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[VOICE]: This [00:00:30] is Dental Leaders the podcast [00:00:35] where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your [00:00:40] hosts Payman Langroudi [00:00:45] and Prav Solanki.

Payman Langroudi: It gives me great pleasure to welcome [00:00:50] safe Moqadem and Louis al-Masri, two dental students who [00:00:55] are making waves. I want to go through both the Dental student experience [00:01:00] and the waves that you guys are making with the UK Dental [00:01:05] students group. Um, nice to have you. Good.

Lwai Almasri: Thank you. Thank you for having us.

Payman Langroudi: It’s [00:01:10] an interesting story. You both knew each other before you even got into dental school.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah, [00:01:15] more or less. We did. Yeah. And you’re both at King’s.

Payman Langroudi: And did you start out in the same year?

Lwai Almasri: No, [00:01:20] no. Funnily enough. So did you know he’s got a story with that?

Payman Langroudi: Go on. Okay. Go on, go on. [00:01:25]

Saif Mukadam: I’ve got the most random story when it comes to getting into dentistry. So after GCSE. [00:01:30] So I went to a completely different school to him in terms of like secondary schools. And we met like at college, [00:01:35] but after secondary school GCSEs I left school and pursue football. [00:01:40] This is um yeah. So I played full time football as an apprentice for a club in Birmingham, [00:01:45] well, outskirts of Birmingham called Walsall. And, um, yeah. So I got given that apprentice like, [00:01:50] I don’t know, under 13 so very early. Usually get, get it under 16. So I got like three years early. [00:01:55] So I always knew I was going to be going down this football route. So I played my football, did my [00:02:00] two years. I loved it the best time of my life. I mean, as good as dentistry is. And yeah, like, [00:02:05] there was nothing like waking up in the morning, playing football, coming home, going to sleep, eating food, [00:02:10] whatnot, and just doing it again over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, it’s stressful at times. You know, professional [00:02:15] environment and whatnot. But yeah. But unfortunately, you didn’t get my pro contract, so [00:02:20] I was left to the education route. That’s what I did, my GCSEs. Made sure I did well in them. So [00:02:25] I went back, did my A-levels. And this is the college that I actually went to. Um, we didn’t go at the [00:02:30] same time because obviously he’s in his year group, but, um, yeah. So we met [00:02:35] my second year, I think it was. Did you come? He gave a talk about how to get into dental school. [00:02:40] Oh, so.

Lwai Almasri: I was already at dental school at this point, and Saif was at the school that I had, that I [00:02:45] was at before. Yeah. And I was invited back to give a talk on, like, to, like the medic and [00:02:50] dental students on, like applying to medical dental school, like the interview process, some advice at uni [00:02:55] and whatever. And Saif safe was in the in the audience. In the audience.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah. So I reached out to him afterwards and, um, [00:03:00] turns out his little sister actually went to the same time she was.

Lwai Almasri: So she was in the year below him? [00:03:05] Yeah. Whilst he was there. So then.

Saif Mukadam: So I spoke to her a few times and I realised that he was the one that gave the talk. [00:03:10] So I dropped him a message, whatnot, and gave me ample amounts of help getting into dental school and whatnot, all these [00:03:15] random gems of advice and got to speak into him. So then I got in to King’s and, [00:03:20] um, obviously spoke to him and whatnot, and he’s just been like mates. And you were.

Lwai Almasri: Deciding between King’s and Manchester, if I.

Saif Mukadam: Remember. [00:03:25] Yeah, yeah. So so I, um, initially I got rejected from both Liverpool and Brum, so [00:03:30] I was a bit I thought I did quite well in those. Well, not Brum, but Liverpool. I thought I did quite well in so I was a bit disheartened. [00:03:35] But then I got my offer from King’s, which is obviously a top uni. Um, you know, there’s [00:03:40] not really much I need to say about King’s and I didn’t really get a reply from Manchester. [00:03:45] So I was, you know, weighing up whether to wait for Manchester or withdraw [00:03:50] from King’s. So I spoke to him, got a bit of advice and realistically, [00:03:55] the grades were never the issue. So I was always, you know, quite intelligent in terms of [00:04:00] A-levels. I always was top of my work because I was a lot older. I was 18, 19, 20in my [00:04:05] second year of A-levels. I wasn’t really into the, you know, college lifestyle and chilling with [00:04:10] people and whatnot. So I was always just doing my work, doing my own thing, and it was never [00:04:15] really an issue. So I knew I was going to get the grades.

Saif Mukadam: And then so it was just the office and I [00:04:20] wanted to go to Manchester. I support Man City, so there’s a lot of there’s a lot of pros for Manchester [00:04:25] for me. Like, you know, it’s a it’s a quieter city than London. London’s always busy [00:04:30] at all times. Yeah. Especially with Kings as well. Right next to you. London Bridge is the shard [00:04:35] and whatnot. It’s it’s busy at all times, but Manchester is a bit more laid back, I’d say [00:04:40] personally. And, uh, there’s a lot of other pros for me. My sister lives [00:04:45] in, you know, where Stoke is? Yeah. Junction 15. So that’s like a 40 minute drive from from Manchester. [00:04:50] So, you know, if I ever had a nephew or niece, that’s a nice little drive. Can visit them whenever I want. It’s a bit further [00:04:55] for London. It’s doable. Yeah. So there was a lot of pros for Manchester, but in the end, [00:05:00] there was no point in waiting for a reply that might not even come. And [00:05:05] so I decided to withdraw from Manchester firm Kings. And, you know, now I’m here. [00:05:10] The rest.

Lwai Almasri: Is history.

Saif Mukadam: I think it’s yeah, it’s a great decision.

Payman Langroudi: It’s an interesting few things you bring up there. Right. My son’s [00:05:15] going doing his final year A-levels now.

Lwai Almasri: And.

Payman Langroudi: I’m really pushing [00:05:20] him to leave London.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah.

Payman Langroudi: Um, but then you guys didn’t start out in London. But [00:05:25] the London student experience is. I mean, London. Even if you’re a multi-millionaire, you’re in trouble. [00:05:30] Yeah. Let alone it’s so expensive.

Lwai Almasri: It’s so expensive. Expensive. And. [00:05:35]

Payman Langroudi: And you almost feel irrelevant, whoever the hell you are. It’s true. Whereas I was. I was in Cardiff. [00:05:40] Right? And you know, Dental school. The the holidays are much shorter, right? When the other students would [00:05:45] leave, you’d feel it massively like some, some, some restaurants and [00:05:50] things were shut down, like the takeaways, the taxis, everything would be totalled. So the students [00:05:55] were such a big body in that town that, you know, you felt important as [00:06:00] a student there. But I’m interested in your story. First, Saif, regarding [00:06:05] Knockbacks. Yeah. So because you’re kind of a high achiever, right? [00:06:10] You kind of, you know, by getting into that academy in the first place. Yeah. When they told you you’re not going to [00:06:15] be a professional footballer. Yeah. Was that really tough or. No. It was. Does everyone know it’s [00:06:20] so hard to get in that you were half expecting or what.

Saif Mukadam: Were your thoughts? So I think in my year group there [00:06:25] was 14 of us. So they obviously they gave out a certain number of pros every year. So the previous year they gave out this [00:06:30] is my the year before me, they gave out like three pros. Whereas in my year group, out of the [00:06:35] 14 players that were in my year group, they gave out one pro, which is, you know, one out of 14. That’s the [00:06:40] odds are crazy. Like it’s so hard to become a professional footballer. And even then [00:06:45] all the players in my group, the ECR group above me, the year group above them have [00:06:50] all been released by now. In terms of professional level. They no longer play league football, they play non-league, you know, [00:06:55] and the vanarama. Step one, step two, which is again, that’s very good quality, don’t get me wrong. But again, [00:07:00] it’s not professional football. So like I knew I thought I had a good chance. Like [00:07:05] I was one of those ones where I could have got given a pro, but two years down the line would have got released like it would [00:07:10] have been one of those ones where I would have enjoyed the pro lifestyle for 1 or 2 years, played [00:07:15] my football, done what I love because honestly, I would go back to it in a heartbeat. I would have taken those two years [00:07:20] over anything like that. I can’t really put into words how much I enjoyed playing [00:07:25] that football over the time that I was in my apprenticeship. I mean, the stress levels [00:07:30] are ridiculous, but like, there’s something to it. Like playing football day in, day out. What you love, what I’ve grown [00:07:35] up with from a six year old like little, little child playing football in the back garden with my dad to [00:07:40] playing in front of fans in an FA Youth Cup game, scoring a goal, celebrating in front of them [00:07:45] like there’s nothing quite beats it. Like, you know. It.

Payman Langroudi: So the psychological blow was [00:07:50] crazy.

Saif Mukadam: It was mental. So the first, like I’d say week or two. Even the first month, [00:07:55] it was just because obviously I had the chance to play in exit trials and whatnot to [00:08:00] get into another club. But the likelihood of getting into a club after that is slim, [00:08:05] because not only am I from, you know, a League Two club, which is Walsall, you know, the [00:08:10] likelihood of going up from exit trial is very, very slim. Like you never hear of it and [00:08:15] exit trials as well there. You know you can hit and miss, you can play amazing in them or you can play [00:08:20] absolutely horror. And I didn’t play too bad, but everyone’s for themselves in an exit [00:08:25] trial. They want to impress. They want to get to you. They want to get to a club. They’re doing their own thing. Not many [00:08:30] people speak to each other. It’s always like, I want to get there. It’s it’s understandable. You’ve got to be selfish [00:08:35] in football. You’ve got to. If you don’t do that, you’re not going to win. Think about Ronaldo, for example. That has been he’s one of the most [00:08:40] selfish individuals when it comes to football. But it’s admirable because look how far he’s got.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah, [00:08:45] like I don’t need to speak much about Ronaldo. I mean, he’s one of my my my, like, somebody [00:08:50] I. I aspire to be. Yeah. A role model for me back in the day when I was playing. [00:08:55] Even now, his mindset, everything that he does is crazy. I’ll get to that later. But realistically, [00:09:00] it was a blow that first month after the exit trials. I didn’t get anything back from them. [00:09:05] It’s like, what am I doing in my life? And I knew I was going to go back to education, A-levels, whatnot. [00:09:10] Yeah. But like, no more football. It’s going to be education more based, like semi-pro here [00:09:15] and there. It’s not the same. But I know with dentistry as well, it’s more long term, [00:09:20] like football maybe. Yes, I get that two, three years living that lifestyle, playing the football, doing [00:09:25] what I love. But later on down the line, like I get injury done, the manager don’t like [00:09:30] me done. Like, there’s so many things that can happen where you’re just going to fall out of the game very [00:09:35] quickly and you’ll never get back to it. So it was a lot.

Lwai Almasri: Did it prepare you.

Payman Langroudi: Prepare you for [00:09:40] the competitive nature of dental school? Because I don’t know about you, man, but when I got into dental [00:09:45] school. I wasn’t prepared for everyone being, like, really competitive about things. You know, [00:09:50] they. And maybe I should have been.

Lwai Almasri: I mean.

Payman Langroudi: What were your reflections [00:09:55] when you got into dental school?

Lwai Almasri: I think I think the biggest thing getting into dental school that people don’t realise is that dental [00:10:00] school is the smartest people in the country, all in one classroom. [00:10:05] Like what was strange was and I think you noticed it as well, was we [00:10:10] were the smartest not to blow our own horn or whatever, but we were we were the smartest kids in school back in the day. [00:10:15] Like, I mean, to get into King’s, you need an A and two A’s. Your interviews are very good. Personal statement. It’s [00:10:20] like you had to be, um, going from that to to definitely [00:10:25] nowhere near being the top of the class at uni is very is very.

Payman Langroudi: Humbling, [00:10:30] sobering.

Lwai Almasri: It’s very humbling.

Saif Mukadam: Humbling experience.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah. And everybody’s because everyone has that shock. Everyone’s [00:10:35] very competitive in the sense of they want to be the best, but they and no one has [00:10:40] that kind of let’s help each other out type thing. Everyone keeps notes or [00:10:45] questions or stuff like this, and they form their little cliques or their little groups, and they share [00:10:50] within that small group. It’s very rare to find sharing with the whole year or [00:10:55] throughout the whole university. Sometimes you’ll find older year students pass down to younger year, but they’re not competing with you, so they don’t [00:11:00] care. But it’s rare to find that within the year you’ll form cliques and they only share in that clique. Yeah, [00:11:05] whereas back at school, I used to study biology in a group of people, and we used to all [00:11:10] help each other. Yeah. And the school used to even instil in us don’t compete with each other, compete with the rest of the country. [00:11:15] So support each other and compete with the rest, because obviously grades are still dependent on how well [00:11:20] everybody does. And grade boundaries fluctuate like that, but there was always a matter of support each other [00:11:25] in the school environment. Compete with the people you don’t know. Then school is very different. [00:11:30] It’s very competitive. It was a big shock.

Payman Langroudi: Were you shocked at Pre-clean, how difficult [00:11:35] the subjects were? Yeah, because I didn’t do biology A-levels. Okay. It was even harder. [00:11:40]

Lwai Almasri: Yeah, I can imagine.

Payman Langroudi: But By chemistry.

Saif Mukadam: I remember telling him. I remember telling him in my first year, I was like, [00:11:45] the jump is crazy. Yeah, I found a level seven bio, like, relatively a breeze. Like it wasn’t [00:11:50] ridiculously difficult. But then we got into uni and like biomed biomedicine. [00:11:55]

Lwai Almasri: Module in first year. Yeah, they split it into two. It’s biomedicine one and then biomedicine [00:12:00] two. That module was unbearable. I mean I’m quite fortunate [00:12:05] it was online for me in my first year. But Saif had it like everything in person in first year.

Saif Mukadam: It [00:12:10] was it was tricky.

Lwai Almasri: Like it’s it’s.

Payman Langroudi: It’s so you didn’t have to do any of the labs.

Lwai Almasri: We’d go [00:12:15] in for occasional histology sessions and I’m sorry. Like histology. Yeah. They [00:12:20] expect me to look down a microscope and see some pink. And. No, this is like muscle. Yeah, I’m [00:12:25] just looking at it.

Saif Mukadam: It’s literally that.

Lwai Almasri: It was, it was. It was unbelievable. Like it was [00:12:30] so difficult. I felt like a term of uni was the whole two [00:12:35] years of A-level. Yeah. Yeah. It’s in terms of content. It was unbelievable. And the thing is, I’m very much [00:12:40] at a level. I had the ring like the binders, and I would have the textbook, [00:12:45] have a pen and paper and make notes. Be in my lesson. Pen and paper and make notes and collect [00:12:50] my notes in this like big ring binder like folder and like section it off with like these pretty [00:12:55] little. I tried doing that at the start of, you know, have photos of me in the library. And within the first [00:13:00] week I’d filled a ring, a ring binder, like the big ones that I didn’t fill [00:13:05] in two years of, of A-levels, didn’t fill in the first week of was filled and [00:13:10] I realised this is not possible. There’s so much content. And what what you don’t realise as well is when you [00:13:15] watch your lectures, the person giving you the lecture is a specialist in that exact field, [00:13:20] so a lot of the time, respectfully, they do waffle a little bit around the topic and they don’t give [00:13:25] you like you’re not hearing exactly what you need to know. So what I [00:13:30] kind of realised towards the end of first year was that you need to look at the learning objectives at the start of [00:13:35] the lecture, and.

Payman Langroudi: Just if you’re that cat, of.

Lwai Almasri: Course. Yeah. And then and then you just pick those bits out [00:13:40] from the lecture, because an hour lecture can be made 20 minutes if they just cut out all the [00:13:45] other stuff that they talk about.

Payman Langroudi: See, there’s a thing I remember the exact thing you were saying. Yeah. Some [00:13:50] dude going on about pharmacology or whatever it was. And my brain at one point [00:13:55] saying, nah, this bit he’s talking about here is not important.

Lwai Almasri: And then it comes up in the.

Payman Langroudi: Random [00:14:00] pick here of saying that this is one bridge too far. I’m not even going to listen [00:14:05] to this bit. And and because I wasn’t the cat who would look up the class before. [00:14:10] Before the thing. And my son was telling me, oh, yeah, there’s this way people study where [00:14:15] they go through everything before the lecture, and then when they’re doing the lecture, it’s [00:14:20] like revision. I was like, really?

Lwai Almasri: No.

Saif Mukadam: That’s a good.

Lwai Almasri: Method for us. [00:14:25] The slight difference is our lectures are all pre-recorded online. So I’ve [00:14:30] never gone in. I’ve never had a person. I’ve never had an in-person lecture.

Saif Mukadam: Which [00:14:35] is crazy.

Lwai Almasri: If if it was different and things were in person, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t like, [00:14:40] I’d struggle. I think a lot more. It’d be nice. And I’ve always said, I wish that we had the option to [00:14:45] go and do lectures in person, because it’d be nice to be able to have to get to ask the tutor afterwards some [00:14:50] questions, because like now, the way it works is you have to send an email and [00:14:55] like sometimes you have to have to figure out who your tutor is because the lecture recording for us now are [00:15:00] all actually built up from Covid. So that tutor that actually that they recorded might actually [00:15:05] not be at King’s anymore. So there’s no one to email. So you have to like then figure out who that tutor is and email [00:15:10] them and ask the question, set up a teams meeting or meet them in person. And so it’s actually really long [00:15:15] when you just have one question that. So it kind of has it like puts you you just don’t want to ask anymore because [00:15:20] you can’t be bothered. So in that sense, finding the learning objectives, they always put it [00:15:25] at the start of the presentation. So you just write them down on your pen and paper or whatever. At the start of the lecture, [00:15:30] I zone out for whatever isn’t based around those 5 or 6 learning objectives, and then I [00:15:35] zone in for when they do come up. I think.

Payman Langroudi: Guys, you know you’ll as you go through [00:15:40] Dental school year, there’ll be some dark days. There really will. Yeah. Um, [00:15:45] and you’ve got to just understand, it’s normal to be massively stressed in dental school. It’s [00:15:50] definitely one of the hardest courses. I mean, my brother did medicine. Nowhere near as [00:15:55] hard as a course, really as a course there. Just watching the whole time, man. They’re not. They’re not doing anything. Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: There’s no [00:16:00] patient seeing.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah. No. First time you drill into the pulp man to try and do canal [00:16:05] treatment. Yeah. The first time you’re like, what the hell am I doing? Yeah. And most people.

Lwai Almasri: Perforate. [00:16:10]

Payman Langroudi: Yeah, I perforated, I perforated. Um, and then that can that can [00:16:15] that can actually be like a sliding door. That means your whole career, you don’t go towards endo. [00:16:20] Yeah. Yeah. Which is such a ridiculous thing because Endo is a brilliant career. Yeah. [00:16:25] And on that subject, any thoughts yet about the kind of dentist you want to be? I mean, you [00:16:30] you said both of your parents are dentists.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah. So my dad’s a surgeon and [00:16:35] he does max factor oral surgery and implants and stuff like that, but he’s more of an academic now than he is [00:16:40] a practising double qualifier. Uh, I believe so, yes. The doctor. [00:16:45]

Payman Langroudi: As well, I believe.

Lwai Almasri: So. Um, he’s got quite a few qualifications, so I get confused.

Payman Langroudi: Does he work in [00:16:50] hospital?

Lwai Almasri: No. So he runs his own private, um, postgrad education [00:16:55] like department. Oh, really? Um, yeah. In Birmingham. So [00:17:00] he obviously wants me to go down the surgical route, and he’s taken [00:17:05] me to lots of cadaver courses and whatnot. Currently, I haven’t done any of it [00:17:10] at uni. I’ve done a bit of oral surgery so far, but very minimal. I like it, but [00:17:15] I still want to keep my options open because I do like restorative. And like obviously this year [00:17:20] we do a lot of pros and I’m enjoying pros quite significantly. So, you [00:17:25] know, I want to keep my options open. But surgery is a possibility.

Payman Langroudi: Have you been and watched him [00:17:30] ever?

Lwai Almasri: Yeah, yeah I’ve watched I’ve watched a lot of the stuff that he’s done, and he’s even showed me things like, [00:17:35] um, oh, I forgot what the procedure is called. Now it’s you break the you [00:17:40] break the the mandible or the for. Yeah. And you and you retract it back. Yeah.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah, [00:17:45] that’s a big operation. Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: So you showed me one of those and it was, it was very interesting. But, [00:17:50] um, you know, I still want to weigh my options. I don’t want to commit to something this early on. [00:17:55]

Payman Langroudi: Yeah, it’s a bit early. Yeah. Your parents weren’t in dentistry?

Lwai Almasri: Not at.

Saif Mukadam: All. My my [00:18:00] parents didn’t go to uni. Didn’t go to school. They’re just. They’re printers. They own a printing company. [00:18:05] So my granddad started it 40, 45 odd years back. [00:18:10] Really? My dad’s taking it over. It’s just a family business. So. Yeah, they they, um, [00:18:15] they I never really had any pressure to go into dentistry at all. Um, more. [00:18:20] So I was always like, science based in school. I loved the chemistry, biology. I did like physics, [00:18:25] I hated physics. It’s disgusting. Subject matter, I hate it, I like physics, you like it? Yeah, it’s quite [00:18:30] bizarre. And I don’t really see many people that like physics.

Lwai Almasri: But did you do maths? Yeah.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: It makes [00:18:35] sense. Yeah. I didn’t like maths or physics. Yeah. Do maths. No.

Payman Langroudi: So do three sciences. [00:18:40]

Lwai Almasri: No.

Payman Langroudi: So I didn’t do physics either.

Lwai Almasri: I actually didn’t want to go into dentistry initially anyway. Oh. [00:18:45] I did economics as my third A-level. Oh, yeah. So completely different. And I actually wanted [00:18:50] to go into finance and economics at uni.

Payman Langroudi: Be different to your parents? Very different. Your mum a dentist [00:18:55] too?

Lwai Almasri: Yeah. But my mum, my mum qualified whilst I was doing my GCSEs and [00:19:00] my A-levels she went to Manchester. Wow. So she did it very late. She dropped out. My parents married. They were young. [00:19:05] Um, you know, she spent her majority of the time raising me and my two sisters. [00:19:10] And then eventually, when my older sister went to uni and my younger sister, kind of like we [00:19:15] all grew up, essentially, she decided to go back to uni and do what she did. She did dietetics first and [00:19:20] then she did dentistry.

Payman Langroudi: What a story. Love that.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah. So to be fair, that was really inspiring. And, um, [00:19:25] like seeing her do that whilst I was doing because she also then because they came from Syria. So she [00:19:30] had to do she had to go to college to do GCSEs. She had to do A-levels as an adult. Yeah. And [00:19:35] with.

Payman Langroudi: Kids. Oh yeah.

Lwai Almasri: And then go to. And the thing is when she went to Manchester she commuted. So she still had [00:19:40] a family. I was doing my GCSEs, so she was really like on top of me for studying and stuff [00:19:45] and commuting every day back and forth to Manchester.

Payman Langroudi: Um, [00:19:50] how come neither of you have got a Midlands accent?

Lwai Almasri: Yeah, thankfully I never got I never I [00:19:55] never had that Birmingham accent.

Saif Mukadam: So I grew up in Aston. You know Aston is. But [00:20:00] that was only for like five years. So I moved back to Moseley. But we don’t really have like a really [00:20:05] strong Birmingham accent around those areas. It’s more like Dudley.

Payman Langroudi: Oh those.

Saif Mukadam: Areas. [00:20:10] There’s like certain areas which have certain areas.

Lwai Almasri: That will have a really thick and strong accent. [00:20:15] Thankfully we do.

Payman Langroudi: You don’t know Depeche Palmer, do you?

Lwai Almasri: No. No.

Payman Langroudi: So [00:20:20] he’s a he’s we do a course called Mini Smile Maker. It’s a it’s a composite course. Okay. [00:20:25] He’s a Birmingham guy but you know from Kenya.

Saif Mukadam: And yeah. See, my parents are from [00:20:30] Kenya.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah, but he’s got a proper Birmingham accent. Really?

Lwai Almasri: It’s gonna be hard to understand sometimes. [00:20:35]

Payman Langroudi: Especially when I get it. It’s not that bad. It’s not that bad? No. A lot of.

Saif Mukadam: People love to make [00:20:40] fun of it, though. Like, I don’t even, like. You can’t even tell that accent. But at the moment I say I’m from Birmingham. [00:20:45] Oh, yeah. You got Birmingham. No, I don’t I don’t have a booming voice. No, I know you.

Lwai Almasri: Can put it on, but you don’t have it. [00:20:50] No I.

Saif Mukadam: Don’t. I can’t even put it on. I can’t even do accents. But I don’t know why they say that. I’ve got [00:20:55] a Birmingham accent.

Lwai Almasri: I don’t. No you don’t. I know it.

Payman Langroudi: Might be one word here or there.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah, some. Sometimes [00:21:00] it can come out, but when they say, oh yeah, I could tell you. No you couldn’t. I know it’s officially.

Lwai Almasri: Confirmed [00:21:05] that you don’t have the accent. Yeah. Tell me about.

Payman Langroudi: Kings. Right when you got there. Outside of this [00:21:10] thing, we were just saying about the competitive nature of it. But London. Yeah. I mean, of course [00:21:15] you’d been to London, but living in London.

Saif Mukadam: Even before.

Lwai Almasri: Like.

Saif Mukadam: Going to. I applied [00:21:20] to Kings purely for the, for the name. Yeah, yeah. If I got it to Manchester I’d be like, yeah, [00:21:25] I rejected Kings. I’m so cool. Obviously that was the idea. That was a very young girl. Like. Long time ago. Younger [00:21:30] me. Yeah. But, um. Kings is great, man. Genuinely. It’s lots of people. It’s always something [00:21:35] happening. But again, there’s obviously the opposite side where you don’t feel like [00:21:40] you’re someone in London. Yeah. Whereas like quite a, like city. You’d enjoyed it more because you’re [00:21:45] like someone there. But no, I think it’s amazing. Genuinely. Initially I hated it because, [00:21:50] you know, Birmingham, I have my own car. I can drive wherever I want, like I don’t have to get on a [00:21:55] tube. It stinks. It smells like London in general is just, oh, it’s so busy. But [00:22:00] there’s something to it where like, it’s it’s nice, like I’m liking it. But then [00:22:05] the accommodation that I was at was not the best.

Payman Langroudi: But which one was it?

Saif Mukadam: Gds [00:22:10] great Dover Street, Dover Street, probably familiar with it. It’s quite.

Payman Langroudi: I’ve heard the name.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: That was the one I was at [00:22:15] as well.

Saif Mukadam: It’s, um it’s got a wet room. It’s en suite. So you got everything you need?

Payman Langroudi: En suite?

Lwai Almasri: Yeah, [00:22:20] it’s an en suite, but it’s. It’s a triangular wet room.

Saif Mukadam: Just about. Just about.

Lwai Almasri: It’s [00:22:25] like it’s it’s practice that you have to take your toilet roll out of the bathroom when you have a shower because it will [00:22:30] come out. So like, it will, it will get it gets wet.

Saif Mukadam: It’s not even like.

Lwai Almasri: You know, the [00:22:35] only thing that I have against GDS is that I loved my time there and it was amazing. [00:22:40] But the biggest issue that I have is why am I paying £200 a week or [00:22:45] more than that.

Saif Mukadam: To 215.

Lwai Almasri: Just because my postcode is SW1? Yeah, and that the shard [00:22:50] is right next door. Because in Birmingham that’s like 120. Like, yeah I [00:22:55] have, I have someone in Sheffield that pays maybe £400 a month for his rent. And it was a nice like [00:23:00] couple bedroom flat with everyone with their own bathroom, big spacious place. [00:23:05] But just because we’re in London for over £200 a week.

Saif Mukadam: You get the bare minimum. [00:23:10]

Lwai Almasri: Even that it’s a it’s a little rectangular room with not even a single bed. It’s it’s one of those three quarter day [00:23:15] beds that, like, your legs will dangle off the end. It’s. And I’m not even a tall person. And my [00:23:20] legs were dangling.

Payman Langroudi: I just stay there one year and then move into.

Lwai Almasri: There one year and then you kind of you can stay there more. [00:23:25] But because it’s very competitive, they offer priority to obviously first year students. So sometimes it’s full [00:23:30] and you have to sort yourself out.

Payman Langroudi: But how much do you pay in a house or in a flat.

Lwai Almasri: Same similar [00:23:35] similar 250 in the area. Yeah. You can find places. Obviously you can go up much further. Obviously. [00:23:40] You know London. Like if you if you have the money to you’ll go up a lot further. Yeah. If not you can find [00:23:45] within the same realms. But it’s very.

Payman Langroudi: You stay in the same.

Lwai Almasri: Area. A lot of people do. I live in Battersea currently, so I moved [00:23:50] out a bit further to get a bit quieter of an area. Um, yeah. I live safe [00:23:55] lives, literally next door to the accommodation.

Payman Langroudi: But are you living with other Dental students?

Lwai Almasri: No. Yeah. [00:24:00] Currently I live with my older sister because she’s finishing off medicine at King’s. Okay, [00:24:05] so. But you are with me.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah. My mate, second year friend that I have. [00:24:10] Yeah. It’s nice, homey. It’s cool.

Payman Langroudi: Let’s get on to UK dental students.

Lwai Almasri: Yes. [00:24:15]

Payman Langroudi: Tell me, how did it start? What is it? Let’s start with. What is it?

Lwai Almasri: Uk [00:24:20] dental students is. It’s a good question, but what it is, is currently [00:24:25] it’s the largest network of Dental students in the UK. It’s [00:24:30] simply a community for Dental students run by Dental students [00:24:35] where we can help support each other, network, [00:24:40] help each other grow, do courses not even just that other [00:24:45] like something that we’ve found really nice is that when we created it, we had a lot of students message us saying, [00:24:50] I’m doing this kind of research and would love for other people to kind of get involved and help [00:24:55] out. Do you mind if we pop it in the chat and see if other people are interested? That’s what we that that was our main [00:25:00] kind of thing that we wanted to happen from it. And we were we were really happy when [00:25:05] people started messaging because essentially people saw what we wanted to like, saw the vision essentially, which [00:25:10] was great. People pop in like charity things that they do. It’s really great. It’s [00:25:15] just a place basically where people.

Saif Mukadam: Opportunities for other students exactly across the country, which [00:25:20] is, you know, you don’t really find that anywhere.

Payman Langroudi: But so explain to me, I mean, you [00:25:25] kind of told me before about how quickly it grew. Yeah. But explain to me, okay. You [00:25:30] have this idea. Mhm. You tell the six people around you. Yeah. [00:25:35]

Lwai Almasri: Then it kind of started with so I can’t, [00:25:40] I just put an invite link in the, in the WhatsApp group chats that kind of exist already [00:25:45] of the university. Yeah. So we did a.

Saif Mukadam: Long it was oh this.

Lwai Almasri: Was this [00:25:50] was the hardest part actually the hardest part of doing it was getting to the point [00:25:55] where we were like, okay, now let’s leave it and let it just organically grow, which is where we are [00:26:00] now, where we know we haven’t got all the Dental students in the UK, but we’ve let it just naturally grow now [00:26:05] itself. Um, and not pushed. But essentially what we did was we created a Google [00:26:10] Doc spreadsheet, um, like on Google Drive and listed all the universities [00:26:15] and like all the, all the years. Yeah. And then said, okay, we’ll [00:26:20] tick off each one. Once we’ve sent an invite link into each university’s specific [00:26:25] year group chat. Similar to how Kings have a BDS 1 to 5 group chat for [00:26:30] each year group for Kings, every other university has the same thing, so we basically worked [00:26:35] our way into joining each one each year, group each university and dropped a message saying, [00:26:40] guys, this is a group chat for this purpose, whatever. But here’s an invite link to join now.

Payman Langroudi: But [00:26:45] because you knew other then other students.

Lwai Almasri: Linkedin, Instagram. So like you ask other [00:26:50] dentists from other unis if they can add you in or like if I was, I was already in all five for [00:26:55] the King’s group chats. Um, and then, you know, like people were really helpful. [00:27:00] So like, people from Bdsa were like, okay, we’ll help you guys out and add you into these group chats, um, [00:27:05] and whatnot. So I remember, um, someone made me a community admin on the Birmingham [00:27:10] Sports Day group chat so that I could just send it in one quick message, and it went to everybody. So [00:27:15] yeah, it was just it was basically it.

Payman Langroudi: Was a massive growth. Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: It just that’s why it really accelerated really quickly [00:27:20] was because we we’ve got a.

Saif Mukadam: Lot of access to a lot of Dental students across the country initially from like [00:27:25] Bdsa sports days, whatnot.

Lwai Almasri: The beautiful thing about it was that everyone was willing to help. Yeah, everybody. [00:27:30] And that’s what the main premise of the group chat is anyway, is to help each other. So it was really cool to see that the [00:27:35] students, when they saw it started to like build up. They just, you know, everybody started [00:27:40] sharing it. No one no one really keeps anything like that, like a group chat link. So everyone was just sharing. [00:27:45] We put it on Instagram. Um, dentistry. Co.uk were really nice to, to also put it out on [00:27:50] um on their Instagram. So yeah, it kind of just grew that way. And then now once the thing is what [00:27:55] was crazy. Our kind of like the moment when we realised, okay, it’s going really well was when we hit a [00:28:00] thousand people. That’s when we, when we called each other and we were like, this is crazy. Yeah.

Payman Langroudi: How [00:28:05] many students are there? Do you know?

Lwai Almasri: Around 1500.

Saif Mukadam: Something like that.

Payman Langroudi: You’re kidding.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah, around 1500 [00:28:10] students. 1600.

Payman Langroudi: 2000 of them?

Lwai Almasri: Yeah. 15, 1600 students in the group [00:28:15] chat, which is really cool and it grows every day.

Payman Langroudi: Although you don’t know they’re all students, do you?

Lwai Almasri: That’s [00:28:20] the thing. So we can’t we?

Payman Langroudi: I just joined.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah, we could have. We could have [00:28:25] done something where it’s. They have to we have to approve everything joining [00:28:30] and but that’s. But yeah. And also we don’t want to. Yeah. And also we don’t want to deter like [00:28:35] because the thing is, is I think it’s a bit sad if people that aren’t anything [00:28:40] in dentistry joining this group chat. Do you get what I mean? Like why the hell are you going to join a group chat that you’re not going [00:28:45] to understand anything in there that brings you no benefit? So there’s that. But also, we don’t [00:28:50] want to deter students that are applying for dentistry from joining because at the same time, a lot of [00:28:55] the time they can get help as well. Like, we have no qualms with people dropping a message saying or [00:29:00] um, anybody have any advice for this application or whatever, but help out. [00:29:05] Like we’re very happy with that. So we don’t we don’t really mind. So yeah, whilst we, we don’t know 100% [00:29:10] how many dental students there are, we know that majority of them are. We [00:29:15] did a poll earlier in the chat as well about which universities people were from, so that we could, for our spreadsheet [00:29:20] purposes, obviously, like figure out where we need to focus our energy and whatnot into which [00:29:25] universities we needed help from. And yeah, and even when we did that poll, students reached out to us [00:29:30] saying, oh, I’ve noticed you don’t have this many people from this university. Do you want some help in like making [00:29:35] sure that it gets spread out and shared and stuff like that? So it’s actually it was really, really cool stuff. But yeah. [00:29:40]

Payman Langroudi: So then I guess the danger of it is, like you were saying before [00:29:45] to me, spamming. Spamming. Yeah. Have you had any of that.

Saif Mukadam: Occasion time to time. But occasionally [00:29:50] on it it gets deleted. They go.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah, I mean.

Saif Mukadam: Spam, stop it. Yeah. [00:29:55] To stop spam.

Lwai Almasri: In the sense of like product marketing. [00:30:00] We’re quite honest in the sense of we we delete it quite quickly, especially if it’s, um, something [00:30:05] that’s completely irrelevant that some people will drop in and like random Chinese accounts, will join and send [00:30:10] a message saying, need help with your assignment, writing and whatnot. We delete those very quickly because [00:30:15] our notifications are. Even if I’m on Do Not Disturb, I get notifications for the chat, so I see it. Um, and [00:30:20] saves really good at it. Um, but but um, in terms of spam, [00:30:25] where, where people just end up just day to day chit chat. It happens [00:30:30] occasionally, but it doesn’t really happen as much as we were worried that it would, because everybody has their their uni year [00:30:35] chats, that they kind of do that in any way. So it doesn’t really happen in this chat, which actually is quite helpful. [00:30:40] It’s nice because otherwise you’d have a chat with 1600 people just popping off on your phone [00:30:45] all the time. It’d be unbearable.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah, but look, it’s an interesting thing. Like let’s say, let’s say [00:30:50] for the sake of the argument, I actually do want enlightened student representatives. Yeah I [00:30:55] do. Yeah. I could go straight on there and say, hey, I’m looking for an enlightened student representative. So here are the benefits [00:31:00] of it. Of course you could. It would be much better, though, if I contacted you first and said, hey, I’m thinking [00:31:05] of doing this, but what if I didn’t know who you are? Yeah, yeah. So so so then that’s where it’s. It’s [00:31:10] a bit weird. I mean.

Lwai Almasri: We’ve put it in the in the bio of the like of who you are. Yeah. The description of the group chat [00:31:15] and whatnot. Um, I mean, and we’re trying to do as much to [00:31:20] we’re not trying to specifically get people to know who we are as, as low and safe, but [00:31:25] more so. Okay, we’re running this group chat. Just come and reach out because [00:31:30] you can see who the admins are and the admins are there, and it’s clear. So it’s a it’s a bit [00:31:35] obvious to reach out to one of us, and we put it in the group chat to reach out, drop us a message [00:31:40] and, you know, and give.

Payman Langroudi: Me an example of like something that goes down on there that’s super like valuable for someone [00:31:45] who’s on it. What sort of stuff?

Lwai Almasri: The endo, the endo research thing that [00:31:50] the student from Queen Mary’s messaged us.

Saif Mukadam: There’s quite a few things. Yeah. So a lot of people have [00:31:55] like this opportunity and they’re like, I want to put this on the group chat for other students to get involved in. [00:32:00] They’ll drop it in and like I think charity stuff as well. So I have I’m involved in a charity. I [00:32:05] put a message in for the charity, um, opportunity on the group chat and we’ll get people signing up [00:32:10] that you wouldn’t have if you didn’t have this group chat. So there’s positives there. [00:32:15]

Lwai Almasri: Yeah, I mean, we had a student that messaged both me and Saif and she was from Queen Mary’s and she was talking about [00:32:20] how she’s doing this research project, this Indo research project, but she needs support [00:32:25] from other students, from other universities to collate data and whatnot. Without [00:32:30] this group chat, she actually wouldn’t have been able to do it unless she reached out. To like individually would have been a [00:32:35] lot harder. She put it in the chat. She messaged us saying, do you mind if I put this in? And I said, of course, go ahead. This [00:32:40] is what the group chats for, like, please be my guest. She dropped it in the chat and I mean, I don’t know what [00:32:45] happened. I didn’t follow up, but she got reactions to the message, so I assume that people would have reached out. [00:32:50] And, you know, something like that is exactly what we want from it. And, you know, I mean, other than that, [00:32:55] we are planning on running hands on courses. I mean, I’ve been talking with Gin and Kish, [00:33:00] um, for quite a while as well about, you know, getting some hands on courses for students and, [00:33:05] you know, with sponsors and stuff like that.

Lwai Almasri: We’re trying our best to make it free. I mean, [00:33:10] you’d be surprised to know that if you want to host a hands on course at King’s, you. [00:33:15] If the Dental Society at King’s wanted to host a hands on course using the Phantom head lab or whatever, they [00:33:20] actually charge the society even though it’s outside of ours. You’re not taking away from, like [00:33:25] any student, clinical time or whatever. They they’ll charge you and it’s quite expensive. I forgot how much the figures [00:33:30] actually were, but a lot of sponsors can’t even don’t pay that much to cover it. So [00:33:35] you don’t get hands on courses that often. And if you do, they’re either for graduated dentists [00:33:40] and you won’t understand anything going on or they’re really expensive. So [00:33:45] like, there’s never been a win win for for students in that sense. They [00:33:50] always either tag along to things that they don’t really understand to to actual graduated dentist events, [00:33:55] or they don’t go because they can’t afford to do it, which is a very valid thing because, [00:34:00] you know, like students.

Payman Langroudi: Expenses go to graduate dentist events. [00:34:05] Yeah for.

Lwai Almasri: Sure. Of course I.

Payman Langroudi: Agree. You’ll understand. You’ll understand. There’s no difference. It’s dentistry. [00:34:10] Right? Yeah, but understand.

Lwai Almasri: But like, a second year might not understand something about crown preps. Of course. [00:34:15]

Payman Langroudi: Of course, of course. But, but but my my advice is generally do go. Yeah generally do go. And we on our on [00:34:20] our hands on we have students all the time uh, sitting in the back and sometimes, you know, [00:34:25] there’s cancellations and they actually do the hands on composite course as well. Oh, nice. Yeah. And I [00:34:30] watched those kids come through, you know, and and, you know, some of them go that direction. It’s it’s [00:34:35] cool. It’s cool. Um, and now there’s an event. There’s an actual event in the in [00:34:40] process with FMC, right?

Lwai Almasri: Yes, yes.

Payman Langroudi: Go on. How did how did that happen? Go for it.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah. [00:34:45] So it is essentially just building on the top 50 dentists [00:34:50] likes event that they have yearly anyway. But now we’re adding [00:34:55] the top 50 dental students with it. And as we said previously, it’s like the top 50 of today or [00:35:00] top 50 of tomorrow. It’s punchy, it’s catchy. And then we’re making it with a conference [00:35:05] as well as a party afterwards, a water and whatnot, which is, you know, it’s big, like [00:35:10] you get a day out of it for students, you have sponsors, you’ll [00:35:15] have whatnot. And I think it’s a great opportunity, something that you can build on for King [00:35:20] from BSA and whatnot. And yeah, I don’t see anything any harm [00:35:25] in it and something positive for students. I’m really excited for [00:35:30] it as well.

Lwai Almasri: I mean, the cool thing, your competition.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah, exactly.

Lwai Almasri: Students, I think the cool thing about it is [00:35:35] really, is that the top 50 dentists that currently that I think it’s [00:35:40] essentially just a drink ceremony and you get your plaques and you just like you get some photos [00:35:45] and that’s all it was really. It was quite small and it was just the top 50 dentists that would actually turn up. We [00:35:50] kind of wanted to well, we wanted to give recognition to students. I mean, saves on the dental [00:35:55] society at King’s does a lot of extra extracurricular stuff. I mean, I’ve been doing since first year, [00:36:00] a lot of extracurricular stuff was on the dental society for a period of time. Yeah, you do all of this extracurricular [00:36:05] stuff and it’s not easy. And it takes up a lot of your time, especially for such a, as [00:36:10] we said earlier, a heavy degree. There’s so much lectures and so much content. It does [00:36:15] take up a lot of your time to do this stuff. And uni doesn’t really award you [00:36:20] or give you much recognition for it. There are occasional awards within the uni and whatnot, but [00:36:25] on a wider scale, not so much. So what we wanted to do was give [00:36:30] recognition for those that really go above and beyond and kind of do [00:36:35] a lot. And so the premise of it is and it’s it’s great to give some competition because doing [00:36:40] this will cause will give incentive to the people that weren’t doing it, [00:36:45] also to do it. And it’s going to benefit their career if they do. So it’s kind of it has that benefit to it as well. [00:36:50]

Payman Langroudi: Are you aware of the controversy around the top 50?

Lwai Almasri: 100%. Are you? Yeah. We’ve [00:36:55] we’ve we’ve we’ve heard it all since we announced it. We’ve we’ve had lots of [00:37:00] Backlash comments. We’ve spoken to too many professionals. [00:37:05] I mean, even like our own mentors that like we both respect highly. Prof. Banerjee as [00:37:10] an example, I have. Yeah.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah. On my tutorials every Thursday. Guys. So knowledgeable [00:37:15] man.

Payman Langroudi: I love him.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah, he loves it.

Payman Langroudi: Although, although I can’t believe that Avi is a really [00:37:20] strict teacher.

Saif Mukadam: Nice. So. No.

Payman Langroudi: Because his students told me he’s really strict. [00:37:25] He’s so.

Saif Mukadam: Strict.

Payman Langroudi: I mean, you just can’t.

Lwai Almasri: Believe he’s strict. He wants.

Saif Mukadam: He wants the best out of us. Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: So he’s he’s [00:37:30] strict, but he’s. I don’t know how to explain it. If if you can see where he’s coming from. The thing [00:37:35] is, a lot of people are scared of Prof. Banerjee because. Because I just can’t. Yeah. So, [00:37:40] so so.

Saif Mukadam: He’s the.

Payman Langroudi: Most unscary character I know.

Lwai Almasri: So, so for us, from from [00:37:45] our first initial point of meeting, you got to remember for us, everyone tells you about Picard’s and it’s the Bible [00:37:50] at King’s almost for restorative dentistry. It’s the Bible. Yeah. So like so like for us, it’s [00:37:55] you’re going to you’re you’re sat in a room especially our tutorials are quite small circle. [00:38:00] You’re in a very small room with this seasoned veteran of dentistry. No, no.

Payman Langroudi: He told me he’s strict [00:38:05] on purpose.

Saif Mukadam: He is so, so strict.

Lwai Almasri: But if you kind of see where he’s coming from, you [00:38:10] kind of break past that strictness. Yeah. And he’s he’s very he’s a lovely, lovely [00:38:15] guy. I shouldn’t be.

Payman Langroudi: Telling you this. If you know.

Saif Mukadam: Yourself, if you know your stuff like in your in the tutorials that I have with him. Yeah, [00:38:20] he loves it. Honestly. He loves it. If you ask him questions and you actually engage with him and engage with [00:38:25] the content, you can tell like you’re actually interested in what we’re doing. He loves it.

Lwai Almasri: Like [00:38:30] you have to turn up prepared to manage these tutorials. You know, I.

Payman Langroudi: Had him on this.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah.

Payman Langroudi: And but I [00:38:35] also had Ken Finlayson on this. Okay. Whose idea was the top 50? Yeah. Yeah. [00:38:40] And so back to the controversy. I mean, I mean, are you stuck on the [00:38:45] top 50 idea or not really.

Lwai Almasri: It’s not that. The thing is, with the controversy, and Prof. Banerjee warned us of this [00:38:50] and spoke to us about it. I mean, we met with him and we and we took his advice and whatnot, and even my dad, [00:38:55] because my dad’s more of an academic than he is, um, something like this. And he’s not been always [00:39:00] the biggest fan of top 50 awards and whatnot. But the point of what we’re trying to do here is, and [00:39:05] what we’ve explained to people, it’s not that we’re just giving you an award and saying here, this is an [00:39:10] accolade and whatever. Like where what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to help [00:39:15] people grow. And the way that we’re doing it is that we’re giving some [00:39:20] sort of incentive to, to, to, to create creativity within students [00:39:25] because our market and that’s why we specifically said we want to work on the judging criteria, [00:39:30] because as students, we know what’s within the realm of possibility, and we know what students want and [00:39:35] what students should be doing and the things that will benefit students. And that’s what we want to tailor the judging criteria and what we [00:39:40] have tailored the judging criteria to. And in that sense, because of that, students, [00:39:45] when they make their application or start working towards that application, they’re obviously going to be doing stuff [00:39:50] that’s then beneficial to them. So regardless of winning or not, because winning at the end of [00:39:55] the day is cool, But realistically, like we said earlier, 15 or 1600 people in [00:40:00] a group chat and 50 winning. There’s obviously those top 50 are [00:40:05] going to be something that really stood out, like an application that really stood out and was very creative and as they [00:40:10] should be rewarded for it respectfully. And then the rest of the people, it’s not [00:40:15] like they haven’t gained something from doing it. They’ve gained. They’ll be given feedback. They’ll they’ll [00:40:20] have gained. They’ll have done hands on courses.

Payman Langroudi: We all get the upside of it. Yeah.

Saif Mukadam: The downside, the controversy.

Lwai Almasri: The [00:40:25] controversy is, is we’re aware that we’re going to get backlash for it. And I’ll be honest, I don’t really care because you’re [00:40:30] going to get backlash for doing anything. There’s always going to be people that do backlash.

Payman Langroudi: I mean, the backlash, the [00:40:35] that it used to be the magazine. Yeah. Um, where they used to put out the top 50. [00:40:40] Now it’s a post on social media. Yeah. That post is the busiest post. It’s [00:40:45] the most engaged post that FMC put out. Yeah. Like, people are definitely interested in that [00:40:50] list. Yeah. Um, but the, you know, the downside [00:40:55] of it. What people say. Yeah. What? Can you tell me what you think the downside is.

Saif Mukadam: Why do they pick [00:41:00] me? Why do they pick? Why do they pick him over me? Those kind of vibes, isn’t it? But it’s like it’s [00:41:05] competition. But like, when people lose, they’re like, why didn’t I win? Why didn’t [00:41:10] I? But, like, what do they do to win? I didn’t do, like, you know, those kind of vibes. Yeah, but [00:41:15] I just don’t think that I will happen with the students. Yeah. Version. But [00:41:20] yeah, the thing is, every year you can get a chance to apply every year. I mean.

Lwai Almasri: Pdsa [00:41:25] and like the Bacd, for example, they do the.

Saif Mukadam: Essay.

Lwai Almasri: Competition. Yeah. Essay [00:41:30] competition. It’s almost the same really. Because like, why did this person get a higher mark than I did, for [00:41:35] example? So people are always going to say why when it comes to awards. Why did this [00:41:40] criteria. Yeah, I mean all we have to say is that we’re going to we’ll be publishing the judging criteria to the [00:41:45] students, the publish the judging criteria. Sorry. To the students. It’s going to be known. So they’ll [00:41:50] know what what’s what to expect and what to do. And the good thing is, is that we plan on running courses [00:41:55] throughout the year that people can go to in order to strengthen their [00:42:00] application. So it’s not and it’s equal opportunity, because at that point, yes, we’re not going to be able to [00:42:05] have 1600 people on a hands on course, but we will obviously be on a first come, first serve basis. [00:42:10] But it will be something that, you know, everybody has an equal opportunity [00:42:15] to to do this, this and that.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah, but what if what if yeah, I’m a student in [00:42:20] Aberdeen somewhere or whatever. Is there a Dental school in Aberdeen? Yes there is. Yeah. Um, [00:42:25] and I, I feed the hungry at the weekend and I’m working on [00:42:30] a research project with my tutor, and I’m top of my class, [00:42:35] and I don’t even enter this. Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: So then that’s.

Payman Langroudi: That’s your choice. No, no, I know, I know, [00:42:40] I know, of course I understand that I’m not going to win if I don’t enter. Right. But but then [00:42:45] the list comes out. Top. Top 50 students in the UK. This. This [00:42:50] cat, this this girl I’m talking about. Yeah. Might be better than the number one person. [00:42:55] And yet he gets no recognition at all because. Because she didn’t make an entry. [00:43:00] Yeah. Now, what you’ll find is in the awards, you know. Oh, private dentistry awards. I’m [00:43:05] going on Friday to private dentistry awards. Yeah. Sometimes the entry process [00:43:10] becoming good at putting an entry in. And some people I know, [00:43:15] you guys may not have come across this yet, but some people will hire a PR company to [00:43:20] to sort out their whole entry. Yeah. So I know one guy who paid £15,000 [00:43:25] for his entry. Yeah. This back in the day when? When? Uh, it used [00:43:30] to be a very big thing to win it. Yeah. And he said, I want to win it. Yeah. And so my [00:43:35] general point is that that that those are the kind of problems that come up. Yeah.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah. We’re [00:43:40] we’re going to limit those kind of entries as well. Like we’re not going to have. Well you’ll never.

Payman Langroudi: Know. You’ll never know.

Lwai Almasri: We’ll never know. [00:43:45] No. But you’ll never know.

Payman Langroudi: Because if if you’ve got these, these criteria and someone’s only fulfilling [00:43:50] these criteria and doing it to a very high standard on these criteria. Yeah. And [00:43:55] and you know, by the way, being a number six top student in the country, [00:44:00] we’re not.

Lwai Almasri: Going to rank. We’re not ranking them. You will be known as a top 50 being in the [00:44:05] top 50.

Payman Langroudi: It’s good for your career. Yeah. It’s good for your career. If I was some principle, you know, [00:44:10] the hiring, the first job. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, it’s good for your career. And so you set up, like, a competition [00:44:15] that ends up being good for your career. And then. And then, by the way, I’m cool with it, but, [00:44:20] but, but this is the kind of thing that will come up.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah. But but but it’s going to come regardless I think people. [00:44:25]

Payman Langroudi: Well it’s not regardless if you don’t have it like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: But like the thing [00:44:30] is, is.

Saif Mukadam: There will be people that.

Lwai Almasri: Will no matter what you do, there’s always going to be someone that that. And I’m [00:44:35] sure you, you might have got backlash maybe for starting up a podcast even back when you started it up. [00:44:40] So do you get what I mean? Like there’s always no matter. A lot of times there’s people that will hate to see other [00:44:45] people succeed.

Payman Langroudi: I don’t think it’s just that, though, dude. Yeah, I get that. I get that, but [00:44:50] that’s I think that’s a dismissive way of thinking about it. Yeah. I [00:44:55] do understand what you’re saying. Yeah. Some sort of jealousy. Yeah. There is that jealousy [00:45:00] thing exists. But often I feel like we put stuff down to [00:45:05] that where there’s other things involved. Yeah. So people will say, oh, I [00:45:10] don’t like so-and-so showing pictures of his Ferrari. Yeah, yeah. And then a bunch of people were like, oh, they’re [00:45:15] just jealous. Yeah. Okay. Jealousy is one aspect of that. Yeah. But [00:45:20] it’s important to try and understand the other aspect of what’s what is the actual [00:45:25] true good reason why your dad has distaste with [00:45:30] with this? Yeah. What is that? Pin that down. Yeah. Yeah. Then. Okay. Address it so I [00:45:35] don’t care about it. Or this is how. This is how I’m addressing it. Yeah. But do understand that, you know, [00:45:40] people have feelings for reasons it’s not. It’s not just that every big move will make. [00:45:45] Yeah. Of course. You know waves.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah. I mean, I feel like that’s why that was our [00:45:50] main premise, actually, of meeting with Prof. Banerjee. Because, like, what did that say?

Payman Langroudi: I’m sure he hated [00:45:55] the idea.

Lwai Almasri: Not not that he actually wasn’t. He wasn’t. I wouldn’t say a hater. I mean, he’s I never had the privilege [00:46:00] of actually being tutored by Prof. Banerjee in my second year, but.

Saif Mukadam: I’ve got him literally tomorrow a minute. [00:46:05] So so so say hi.

Payman Langroudi: Say hi.

Saif Mukadam: Once I finish here, I will be going home to, [00:46:10] like.

Lwai Almasri: Prepare for it. Yeah. So I don’t want to.

Saif Mukadam: Be found out.

Lwai Almasri: So I mean, I mean, [00:46:15] with Prof. Banerjee, he was just telling us literally exactly what you said about, you know, the backlash [00:46:20] behind it and the fact that, I mean, it doesn’t actually mean anything. It’s not something of of like [00:46:25] of substance. And then he said that the problems that you’re going to have is that students are going to want things given [00:46:30] to them in black and white. From his experience of marking, being a tutor, being a tutor [00:46:35] and whatnot. And, you know, he was helping us sort of build and give us advice on what [00:46:40] we had as a potential judging list and a judging panel.

Payman Langroudi: Um, tell me about that. Tell me about that. [00:46:45] So who made the judging criteria and who are the judges?

Lwai Almasri: So we made the. Judging criteria. You [00:46:50] two. Just you two. I mean we weren’t we weren’t we we [00:46:55] had.

Saif Mukadam: Our bias here and.

Lwai Almasri: There. We obviously had our advice, but we we we we we worked [00:47:00] on the judging criteria and kind of created it. Yeah. And then in terms of the judging panel, we kind of what, [00:47:05] what what Avi was kind of sorry, Prof. Banerjee was, was saying, um, [00:47:10] was that, um, we need less [00:47:15] your high street, your Instagram dentists and more academics [00:47:20] because.

Saif Mukadam: They know what it’s like.

Lwai Almasri: They know what it’s like to judge students. Of course, the issue that he [00:47:25] then said is that academics don’t like this kind of stuff. So you’re going to struggle to get academics to agree [00:47:30] to, to judge something like this, which is very fair. But again, you need [00:47:35] to just be able to find a balance, which is what we’ve been. So what have you got? I mean, I don’t think we can leak. [00:47:40]

Payman Langroudi: No, no. But what kinds of people have you got.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah. So we’ve got, we’ve got lots of like potential. I’ve [00:47:45] got I can save this name. For example. I’ve got we’ve got down potential. Like, for example, Prof. Roger Ryan, [00:47:50] if you’ve heard of him. Yeah. Yeah. So someone that, you know, he’s worked very closely with my dad, for [00:47:55] example. And I know him as a both a postgraduate academic, an undergraduate academic, very [00:48:00] seasoned academic himself with a long list of qualifications. So we [00:48:05] kind of did want a balance of maybe because we want around 25 or so judges. So [00:48:10] you’ve got a.

Payman Langroudi: Couple of profs. What else?

Lwai Almasri: And then you’ve got your high street dentists as well. Oh have.

Payman Langroudi: You. Yeah. [00:48:15]

Lwai Almasri: So your instagrammy ones because because at the same time.

Payman Langroudi: Name one type.

Lwai Almasri: Do [00:48:20] you want to name one.

Payman Langroudi: Why not?

Saif Mukadam: Why not.

Payman Langroudi: I don’t really, but why not? I don’t say.

Lwai Almasri: Because the thing is, we haven’t really [00:48:25] spoke.

Saif Mukadam: To them yet. We haven’t spoken.

Lwai Almasri: No no, no. So we have to some. But we haven’t confirmed a lot of them. [00:48:30] Yeah. So we don’t want we don’t want to say the name.

Saif Mukadam: Say they’re like, what am I doing that?

Lwai Almasri: And then they [00:48:35] hear it before kind of.

Payman Langroudi: We’ve all heard the names those types. Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: You’ve you’ve heard some of the names. Okay.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah. [00:48:40] And then any students.

Lwai Almasri: So we want fresh. We want freshly [00:48:45] graduated students. So like you’re we have foundation dentists. We have foundation [00:48:50] dentists that are just graduated. And we picked them as ones that we thought were [00:48:55] very, you know, on it, on it when they were students. I mean, for [00:49:00] example.

Saif Mukadam: Academics and extracurriculars. So they know what it’s like. They know.

Lwai Almasri: How to. I’ll call him doctor [00:49:05] now, even though he’s a good friend of mine, just because he’s graduated. So I’ll respect his title. But for example, Tani doctor Tani Kulkarni, [00:49:10] he was very I mean, you’ve had him on the podcast as well actually. Yeah. So he was very [00:49:15] on it as a student extracurricular wise. I mean, graduated with honours.

Payman Langroudi: I’m really he’s really [00:49:20] on it as a human. Really? Yeah, exactly.

Lwai Almasri: So, so so someone like him, uh, [00:49:25] as a, as a judge would be great because, you know, he recently did. He knows what it’s [00:49:30] like to be a student, not you two know. So we will not be judges. We will [00:49:35] not. We will not be entering even as as as applicants to it. We we are completely, [00:49:40] Um, we don’t want any bias. We don’t want any level.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah. Imagine the people who [00:49:45] decided to create the idea and then.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah. If we applied and where the guys that are running it, it’s. We [00:49:50] don’t want to lose credibility in that sense. And also. Yeah, it just doesn’t seem fair. So we’ll be [00:49:55] staying clear of applying and we will not be judging whatsoever.

Payman Langroudi: And these judges, they’ll they’ll do it for [00:50:00] free and just do it.

Lwai Almasri: I mean, I’m not like I’m.

Payman Langroudi: Not [00:50:05] saying they need I mean, so.

Lwai Almasri: The way that our partnership with FMC kind of works is that it [00:50:10] was a matter of like you said, Craig said to you get the numbers and we’ll handle the rest. So obviously [00:50:15] they’re very well practised and versed in getting judges, you know, all of that [00:50:20] stuff. So they’re kind of dealing with that, dealing with that. Yeah, they’re dealing with that side of it in the sense [00:50:25] of even with getting the judges are why I’ve been calling it a potential [00:50:30] judge list is because we’ve come up with names. It’s a partnership at the end of the day. So if they say no to [00:50:35] a specific person or they recommend, we’re obviously going to talk about it, discuss and work on it together type thing [00:50:40] and see where the judge, you know, selection kind of comes in in, in play. And that’s kind [00:50:45] of the advice that we took from from Prof. Banerjee was, you know, make sure that your judges [00:50:50] are people that are going to give the students what they want and not just, oh, this guy’s good. [00:50:55] Let me, let me um, uh, let me, you know, give him top 50 and whatnot, [00:51:00] and they’ll give feedback. The main thing that we wanted was, was also to give feedback to students, because at the end of the day, like we [00:51:05] said, we want.

Saif Mukadam: To know, why didn’t I win? Not just that, but to.

Lwai Almasri: Better yourself for the next year, because we [00:51:10] plan on making it a yearly thing. Um, and for even those that don’t win, like, like Saif [00:51:15] said, the event in itself, it’s going to be a conference during the day with a trade fair and [00:51:20] then the award ceremony and then a party like thing afterwards. Um, where [00:51:25] it’s at the end of the day, it’s again, it’s a networking opportunity in itself.

Payman Langroudi: So [00:51:30] is there a date for the event already?

Lwai Almasri: Not yet. Not yet, but we are looking at summertime [00:51:35] end of exams. So all universities will have finished exams. We don’t want to do it too far [00:51:40] into summer because obviously dentists have holidays and their kids and whatnot when they want to come because we’re [00:51:45] merging the two events together, essentially all.

Payman Langroudi: The top 50, actual top 50.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah. So that’s the point of it being the top 50 [00:51:50] of today. Meet the top 50 of tomorrow. Um, and merging it together. And so [00:51:55] it would be one big event where they can network. Everybody meets and, you know, stuff like that. So [00:52:00] we don’t want it for when the dentists have kids and they summer holidays and whatnot. And we also we know that [00:52:05] uni students like to go on holiday as well when as soon as you get summer starting. So we don’t want to do.

Saif Mukadam: It early summer. So [00:52:10] we want to make the most of it when we get.

Lwai Almasri: Exactly. So we kind of want to do it just at the start of summer where the weather’s nicer, everyone’s [00:52:15] kind of happy. The exams are finished. So it’s a good way to celebrate and start this.

Payman Langroudi: And does it have a name? Not yet, [00:52:20] not.

Lwai Almasri: Yet, not yet. But hopefully soon. Hopefully in the next couple of days we’ll be announcing [00:52:25] the, um, the rest of the information.

Saif Mukadam: The behind the scenes per se that I’ve been been working. [00:52:30] We’ve been working.

Lwai Almasri: On this since since May, almost.

Payman Langroudi: I mean, it’s interesting because, uh, [00:52:35] This event is going to have to be sponsor led. Yeah. And [00:52:40] so you’ve got to persuade sponsors to come on board with this. And there’s so many [00:52:45] events. Right. It’s not an easy sell. It’s not an easy sell to sponsors. But you leave that to FMC [00:52:50] as well.

Lwai Almasri: I mean, if they want our help with it, we’re more than happy to. But they’ve said thankfully that, [00:52:55] yeah, they’ve got they’ve got their team veterans and they know what they’re doing with that. And we trust them completely [00:53:00] with, you know, getting a venue, sorting out that stuff.

Payman Langroudi: So have [00:53:05] you guys ever listened to this podcast before?

Lwai Almasri: Yeah, quite a few episodes. I’ve seen the.

Saif Mukadam: Clips on Instagram. Oh yeah, [00:53:10] I love the clips on Instagram. They’re quite nice.

Lwai Almasri: I have a bit of. I have a bit of a commute to university, so I actually listened to some of [00:53:15] the episodes on my way to uni and back home.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah, well, there’s this bit in this podcast where it suddenly gets dark. [00:53:20] Okay. Yeah. And the dark part. Generally we like to go into clinical mistakes, [00:53:25] right?

Lwai Almasri: Yeah.

Saif Mukadam: You can’t ask me that because I think yes.

Payman Langroudi: We can ask you. [00:53:30] Yeah. But mistakes. Yeah. And it’s this question around We don’t learn [00:53:35] from each other’s mistakes. And you know the group, for instance, it’s good for that sort of thing [00:53:40] as well, that kind of conversation. But when I say, what’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in dentistry so far? [00:53:45] What comes to mind?

Saif Mukadam: Mistake in dentistry? I can’t it’s [00:53:50] not really been much for me to make a mistake on yet, but tooth waxing? What was supposed to say? No, but I’m [00:53:55] saying like no. Like as an overall package in year one, I think I got involved a lot with what I wanted to, but I feel like I [00:54:00] could have done more. I’m not going to lie. Like there were so many opportunities, so many events, like so [00:54:05] many things that could you.

Payman Langroudi: Click out a little bit? Is that what happened? No, I don’t.

Saif Mukadam: Think I never clicked out. I’ve always just [00:54:10] been there, been involved. Yeah. Met people whatnot. But I feel like I could have gone to this.

Lwai Almasri: Safe is what we [00:54:15] call on campus a Banach.

Saif Mukadam: Okay.

Lwai Almasri: A big name on campus. Everyone and everybody knows [00:54:20] who he is. So I wouldn’t say. I wouldn’t say he’s the first.

Payman Langroudi: Time I’ve heard that someone else mentioned. [00:54:25]

Lwai Almasri: That he. I wouldn’t say he’s cliquey.

Saif Mukadam: No. So I like I like to get to know people. I’m [00:54:30] quite like genuinely like, you know, I meet someone? I’m not like this professional. [00:54:35] I make a joke, I do what I want to say, I say what I want to say when I want to say it. I hate [00:54:40] this idea of being professional all the time. And you meet someone. You have to turn it on and be someone else. Yeah. [00:54:45] I can’t do it. Like I don’t know how to do it.

Payman Langroudi: Me too, me too. I know.

Saif Mukadam: It’s impossible. Like, I just, I don’t [00:54:50] know, I just struggle with it. So when I meet people.

Lwai Almasri: What was the.

Payman Langroudi: Error? What was the error?

Saif Mukadam: It’s like you didn’t.

Payman Langroudi: Get involved.

Saif Mukadam: Enough. [00:54:55] Going to more stuff, events and whatnot. I met people, but I [00:55:00] could have got involved more. Probably.

Payman Langroudi: But I’m not going to accept that.

Saif Mukadam: You’re not going to accept that.

Payman Langroudi: You can think about it [00:55:05] while we.

Saif Mukadam: No, no, no.

Lwai Almasri: Genuinely not accept.

Payman Langroudi: That. I accept that as part of our conversation. [00:55:10] But I’m not going to accept that as.

Lwai Almasri: My biggest mistake.

Saif Mukadam: Biggest mistake? Big mistake. I wouldn’t.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah, I wouldn’t say have a think.

Payman Langroudi: Have a think. [00:55:15]

Lwai Almasri: Okay. Do we want a clinical mistake or. Sure. I think again, clinically wise we haven’t [00:55:20] done much. But for me, clinical wise, I’d say my biggest mistake we. [00:55:25] So like I mentioned to you, I’m already repeating I am repeating my third year. So I did oral surgery last [00:55:30] year. Yeah. Um, as well as I’m obviously redoing it this year, towards the end of your third year, [00:55:35] you actually start instead of just shadowing oral surgery, you get to your last session is split into [00:55:40] four sessions. Your day one, two and three. You’re just shadowing day four. [00:55:45] You actually get to potentially depending on patient flow and whatnot, potentially do some extractions. [00:55:50] And I was fortunate enough in my day four of last year to get to do an extraction. [00:55:55] And this was I had done extractions on cadavers before and whatnot with my dad and stuff like that, but never [00:56:00] on a real patient where there’s a lot of blood and whatever. [00:56:05] And I, um, I perforated the sinus, and [00:56:10] I caused an OAC first extraction. Yeah. First extraction.

Payman Langroudi: Well done.

Lwai Almasri: Which is, [00:56:15] uh, not great. But again, I learned from my mistake and, [00:56:20] you know, caused a lot of panic. And it kind of sucks because obviously, you have to tell the patient that you messed up [00:56:25] and the patient’s there regretting their decision, coming into an undergraduate clinic and not just getting their [00:56:30] tooth extracted normally and being let to be seen by a student and agreeing to it and whatnot, [00:56:35] because also the tutor is actually the patient can say they want the tutor to do it, or more experienced student [00:56:40] to do it. They let me do it. So I felt really, really bad.

Payman Langroudi: But what could you have done differently? [00:56:45]

Lwai Almasri: That’s the thing. So actually on reflection, I when I, when I got home and because the funny thing is, [00:56:50] is actually this is the first time I think my kaizen. So I’ll explain what a kaizen is in a minute [00:56:55] was actually useful for me. Kaizen for us are whenever we have a clinical session, [00:57:00] we have to go on afterwards. Talk about what went well. Even better if.

Payman Langroudi: Reflection. [00:57:05] Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: And like talk about what you did and what happened and what you’ll do better next time. And your tutor has [00:57:10] to sign it off and say what you did well and as well, and write some feedback. And you have to submit [00:57:15] it and it gets and they count how many kaizen you do throughout your uni career. I’ve always found them useless because [00:57:20] I always put went well, did filling, gave LA did this whatever [00:57:25] job done patient happy sign off. Even the tutors sometimes find it a drag to have to sign them off. Because imagine [00:57:30] that I have to do one Kaizen. A tutor has to reply to 60 odd questions because they have [00:57:35] how many students they’ve got in their clinic. Yeah, so that must be horrible for them that [00:57:40] one day, my kaizen, I actually put a lot of effort into writing into it because and I realise at the end [00:57:45] there was actually nothing that I could have done differently because I did my figure of eight movement. I followed [00:57:50] all the instructions that I, in theory, been taught. It just clinically went wrong. [00:57:55] And the tutor actually was really sweet. She was really lovely. And she said, this happened to her before. She’s, she’s. [00:58:00] Yeah, she’s caused it before. Um, in fact, a lot of times she said that patience will cause it to themselves after you’ve [00:58:05] given them an extraction and they’ll come back and say that you did it to them. So she was like, don’t beat yourself up [00:58:10] about it. It happens. I mean, I know also a lot of people, they did their first endo and [00:58:15] they perforated as well.

Payman Langroudi: Me yeah.

Lwai Almasri: So so it happens. And at the end of the day, you [00:58:20] can’t let it bog you down and stop you from doing extractions, because it’d be crazy to say I never want to [00:58:25] do an extraction again. And, you know, because in your DFT you do. How many extractions.

Payman Langroudi: Not [00:58:30] enough. Yeah it’s.

Lwai Almasri: Still not.

Payman Langroudi: Enough. It’s a bit it’s a bit early to to to talk [00:58:35] about not doing things. Yeah exactly. So that said, that said I think I [00:58:40] broke a two tuberosity once. Wow. Okay. And you say to the patient, [00:58:45] upper rate is the easiest, uh, tooth in the mouth to extract. Yeah. And [00:58:50] then it is it’s very easy to, to extract. You just push it. Push it. And and I’ve done so many [00:58:55] of them that I felt really comfortable. And I just pushed it. And this massive bit of [00:59:00] bone, I’m talking bigger than the tooth. Wow. Came out with the tooth and [00:59:05] blood like you’ve never. So what did you do? Well, I didn’t I wasn’t I couldn’t understand what [00:59:10] had happened because because you’ve done it so many times before that you think that thing, you know. [00:59:15] Yeah. And then you start to realise how little you know as these things go wrong. But yeah, I mean, [00:59:20] I think I was six years of dentist at this point. Yeah. Um, do you know, stitched it up, [00:59:25] dude. Stitched it up. But the funny thing is, that whole thing that you said about the patient thinking [00:59:30] I should have told not not been here in the first place. You know, your biggest problem isn’t the [00:59:35] clinical situation. Sometimes it’s the patient. Yeah. Because you. And having said to the guy, it’s the easiest [00:59:40] tooth in the mouth to extract and then you’ve got this massive situation. Obviously you have a you have.

Lwai Almasri: You [00:59:45] have you have the duty of candour like you have to when something goes wrong, you can’t just fix it and not tell them. [00:59:50]

Payman Langroudi: I mean, there was no way there was. You could fix this without him knowing it.

Lwai Almasri: Well, yeah, that too, but also, like, [00:59:55] it’s a bonus. Yeah, but like even like.

Payman Langroudi: Even.

Lwai Almasri: Even even if you slipped, for example, [01:00:00] and you cut them a little bit, something that they might not even notice. Yeah.

Payman Langroudi: No, you have to tell them.

Lwai Almasri: You have [01:00:05] to tell them.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: And that’s the hardest part is telling a patient that you that you messed up, especially because you’re, [01:00:10] you, you get crammed into you especially at uni, they cram into you GDC guidelines of don’t let the patient [01:00:15] like like make sure your social media image is good because don’t let patients lose trust [01:00:20] in the dental profession and all of this, and they need to have confidence in it. Important, though. Yeah.

Payman Langroudi: Do we have an error [01:00:25] from you?

Saif Mukadam: Honestly? Genuinely, no.

Payman Langroudi: It doesn’t have to be clinical. It doesn’t have to be clinical. It can be like a, [01:00:30] I don’t know, something else.

Saif Mukadam: I actually just don’t have anything. To be honest, I think I tried a bit hard in term one.

Payman Langroudi: What’s [01:00:35] your biggest weakness?

Saif Mukadam: My weakness?

Lwai Almasri: Yeah.

Saif Mukadam: Um. [01:00:40]

Lwai Almasri: I think I know your biggest weakness.

Saif Mukadam: Oh, you know, my biggest weakness?

Lwai Almasri: I think [01:00:45] so what.

Saif Mukadam: Is my biggest weakness?

Lwai Almasri: You trust very easily.

Saif Mukadam: No, [01:00:50] I wouldn’t say so.

Lwai Almasri: I think so, from an outsider perspective, I’d say. You think so?

Payman Langroudi: I like that I call [01:00:55] that a strength, not a weakness.

Lwai Almasri: Trust me. Trusting too easily. Yeah. It’s a the thing is, that’s [01:01:00] why. That’s why I think you might not be because it works as a strength, but it’s.

Payman Langroudi: Come on. What’s your biggest weakness? [01:01:05] What the hell? What if we asked your friends and family?

Saif Mukadam: You know they can. You can ask me if you want to.

Payman Langroudi: What would they say? [01:01:10]

Saif Mukadam: But I genuinely, I don’t know, I actually don’t know. I’ve thought.

Payman Langroudi: About it. You know, it’s one of those questions, that classic [01:01:15] interview question. Right?

Saif Mukadam: Yeah. What’s your biggest.

Lwai Almasri: What did you say in your Dental interview?

Payman Langroudi: I ask an interview. I ask [01:01:20] an interview when people don’t give me the answer to that. I generally don’t hire them. I feel like, oh, this [01:01:25] person doesn’t know themselves.

Saif Mukadam: No, because you know what it is like. I’ve had, [01:01:30] like, issues and like, setbacks and whatnot, but I wouldn’t say [01:01:35] it’s because of a weakness, but like, yeah, I genuinely couldn’t even say. I think you know what one of them [01:01:40] is that I can get distracted very easily. That’s a massive weakness.

Lwai Almasri: 100%.

Saif Mukadam: Like genuinely [01:01:45] like.

Payman Langroudi: Adhd, sort of.

Saif Mukadam: No, no. Like sort.

Lwai Almasri: Of.

Saif Mukadam: Seriously?

Lwai Almasri: Maybe not a bit. [01:01:50]

Saif Mukadam: No, it’s really bad. Like. So I’ll be in the library and like, yeah, I’ll do everything but work. [01:01:55]

Payman Langroudi: And I’m the same. I’m the same. It’s like.

Saif Mukadam: Speak to this one. Go speak to that one. Go do something.

Lwai Almasri: You know, it’s 11 p.m.. [01:02:00]

Saif Mukadam: Be bothered to do the work. So I procrastinate, right? There was a good like a [01:02:05] week or so last year. Like an exact time where I spent like eight, ten hours in the library, but [01:02:10] I’ve done two hours of work. How does that make sense?

Lwai Almasri: I also think that the library in itself. I’ve been there. The [01:02:15] King’s library, New Hunt’s house, library for any King students listening to this that everybody knows that [01:02:20] in exam season you stay at home and you study at home. You know, it’s too much of a social. It’s so it’s [01:02:25] only social, that library. Unless you if you want to do work, there’s there’s.

Saif Mukadam: It got [01:02:30] to the point where I was literally putting myself in a corner in the silence.

Lwai Almasri: You upstairs. You have to hide.

Saif Mukadam: And [01:02:35] speak to anyone.

Lwai Almasri: You have to hide and headphones on. And don’t you have to be rude to people and say, guys, [01:02:40] I’m studying. Unless otherwise go study. I know people that would started just staying at home [01:02:45] just so that they could study in exam season. Because they say I.

Saif Mukadam: Say that as a weakness though, but it can also [01:02:50] be a strength like that. The reason why I distract myself and whatnot is because I like to speak [01:02:55] to people. I like to catch up whatnot.

Payman Langroudi: Listen, in general, in life, your biggest strength is your biggest [01:03:00] weakness. Of course.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah, I think that’s a good idea. In general analogy.

Payman Langroudi: Um, let’s [01:03:05] get into the course itself. What aspects of the course so far [01:03:10] feel like they’ve been a waste of time, or what aspects feel like they haven’t? It’s [01:03:15] that it’s difficult to tell.

Lwai Almasri: I mean, I mean, you’re.

Payman Langroudi: Halfway through, but we were talking before about, you know, bio.

Lwai Almasri: Chem. [01:03:20] Yeah.

Saif Mukadam: So first term, like, I know for a fact I am never going to use that clinically. Like, [01:03:25] do you know what that is?

Lwai Almasri: Depending on the path that you go down, you actually might.

Saif Mukadam: Because for me personally, [01:03:30] I mean, yeah.

Payman Langroudi: You might become an oral surgeon, right. And then that clotting cascade, whatever it was [01:03:35] you learned suddenly becomes a thing. Yeah.

Saif Mukadam: But you might have. [01:03:40] But I didn’t do it. That’s for.

Lwai Almasri: Sure. Exactly. So.

Payman Langroudi: But some people make the argument, [01:03:45] they say, oh, it’s like once you become an oral surgeon, go learn all that. Yeah. Because you’re right. I mean, for instance, [01:03:50] we’re in teeth whitening, right? Whitening isn’t taught. Of course not throughout [01:03:55] the dental course. There’s. I think I’ve asked so many people. There’s one sort of half an hour session. [01:04:00] Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: So I did.

Payman Langroudi: Tooth whitening or bleaching.

Lwai Almasri: I did tooth whitening two weeks ago [01:04:05] in. Oh you did. But we don’t get it taught by dentists. We get it taught by lab technicians.

Payman Langroudi: Oh, for [01:04:10] the trade design in labs.

Lwai Almasri: And they. And they don’t teach you about whitening. They teach [01:04:15] you about shades and just.

Payman Langroudi: Oh, was in photography and the colour.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah. And they just tell you that whitening [01:04:20] exists. That’s it. It’s basically. Yeah.

Payman Langroudi: So it’s really interesting because like, [01:04:25] it’s not like it’s not implants or something where, you know, that kind of is a or ortho [01:04:30] speciality that you do a specialised thing that you do afterwards. Whitening. It’s a very [01:04:35] simple thing that, you know.

Lwai Almasri: A general dentist.

Payman Langroudi: Can do. A general dentist can do for £299 on [01:04:40] your first day in practice. You might have to do it, and it’s not taught in dental school. And yet [01:04:45] we look down microscopes and histology.

Saif Mukadam: Look at.

Lwai Almasri: Histology.

Saif Mukadam: So exciting. Yeah. [01:04:50]

Payman Langroudi: So, you know, because I’m in whitening, obviously that’s what I’m going to say. Yeah. But what else have [01:04:55] you identified? I mean, you were talking about this haptic. Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: I mentioned to you the haptics lab. I mean, so.

Payman Langroudi: Explain what that is. [01:05:00] Explain what that is.

Lwai Almasri: In guy’s tower in the hospital on floor 18. They have this beautiful [01:05:05] looking lab that they’ve got about ten or so haptics machines. They spent millions. [01:05:10]

Saif Mukadam: Of pounds 20 years. Quite. It’s nice 20 machines. Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: They spent millions of pounds developing it. It’s [01:05:15] a beautiful room with a lovely view of London and all of that. The whole of guys. Yeah. And you [01:05:20] basically you look into this screen almost like. And you grab [01:05:25] this fake drill and fake mirror, and so.

Payman Langroudi: There is no drill or mirror in your hand at [01:05:30] all.

Lwai Almasri: No, it’s a fake. It’s a pen.

Saif Mukadam: It’s two pens simulated.

Lwai Almasri: It’s simulated. Phantom head [01:05:35] essentially is how I can describe it. Okay. And the the drill is weighted to a fast handpiece [01:05:40] somehow. And the mirror pen is weighted to mirror [01:05:45] roughly. And you sit there and you have like a head, they’ve got like a fake [01:05:50] phantom head with no teeth in it. And you, when you look into the screen, there’s teeth. Oh. And [01:05:55] as you drill, it’s you get feedback. So like you feel like feedback, you get vibrations [01:06:00] and you get like the.

Payman Langroudi: Sounds great.

Saif Mukadam: On paper. It sounds amazing in theory.

Lwai Almasri: Sounds great. I promise you, it’s nothing [01:06:05] like phantom head. Mm. No, no.

Saif Mukadam: I was I mean, I obviously came, I [01:06:10] was like, yeah, I’m so excited for haptics I can’t wait. Yeah. I spoke to this guy. He was like, bro, just wait till you do Phantom [01:06:15] heads. It’s nothing like it.

Lwai Almasri: Nothing. And I’d done. I’d done a couple phantom heads before, before uni, as part [01:06:20] of my, like, application with my dad. So I’d done Phantom Head before, I’d done haptics, and [01:06:25] I knew haptics was nothing like it, and no one believed me until they started second year. And [01:06:30] the worst part about haptics, I think, is, is that not only it’s cool if you just did it in first year, fine. [01:06:35] Bit of a waste of money or overspent or whatever, but cool. You do it in first year to prepare them for phantom head. [01:06:40] You do it in second year, you do it in third year, you do it in fourth year, and you do it in fifth [01:06:45] year.

Payman Langroudi: Oh, so every procedure you start with that. Well, it’s not that.

Lwai Almasri: You start with I don’t know what they do [01:06:50] it in fourth and fifth year, but there’s compulsory like I do Crown preps in now in third year on [01:06:55] haptics. But I do Crown preps also on Phantom head. And then it’s nothing alike. [01:07:00] And like it’s just it’s.

Payman Langroudi: I guess they spend it’s compulsory to use it.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah. And it’s compulsory [01:07:05] attendance and it’s registered and you get in trouble if you don’t go. And like I [01:07:10] could just see I would rather have phantom head time, which is only once every two weeks. And [01:07:15] it’s the fact that in my head, they spent millions on developing this lab. They [01:07:20] really are stingy on giving us phantom head plastic teeth, because each cave tooth is, what, like a pound [01:07:25] per tooth or something like that. And it’s like, well, if we give every student then. But you spent how many millions [01:07:30] on a, on a haptic lab, you could have used that and got more teeth and I could do more crown prep because we get given 32 teeth, [01:07:35] a full dentition at the start of the year and third year, and that has to last.

Payman Langroudi: They compared to [01:07:40] actual teeth.

Lwai Almasri: What, the phantom head teeth? Yeah. I’ve never done a crown prep on a human, but [01:07:45] yeah, I’ve done fillings. Uh, they’re okay, obviously they’re plastic. I mean, the main premise of it [01:07:50] that you learn from Phantom Head is kind of getting your finger, like, rests [01:07:55] and stuff like that, and navigating the. Because we used to.

Payman Langroudi: Use actual teeth. Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: So we do in [01:08:00] second year.

Saif Mukadam: So yeah.

Lwai Almasri: So we’re part of first year is they ask you to go [01:08:05] collect teeth from dental practices, and you create your phantom head arches for second [01:08:10] year to practice resto and you do fillings and stuff on actual teeth. In third year [01:08:15] you do plastic teeth for crown preps and only crown preps because it’s a bit hard to do a crown prep on because [01:08:20] they’re all all extracted teeth have messed up teeth, unless it’s for ortho or [01:08:25] something like that. So you can’t really practice crown preps on them. But I mean, the cool thing is, is [01:08:30] you kind of learn to adapt around the mouth and whatnot. But what’s so silly about haptics is [01:08:35] that you can’t even practice a finger rest because there’s no teeth physically on that phantom head unit. [01:08:40] So I’m actually just floating. I’m floating, I’m finger resting on the head. So it’s actually [01:08:45] instilling bad habit, if anything, for me. So I don’t know. I think that was that. And the fact [01:08:50] that we don’t get the choice of going in person and having a lecture like I told you, and that all lectures [01:08:55] are only online and pre-recorded, I think that there’s benefits to it, because I like being [01:09:00] able to do my lectures in my own time, pausing and stopping and but in person lectures were always recorded anyway. [01:09:05] So like, I would prefer the option of being able to attend because genuinely, in first [01:09:10] year we could have lived at home in Birmingham 100%. Normally you.

Saif Mukadam: Wouldn’t easily. [01:09:15]

Lwai Almasri: And commuted whenever there was a histology. It’s an hour and a half train. Like, [01:09:20] do you get what I mean? Yeah, I could have easily done that.

Payman Langroudi: And I guess, like when it’s all done at home, [01:09:25] you don’t get that feeling of like being in uni. Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: You’re not. The point of it is, is that you’re at [01:09:30] uni. You need to meet your course mates, meet, meet uni is meant to be the greatest time for a lot of people [01:09:35] and people. My dad was telling me before I came, you’ll meet lifelong friends at uni. If your course is [01:09:40] online, we will. That’s why. That’s why New Hunt’s House library, by the way, is very social because a lot [01:09:45] of first years come there just to socialise because otherwise they’ll do the lectures in their dorm. Do you get what I [01:09:50] mean?

Payman Langroudi: Yeah. So. Well, is it because of the year you’re in that you’ve, you’ve got no choice for in person. But [01:09:55] you do know.

Saif Mukadam: So I they tried to make it more in person when I was there. So [01:10:00] we had about, I don’t know, like 30% of the lecturers in person even then. Like I don’t know, [01:10:05] about 20 people would turn up because they know the lecture is going to get recorded anyway. So even if [01:10:10] you don’t go, you can just watch it in your own time. So I used to go purely just to chill with my mates, a [01:10:15] bit of fun, go eat some food afterwards, like make it a little bit of a motive basically [01:10:20] because we don’t get that like historically exactly the same. I did not pick up a single thing in histology, [01:10:25] but chilling with our mates, looking down the microscope, having a bit of fun. Yeah, that was enjoyable because [01:10:30] I was chilling with my classmates getting to know him, but for him, because he had nothing in person [01:10:35] because of Covid whatnot, which is fair. Like obviously you don’t want to spread the disease and whatnot. Yeah, he didn’t get [01:10:40] to know him as as well as I feel like I did, but I think he did as well.

Lwai Almasri: I actually realised that there was so [01:10:45] many people in my year that I didn’t know.

Payman Langroudi: It’s such big a year. Massive. Yeah. So it’s like.

Lwai Almasri: 140 [01:10:50] to 80 depending.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: With the th yeah with the dental therapy and hygiene. [01:10:55] So that’s like another 30. So a lot of.

Saif Mukadam: People whereas like most dental schools max 70, 70, 80 a year [01:11:00] group.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah we were.

Saif Mukadam: A lot.

Lwai Almasri: Smaller. Yeah.

Payman Langroudi: Even so like.

Lwai Almasri: I don’t know I didn’t [01:11:05] know so many people in my year group, I in fact, I knew a lot. I knew more people in in the year above [01:11:10] me than the commuters in my year group. I only knew in first year the people that lived [01:11:15] in my accommodation that essentially because those were the only people I saw. And that [01:11:20] that for me was probably why Aecom was a great experience was because I got to meet so [01:11:25] many people. Community feel I felt, yeah, like I didn’t get to great. I didn’t get to feel that on [01:11:30] campus per se, because no one was coming in. We didn’t have clinics. Um, [01:11:35] and that’s I realised it in second year when we started Phantom Head and people started actually coming in. [01:11:40] I don’t know, 90% of the people here like because my group, you don’t get to pick your [01:11:45] groups. So I wasn’t with my friends or I had two maybe of my friends, the rest of the 40 [01:11:50] people in the room, no clue who they were, never seen their face before. I was reading [01:11:55] the register when we were signing. I don’t know who these people are. So like. And you felt like you were in the wrong place, which [01:12:00] is crazy because you’re at uni and you you’d think that you’d get to see everybody and meet everyone And you do [01:12:05] later on, I guess. Which is nice.

Saif Mukadam: But now. Yeah. So now obviously.

Lwai Almasri: And now Covid obviously is [01:12:10] a thing of the past. It’s obviously like something. Did you.

Payman Langroudi: Guys consider a year out between [01:12:15] college and.

Saif Mukadam: I didn’t obviously I had my two years of football. So I was going.

Payman Langroudi: You’d already done. [01:12:20]

Saif Mukadam: That took a year out. It would have been even older.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah yeah.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah yeah. No it’s no, I never considered a year out [01:12:25] because I knew I was doing the football, but yeah.

Lwai Almasri: No, I didn’t think of it a year. I didn’t think of taking a year out between [01:12:30] school and I mean.

Saif Mukadam: Um, my, my career diversion, I was great.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah. [01:12:35] I mean, I mean, for me, it was more of a matter of. I kind of just wanted to get to uni. [01:12:40] I kind of just was ready to to, you know, move out of home, kind of like start, [01:12:45] I don’t know, just wanted to kind of get those five years done. Not not per se get them done. [01:12:50] But I can’t lie, I was just ready for moving on to the next chapter, essentially.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah, yeah. But why couldn’t [01:12:55] the next chapter be in Vietnam? You know, I mean, it’s true, it’s very true.

Lwai Almasri: But like a lot [01:13:00] of people do do that. Yeah, I know, so I know a lot of people in my year at school actually took a year. They were applying medicine, dentistry, [01:13:05] and they took a year out, travelled and then went and they got their offer. They just deferred it to the next year. They actually had [01:13:10] to do nothing, not even redo Ucat. Not even so. Like that was an option. But just for me, I was like [01:13:15] five years of dental school. Seems like a while.

Payman Langroudi: I’m trying to persuade my son to take a year out.

Lwai Almasri: I [01:13:20] think it has a lot of benefit. And my my little sister actually right now is applying, is taking her year out. [01:13:25] She applied dentistry. She’s taking her year out and she will go to dental school next year, hopefully. So [01:13:30] she’s taking a year out. The thing is it’s it is foresight. I just didn’t know what I would do with my [01:13:35] year. So like, I didn’t think that there was something productive or beneficial that I could.

Payman Langroudi: Gain, but [01:13:40] you know what I mean. Travel. Feed the hungry. Start a Start-Up.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah, I mean.

Payman Langroudi: The usual.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah, but [01:13:45] I don’t know. It just didn’t it wasn’t something that resonated with me. So I was like, it was not something that I wanted. It was a [01:13:50] bit of a.

Saif Mukadam: Worry sometimes as well. Like, let’s say you take a gap year, a lot of students will think, oh, I’m behind [01:13:55] now. Like I said to me, I’ve even posted a post about it on LinkedIn, so obviously I’m now two years [01:14:00] behind. You know, I get the odd joke. Her Granddad. Uncle, I genuinely do. You know, [01:14:05] I got asked the other day. How are your knees? I’m 22. I’m not 44. You don’t be. Yeah. [01:14:10] So you get a joke and people get worried. Oh. I’m behind. I’m not on the right side. On the right timeline. [01:14:15] Same timeline as my peers.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah, but that’s rubbish.

Saif Mukadam: There’s no worry at all, because.

Lwai Almasri: That’s. [01:14:20]

Payman Langroudi: Complete rubbish.

Saif Mukadam: In my year group, there’s. I’d say 40%. 40% are [01:14:25] gap year students. Yeah. Whereas in like, there’s it’s so common. Like, why is [01:14:30] there a worry about it. Why is there a taboo about it? Even people who do postgrad like well their undergrad. But they’ve done a degree [01:14:35] beforehand. They’re there as well. Like there’s no issue with being. No, there’s no.

Payman Langroudi: Issue with that. I mean, [01:14:40] there’s there’s this I mean.

Saif Mukadam: There’s a taboo about it for some reason.

Payman Langroudi: There’s this question of, Will the kid just [01:14:45] give up on studies altogether?

Lwai Almasri: Oh.

Saif Mukadam: I’m not sure about that one.

Payman Langroudi: It’s well, it’s like my my [01:14:50] parents are saying you’re crazy to try and persuade him to go.

Saif Mukadam: There’s no longevity. [01:14:55] Then if you just give up on studies.

Payman Langroudi: No, because he’s had a year off, you know, he’s like, now he’s not in the same mindset that [01:15:00] we could.

Saif Mukadam: Have asked me that same question, like, I finished.

Payman Langroudi: Football.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah, exactly. What made you go back into A-levels? Because what [01:15:05] am I going to do? Like sit at home, do nothing? No, I’ve got to have something going forward. [01:15:10] And studies was what I wanted to do. I mean, I’m not saying.

Payman Langroudi: This is a really interesting reason why I’m trying [01:15:15] to tell my son is, okay now he’s working his butt off for A-levels and [01:15:20] he wants to do aerospace engineering, and it’s very, very competitive and so [01:15:25] on. And let’s say it goes really well for him. And he gets into Cambridge [01:15:30] to do aerospace engineering. He’s going to get there. His first emotion is going to be what we said about being [01:15:35] suddenly surrounded by these geniuses who are better than you. Yeah, 100%. Let’s imagine [01:15:40] it goes really well. He gets to Cambridge and that happens. So then then, okay, now he’s got [01:15:45] to work his butt off in Cambridge. Let’s say let’s go.

Lwai Almasri: It’s very true.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah. Um, [01:15:50] there they do all of engineering in the first two years. All of it. Yeah. And [01:15:55] then in year three and four they specialise. Okay. Four years of working your butt off. Then [01:16:00] let’s say he wants to become. I don’t know, a banker for the sake of the argument. Yeah, he’s stuck in a 9 to 5. He [01:16:05] gets picked up by Morgan Stanley or some bank somewhere. Get there. Those [01:16:10] guys are proper motivated.

Lwai Almasri: Not even 9 to 5.

Payman Langroudi: That’s. No, that’s like a 9 to 9. Seven. [01:16:15]

Lwai Almasri: 7 to 7.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah. Straight slog. You answer this mobile whatever happens. Right. And [01:16:20] so let’s say he does really well with that. Yeah. And let’s say he gets promoted and he becomes this.

Lwai Almasri: When [01:16:25] does he have a break partner.

Payman Langroudi: No, no. But at one point yeah there’s this notion, this notion [01:16:30] of I’m going to do so well here that I can go on any holiday I want. Yeah. Yeah. [01:16:35] And holidays. But especially when you get older dudes. Yeah. Like one week holiday just doesn’t feel like [01:16:40] holiday. Yeah. I want, like, a six month. Yeah. Or twice.

Lwai Almasri: A year. Six month holiday. Twice a year. [01:16:45] Six months.

Payman Langroudi: I want to I want to work from somewhere else for the sake of the argument. For the sake [01:16:50] of the argument. Yeah, I could like I could want.

Saif Mukadam: To have that option. Yeah. You want to have it? We could.

Payman Langroudi: Do. I could be sitting in Thailand [01:16:55] right now. Yeah. Talking to? To you, of course. Anyway, at [01:17:00] one point, the super successful banker guy who does so well that he can have a whole year [01:17:05] off. Yeah. You know, whereas you can just take that year at the beginning. Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: I [01:17:10] mean, I never really looked at it that way, I guess. I mean, that’s the thing. So I mean, the [01:17:15] way that you just said it, where you can, it’s a good break before [01:17:20] realising that you’re stuck potentially afterwards. And this just by the way.

Payman Langroudi: You [01:17:25] can do it at the end of your five year course. Yeah, exactly. So before or just after?

Lwai Almasri: It’s true. Yeah, exactly. [01:17:30] Um, so yeah, I don’t know. For me, it’s it [01:17:35] was just something that I never really thought about. Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah. I mean, you as well. You had [01:17:40] your two years of apprenticeship for football.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah. I always knew I was going to do it. Like after [01:17:45] GCSEs. I knew I was going to have those two years for sure whether it was going to be any further. But anybody who [01:17:50] wants to take a gap year, I would never tell them no. Like, yeah, 100%. For my own personal experience, I’m two years behind [01:17:55] or I’m gonna say behind, but I’m two years. The thing is.

Payman Langroudi: Two years more mature. When you went in.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah. I think if I came [01:18:00] to uni as an 18 year old as well, it would have been completely.

Lwai Almasri: Such a child. Oh, I was 100% [01:18:05] all this.

Saif Mukadam: Like, gossip or whatnot that they just love as 18 year olds. Actually, I’m not gonna lie. I [01:18:10] did, yeah, but like, I come two years later, I have this. I’ve been in a professional environment [01:18:15] for two years. I know what it’s like for a 16 year old earning money, and it’s [01:18:20] like you have a different mindset. Yeah, I’m not saying I’m like, I’m completely mature. I deserve to be. Of [01:18:25] course not. Yeah, but, like, you know what I mean? Like, you have this different mindset compared to if you’re straight [01:18:30] out of school. Yeah. Even for me.

Lwai Almasri: I realised that I had so much growth after my first two years of uni, [01:18:35] just maturity wise. I was so immature in such a child. Yeah, in my first and second year I made plenty [01:18:40] of mistakes. Plenty. And to be honest, I’m thankful for them because I wouldn’t be [01:18:45] the person I am now if I hadn’t done them, learnt from them, reflected on them. [01:18:50] So I’m very thankful for it. But yeah, I mean you. The other benefit, of course, of taking a year [01:18:55] out is that you get to go into the new environment more mature. But I’ve always said, I think [01:19:00] because I do like both of us, even we help a lot of students with their prospective Dental students with their applications [01:19:05] and whatnot. And when they ask about taking a gap year, I’ve always said personally, I [01:19:10] mean, there’s two kinds of gap years for dentistry, though. There’s a gap year where you defer your offer. Yeah, [01:19:15] yeah. And, you know, you’re you’re guaranteed.

Payman Langroudi: Correct.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah. You’re guaranteed to enter. [01:19:20] And there’s a gap year where you have to redo your ucat and personal statement. Yeah yeah yeah. That’s stress. So there’s ucat and personal [01:19:25] statement one I emphasise definitely that they have to do something with their gap year. [01:19:30] That’s relevant because your personal statement and in your interviews they’ll ask you about it and it’s a big thing. [01:19:35] But even to the people that have a deferred offer, I recommend that they have a plan [01:19:40] or something that they want to do in this gap year, because otherwise you can just find yourself just chilling at home. [01:19:45]

Payman Langroudi: Because I know the way I said it to my son was to like, sell it to us. Yeah, [01:19:50] exactly. Sell us on what you’re going to do in this year because his mom’s against it, so of [01:19:55] course.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah.

Payman Langroudi: We’re coming. We’re coming to the end of our time. Um, [01:20:00] we tend to end with the same questions. Oh, I don’t know if you’ve if you [01:20:05] only watched the clips, you won’t know these. Um, it’s a fantasy dinner party. Three guests. Aha. [01:20:10] Dead or alive?

Lwai Almasri: Okay.

Payman Langroudi: What comes to mind when I say that?

Saif Mukadam: So it’s so it’s in [01:20:15] the same meal. You’ve got three people together. Or can you have them separate?

Payman Langroudi: No, the same dinner party. Okay. [01:20:20] Your dinner party. Three guests. Dead or alive. Who would you have?

Saif Mukadam: So my my [01:20:25] main one.

Payman Langroudi: It’s going to be three footballers. No no.

Saif Mukadam: No. One of the first one is definitely gonna be Ronaldo. Cristiano Ronaldo. [01:20:30] Like, from day one. Even though my Man City fan like it should be wrong. But why am I choosing [01:20:35] Ronaldo? But I’ve just always admired his mentality just the way how he goes about, you know, just [01:20:40] the.

Lwai Almasri: Hardest working in the.

Saif Mukadam: Room. Of course, like it’s admirable. It’s something you want to work towards, something I put [01:20:45] into my own, uh, you know, regime. When I was playing football, like, after training, [01:20:50] I stay late, do shots. Free kicks, dribbling, whatnot. Because [01:20:55] at the end of it, I had I had no regrets for my football because I know I put 100% [01:21:00] in for those two years. So because of Ronaldo, like he’s like [01:21:05] this mindset of you want to be the best, I need to be the best. I need to put the work in to be the best. [01:21:10] Yeah, it’s simple as like, I want to know, like how he’s done it and like just his whole lifestyle. [01:21:15] I think it’d be amazing to sit down and have a nice little meal with him. Um, [01:21:20] other two, I think. One of them, uh, Marie Curie, you [01:21:25] know, she, she invented, like, radiographs and whatnot. Invented the first portable x [01:21:30] ray, like, just the thought process and whatnot. How she went through. I think she was the first [01:21:35] female to win a Nobel Peace Prize as well. Is that right? Yeah. I’m not, I’m not. Don’t quote me on that.

Lwai Almasri: Nobel prize, [01:21:40] not peace prize.

Saif Mukadam: Nobel Prize, don’t quote me on that. But I’m pretty sure she was one like one of them. So that’s a serious, [01:21:45] serious accolade to have. And yeah, I just have a little comfort with it. Won’t be too bad. [01:21:50] And then, um. Third person. Oof! I don’t really have. You [01:21:55] know, I recently started boxing, so. Which is a bit random, but Muhammad Ali, [01:22:00] I wouldn’t mind.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah, a little.

Saif Mukadam: Bit of a chit chat with Muhammad.

Payman Langroudi: Ali the first time Muhammad Ali’s [01:22:05] come up. Really?

Saif Mukadam: Is that a general one?

Lwai Almasri: What’s the other reasoning for Muhammad Ali that you [01:22:10] usually get?

Payman Langroudi: Well, Muhammad Ali has done so much. I mean, he he’s politically, politically, especially. [01:22:15]

Lwai Almasri: Race and religion back then.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah.

Saif Mukadam: So he’s he’s done a lot like activists [01:22:20] and whatnot. But just in general because of the boxing that I’ve started. So I’m doing a fight very soon. Oh, really? On the [01:22:25] 1st of December and just student fight night. Yeah. Student fight night.

Payman Langroudi: Be careful man.

Saif Mukadam: No, I’m. No, I’m definitely [01:22:30] your money-makers man. The head guard or whatnot. I’m not trying to get injured. I’ve never really, like, seen [01:22:35] it, but I got challenged by one of my mates. Like I challenged you to do the boxing. Have you.

Payman Langroudi: Have you come across Doctor Daniel hitman? [01:22:40] He’s a dentist. He’s a professional boxer. I think I’ve.

Lwai Almasri: Seen him on Instagram.

Saif Mukadam: Instagram. Yeah, he’s he [01:22:45] quite. He’s got a decent following, isn’t he?

Payman Langroudi: I think so. He’s.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah, he’s up there.

Saif Mukadam: I think I’ve seen him. Yeah, I think [01:22:50] I’ve seen him. Of course. Not suggesting or whatnot. Yeah. That wouldn’t be a bad person to have. How about you, [01:22:55] Roy?

Lwai Almasri: So the thing is, I wanted to say Ronaldo, but he’s taken him because [01:23:00] I’m a big boy. I’m a man United fan, so I’m a big fan of Ronaldo. But I’ll change it. Um, [01:23:05] I’d say probably Roger Federer is one of them. I played, I’ve played tennis and [01:23:10] used to play tennis a lot back in school as well. And I mean, he has a video clip. I don’t know if [01:23:15] anyone’s seen it, but it’s when he retired from tennis, he [01:23:20] went and gave a speech at a university’s graduation, and his whole speech was about. [01:23:25]

Payman Langroudi: I still miss.

Lwai Almasri: I know this. So so he’s won 80% [01:23:30] of all matches that he’s played, yet his point conversion is 54%. [01:23:35] And he’s talking about nobody is perfect yet. You can still in the [01:23:40] end have a like you’re going to make mistakes along the way. Your career at the end [01:23:45] when you look back at it, it can still be very memorable. Regardless of those mistakes. Those mistakes make [01:23:50] you a better person and don’t get caught up on your mistakes. Don’t don’t just, you know, don’t [01:23:55] let them bog you down. Because if he thought about every single point that he missed, he’s not going [01:24:00] to be able to focus on the next point that he’s got coming up. If he’s if he’s mid serve thinking about, oh shit, [01:24:05] I missed that. Uh or should have done that. You’re going to mess up the like [01:24:10] like just like you can reflect on the past but keep looking to the future [01:24:15] type thing. Yeah. Yeah I think my next person that I would say would be [01:24:20] um well Ahmed CEO of Woohp.

Payman Langroudi: 00i know him.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah. You know.

Saif Mukadam: Him personally. [01:24:25] Oh you know him well.

Payman Langroudi: My wife knows his family.

Lwai Almasri: Oh very nice. Yeah he’s he’s [01:24:30] someone that he I mean both me and Saif have it. And I and I [01:24:35] convinced him to get one was well for me just as a Woohp as Woohp. In general it’s revolutionised [01:24:40] my my day to day life for uni. Whether that’s it’s alarm clock. It’s bettered my sleep, um, [01:24:45] etc.. But.

Payman Langroudi: But he’s very involved himself. Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: And [01:24:50] he’s. You can tell he’s passionate about his product. He’s always put product over distribution. [01:24:55] He made his product good. And he entered a market that was so saturated. I mean, you had Apple Watches [01:25:00] and Apple Watch are a huge monopoly. The Garmin, [01:25:05] the Samsung, the aura thingy ring like that people wear. And he and he’s [01:25:10] dominating. I mean and he’s signed. I mean Ronaldo Ronaldo is a co-investor even actually [01:25:15] in the in the product. And he wouldn’t be if it wasn’t something that was actually good.

Payman Langroudi: So [01:25:20] you know how that works though. Sometimes they just give 10% of the company to. True.

Lwai Almasri: True. So [01:25:25] so there is that. But I like very much believe in what he’s done [01:25:30] in the, in that sense. And then kind of basic, I’ll probably say somebody like Jeff [01:25:35] Bezos when when he divorced from his wife, he [01:25:40] actually well, she became the sixth richest woman or something. Just off the divorce settlement. Crazy. But [01:25:45] what was really interesting to see was that he’s one of the few people that actually had a very nice [01:25:50] divorce. As nice as divorces can get, I guess. Um, but [01:25:55] in the sense of he said that she, he she earned every penny of that settlement [01:26:00] that she took. She took like $36 billion or something like that. And he said that without her [01:26:05] support, even though she didn’t directly do anything at Amazon, without her support, he [01:26:10] wouldn’t have been able to create Amazon. So it kind of shows you that. I mean, I saw it in my parents as [01:26:15] well. It kind of relates me a bit to my parents. My mom dropped out of uni, delayed everything [01:26:20] so that she could, you know, support my dad, support us and raise the kids and whatnot. [01:26:25] And, you know, she she, she put on hold her career so that she could [01:26:30] support my dad and let him thrive and do all of that and then came back to it. And, [01:26:35] I mean, thankfully, they’re not divorced and they’re still together and they love each other, obviously, thankfully. But I mean, [01:26:40] along that premise of, you know, I kind of see it in Bezos and his wife and how [01:26:45] she did that. And, you know, there’s no negative energy between them. So it’s really nice to see.

Payman Langroudi: How old are you turning? [01:26:50]

Lwai Almasri: 22 in February. So 21.

Payman Langroudi: This is for the for the fun of it. Give [01:26:55] it like a five years time. What do you think you’re going to be doing so that in five [01:27:00] years time, when I do it again with you guys from Thailand, we’ll see. We’ll [01:27:05] compare and contrast. Like, I know it’s early to decide.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah, I can’t like.

Payman Langroudi: Where’s [01:27:10] your head now in five years time? What dentist will you be?

Lwai Almasri: You’ll be in your foundation.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah, yeah, [01:27:15] yeah. I’ll be in.

Payman Langroudi: Ten years time then.

Lwai Almasri: Okay. I mean, I [01:27:20] what, ten years time as well? Sure. I don’t see myself. Okay, [01:27:25] so in five years time, I would have seen myself still doing quite a lot of just in practice. [01:27:30]

Payman Langroudi: Ten years is better. Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: Ten years maybe. I’ve had the best balance [01:27:35] of practice is 2 to 3 days a week of clinical practice, and then the rest working [01:27:40] on on a business. My my my my aspirations have always been I want [01:27:45] to open a Dental corporate. Oh, yeah. That’s that’s always been my my kind of what [01:27:50] I want to do. I’ve always been interested in Dental corporate because obviously I wanted to do finance [01:27:55] and econ at uni. My, my, I was very much business minded for a long time. And [01:28:00] the way my dad actually convinced me was very clever, because he knew that if he forced me into [01:28:05] dentistry, I just, I just said no and I would have still done what I wanted to [01:28:10] do. So he he showed me that actually dentistry is what’s best by [01:28:15] sending me to do work experience at a firm for two weeks where I gave up [01:28:20] after five days because of, like you said, bankers, that you’re there at seven in the morning, you don’t [01:28:25] leave until 8 p.m. at night. And I was just crunching numbers at a desk, not leaving. And [01:28:30] I hated it. I loved being practical. I love getting up and going to meetings or running [01:28:35] around the city or or or even working with my hands. I really like doing.

Payman Langroudi: Wire Dental [01:28:40] corporate y.

Lwai Almasri: I think something.

Payman Langroudi: To do with business. Okay, [01:28:45] yeah.

Lwai Almasri: But that’s not as a as as. Why not? Maybe then say open up an institute or [01:28:50] something like that as a business y a Dental corporate. Because I think dentistry in the UK is something that’s very [01:28:55] there’s not enough practices. I think the thing is, is that there’s loads of practices [01:29:00] but not enough good practices, I think. Right. If you get what I mean, without [01:29:05] trying to throw shade on a lot of practices, I don’t.

Payman Langroudi: Think there’s enough good of anything. [01:29:10] Yeah, there’s not enough good. Exactly. Anything.

Lwai Almasri: Exactly. So, so I don’t think [01:29:15] there’s enough good practices where where it’s easily accessible to patients. I [01:29:20] mean, as we know, NHS dentistry is literally crumbling. So something like that [01:29:25] would be something that I’ve always kind of wanted to, to solve.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah. Yeah. It’s ambitious. [01:29:30]

Lwai Almasri: To say I’m going to.

Payman Langroudi: Solve it, I get it, I get it right. So but corporate sort of implies many [01:29:35] sites, doesn’t it. Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: So I want to. I want to be able to do like. I don’t want to just say that because [01:29:40] also I like travelling. So I don’t want to just live in London for my whole life. I want to be able to go [01:29:45] and do something in Manchester or even abroad. International corporate, be [01:29:50] able to go abroad and travel and do things all across the world and stuff like that.

Payman Langroudi: Okay. But many sites [01:29:55] is like a much more complicated way of doing one [01:30:00] site. Yeah. Of course. So. So then do you have in your head this idea of this one site, like what is it about [01:30:05] this one site, this this brand. Yeah. That’s different to what’s out there right [01:30:10] now. Mhm. Do you have an idea.

Lwai Almasri: Of of what, what I do with that one site.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah [01:30:15] I mean like okay you’ve got, you could be a McDonald’s corporate. It could be a [01:30:20] Louis Vuitton corporate. Yeah. Yeah. What is it about your particular [01:30:25] corporate that makes it different. And it makes it better than what’s there already. That [01:30:30] thought is important. Right. Because as you start taking it to. I had someone in Hit the [01:30:35] Bupa runs. Bupa 400 practices. As you go from 1 to 2 [01:30:40] to 50 to 100, it gets way, way, way more complicated. Delivering that brand? [01:30:45] Yeah. Yeah. So there’s got to be something about it other than, you know, I just want to have this empire. [01:30:50] Yeah. Which I get as well. There is that.

Lwai Almasri: Of course. But by corporate, I don’t mean [01:30:55] anything to the scale of Bupa. I mean, it’d be nice, but I don’t [01:31:00] even personally want to open something that reaches something, because at 400, [01:31:05] I don’t think as me personally, I could have control over [01:31:10] making sure all 400 practices are up to exactly how I want to have them, [01:31:15] if that makes sense.

Payman Langroudi: I get that, I get that, but you do accept that a better man than you could pull it off? [01:31:20] Of course. Like. Because what I’m saying is there’s 400 Louis Vuitton shops all over the world.

Lwai Almasri: 100%. [01:31:25]

Payman Langroudi: They’re all doing what? Louis Vuitton shops do. Yeah. You know. So. But go on. I mean, [01:31:30] look, that’s the reason why it makes sense to have one perfect practice. Which [01:31:35] is nothing wrong with that either, right? Of course. Beautiful thing in itself.

Lwai Almasri: And the point is, is that you will always start [01:31:40] with that, hopefully one. So that’s the.

Payman Langroudi: Reason why I asked you about, you know, why corporate. Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: Because [01:31:45] for me I want to like I said, I love the travelling aspect and I want to be able to make it accessible. And [01:31:50] so to be accessible by definition, you need to be able to be in all quite.

Payman Langroudi: Difficult when both your mom and your [01:31:55] dad are dentists, in a way, you’ve got to do something even more spectacular than what they did.

Lwai Almasri: I’ve always [01:32:00] said because my dad, he’s I have nothing [01:32:05] but admiration and respect, and for what he’s done and he’s he’s smashed it essentially. [01:32:10] And I look up to him as a mentor and as a father figure, of course, [01:32:15] and stuff like that. So, I mean, it is tough because a lot of people do say this to me [01:32:20] is like, are you not trying to, like, then beat? It’s not that I don’t think I will, it’s just that I’ve [01:32:25] never thought of it as competing with what he does because even my dad, like a lot of everything that he set up, he [01:32:30] set it up to for for us to then take over. And, you know, my oldest sister is doing medicine. [01:32:35] My little sister wants to do dentistry. So, like, he’s kind of done it in that sense where [01:32:40] take over from him, which is why I always want to do my want to be able to do my own thing, because I don’t want [01:32:45] to be just known as the person that took over from his dad. I want to have I want to have achieved something [01:32:50] like from my own, you know, cause and my dad was never the type of person like he did [01:32:55] clinical dentistry, but he was. My dad loves academic dentistry and he loves teaching and he loves learning. [01:33:00] And he did a PhD, an MSC, uh, an MBA. [01:33:05] So like.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah.

Lwai Almasri: So my dad loves studying and even now he takes [01:33:10] the definition of CPD very seriously. He continues to.

Payman Langroudi: Did he do his undergrad in Syria? [01:33:15]

Lwai Almasri: He did do his undergrad in Syria. And he did he.

Payman Langroudi: Like getting through into [01:33:20] dental school in countries like that and out of dental school. So actually super competitive Syria. [01:33:25]

Lwai Almasri: The way that their A-level system works is actually you sit the exams and then based on what you get, you [01:33:30] apply to what you can.

Payman Langroudi: Apply.

Lwai Almasri: The exam was out of like I probably am very wrong, but just [01:33:35] to say as figure because the the ratio still works the same. Say the exam [01:33:40] totally your A-levels across all subjects. Bear in mind they do. They don’t do three. They do everything [01:33:45] for A-levels. They have to do everything. They do English, French and then they do maths, physics, [01:33:50] biology. They have to do everything. Say it’s out of 350 to get into [01:33:55] medical school and dental school, which are the two hardest things to get into. You have to get like 300 [01:34:00] and 49.5 out of 350 to get in.

Payman Langroudi: It’s even I’d say [01:34:05] it’s way more, way, way more competitive than getting in here.

Lwai Almasri: Oh, 100%, 100%. I’ve got cousins [01:34:10] that are still there that she got in and she got in by like a quarter of a mark, like [01:34:15] like in that ratio. It was like 349.75 [01:34:20] out of 350. Like she dropped a quarter of a mark. That means across every crazy [01:34:25] when you think of it, it’s so competitive. So yeah, he did his undergrad there and then he did [01:34:30] more here at Queen Mary’s UCL and whatnot.

Saif Mukadam: So [01:34:35] we don’t want to see myself in ten years.

Payman Langroudi: Ten years what? Like what?

Saif Mukadam: Hopefully still playing football. [01:34:40] No, no, no. I’m joking. Um, so I’ve got my big sister. She’s a she’s [01:34:45] a dentist as well. So hopefully, like, in ten years time I want to work with her family.

Payman Langroudi: Business [01:34:50] like.

Saif Mukadam: That. Yeah. Because I’ve always I’ve been in a family business, like printing and whatnot. [01:34:55] So I see the positives in a family business. But there’s also dark times in a family business [01:35:00] as well. Like, of course when things get really, it’s like in the thick of it, like, yeah, it [01:35:05] can get really dark. And yeah, so I can see like the negatives of that too. But [01:35:10] the thought of, you know, working alongside my sister in the dental practice or whatnot, [01:35:15] my sister, my other sister, I’ve got another sister. Maybe she can be like, um, some kind of [01:35:20] individual within the practice manager or something where I can get, like a proper family [01:35:25] business going, their to practice and whatnot. I think that for me was what.

Payman Langroudi: Inspires. [01:35:30]

Saif Mukadam: You? It’s what it’s what I want to work towards because I did my work experience with my sister and like, [01:35:35] just like shadowing her, seeing how she’s doing what her daily life is like. It’s just like amazing [01:35:40] because you get to stay in their lives as well, because a lot of sibling relationships will, you [01:35:45] know, they’ll go down their own path. And, you know, there’s nothing wrong with that at all. But like, you know, they.

Lwai Almasri: Get married, they [01:35:50] have kids.

Saif Mukadam: They do their own thing. But if there’s a way to, like, bring us back together and keep us together, like going the [01:35:55] long term would be absolutely amazing to have.

Payman Langroudi: I started this company with my best friends from [01:36:00] from university, and it’s a it’s a wonderful thing that we stay [01:36:05] in touch with each other now.

Lwai Almasri: Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I was going to add that hopefully also in ten years we’re continuing [01:36:10] UK Dental students or whatever it could be called in ten years time. Yeah. But [01:36:15] um, yeah, hopefully that there’s no.

Saif Mukadam: Like I working alongside someone and succeeding [01:36:20] with someone else I think is a lot. It’s a much better feeling than just doing it on your own 100% [01:36:25] like you can.

Payman Langroudi: It’s not only the feeling, dude. It’s also that you’re not good at everything.

Saif Mukadam: Yeah, [01:36:30] true. Exactly.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah. Like you’re saying, your sister. Maybe your sister is amazing at raising cash. Yeah. Yeah. [01:36:35] Like, for the corporate idea, someone needs to know how to raise money. Of course. Yeah. Like, you talk [01:36:40] to anyone who’s got a corporate. That’s one of the biggest issues. And maybe you’re amazing at clinical. [01:36:45] Yeah. So you become clinical director. She becomes finance director. Yeah. You know those [01:36:50] complementary skills? Super, super super important.

Lwai Almasri: 100%. Yeah.

Payman Langroudi: Guys, [01:36:55] it’s been a massive pleasure. So if someone wants to become a member, what do they do?

Lwai Almasri: They just find us [01:37:00] on Instagram and then search UK dental students on Instagram. And then in the link in the bio, [01:37:05] there’s a link to join the WhatsApp group. I mean, give us a follow on Instagram of course, but join the WhatsApp group [01:37:10] for UK.

Payman Langroudi: Dentistry is the name of the Instagram page.

Lwai Almasri: Uk dental student.

Payman Langroudi: Dental. Student. Sorry. Dental. Uk dentistry. Yeah. [01:37:15] Um, and then they can just go through the link, the WhatsApp link in the bio.

Lwai Almasri: It’s [01:37:20] just a link in the bio. You click, it sends you straight to WhatsApp and you can join.

Saif Mukadam: You join it. Yes.

Payman Langroudi: Amazing.

Lwai Almasri: Nice and easy. [01:37:25]

Payman Langroudi: So I look forward to the event as well. Thank you very.

Lwai Almasri: Much. Hope to see you there. Yeah, of.

Payman Langroudi: Course I’ll [01:37:30] do my best. We haven’t got date here.

Lwai Almasri: Yeah. No, no date yet, but we’ll drop you a message. Of course, when we do. Cool. [01:37:35]

Payman Langroudi: Thank you so much, guys. No. Thank you. My pleasure.

Lwai Almasri: Thank you very much. Thank you.

[VOICE]: This [01:37:40] is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get [01:37:45] to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your [01:37:50] hosts, Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki. [01:37:55]

Prav Solanki: Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, you must have listened to the whole [01:38:00] thing. And just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening [01:38:05] to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out [01:38:10] of it.

Payman Langroudi: If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if [01:38:15] you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it too. Thank you so, so, so [01:38:20] much for listening. Thanks.

Prav Solanki: And don’t forget our six star rating.