re looking forward to the interesting things that are going to come from it, at least you’ve got you’ve got that and then interesting things always do come. I remember when me and I said, let’s do a podcast. It was bloody uncomfortable. But then once you’ve been out of your comfort zone a few times and then you know, some interesting stuff is going to go, you might not know what that stuff is yet, but some good stuff’s going to come from it, and that’s the best way of getting into that position.

[01:31:42] Exciting. Yeah. An exciting place to be and to say yes to things even though you don’t know how you’re going to achieve them or do them.

[01:31:50] Yeah. And they’re stopping and stopping and spending the roads is certainly. Yeah. So my final question. Fantasy dinner party.

[01:31:59] Yes.

[01:32:00] Three guests, dead or alive. Who would you invite?

[01:32:03] Right. My three guests. I would have Professor Brian Cox.

[01:32:12] I like him.

[01:32:13] I love him. I just could listen to him talk about black holes and dark matter. And I have no idea what he’s saying. Yeah, I could just. I could. I understand it at the time, but then if you ask me to repeat what he said, I would have no idea if I could listen to him. I would just love to listen to him talk all night about dark matter.

[01:32:37] Is such a cool dude. Used to be a pop star as well. Yeah.

[01:32:39] He was endearing. Yeah.

[01:32:40] Amazing.

[01:32:42] He’s such a cool dude. I’ve seen him, like, twice live.

[01:32:45] Yeah, I speak to that pretty good.

[01:32:48] And my second guest would be, I think I just Tom Hanks because he’s my favourite actor and I just. I just love everything that he does. And I just think he’d be really, really interesting and I just think he’s got a really lovely way about him. So I’d have Tom Hanks. I don’t think my identify, I guess exciting. Really.

[01:33:12] What’s what’s your favourite Tom Hanks movie?

[01:33:15] I really like. Is it, Captain Ways? One way.

[01:33:23] So the desert islands. He’s on a desert island somewhere.

[01:33:26] Oh, no, not that one. That’s what with the ball, Wilson. What’s it called? That one.

[01:33:33] Castaway.

[01:33:34] Captain Phillips. Captain Phillips. I really like that movie. He lands a plane on the Hudson River, doesn’t he?

[01:33:42] Yes.

[01:33:43] Well, that’s really good.

[01:33:44] Yes. Brilliant. And the third.

[01:33:46] Guest. And then my third guest. It would be Freddie Mercury because. Yeah. You know, you asked me, like, what am I, you know, you didn’t ask me regrets. I think one of my regrets is never having seen Freddie Mercury live. And I really, really wish I’d seen Freddie Mercury sing live. I know you can go see Queen now. It’s not Freddie, is it, to have been at Live Aid? Wouldn’t that have been a thing? I remember watching it at the time.

[01:34:17] Yeah, yeah. Incredible. Once that was.

[01:34:20] Yeah.

[01:34:22] It’s been so nice to have you. And I know how busy you are. And the fact that you found time for us is really, really feels like a privilege. Thank. Thank you so much. Thank you.

[01:34:36] You would help me. Thank you. So I really feel like I’ve had a good therapy session.

[01:34:41] So many lessons in all of your loads to be loads. Thank you so much, Martina. Thanks for doing. Thanks for me.

[01:34:49] 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.

[01:35:05] 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 had to say and what our guest has had to say. Because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

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