In this episode, we welcome insight into implantology from Fazeela Khan-Osborne. Fazeela discusses her successful work from hospitals to private practices on Harley Street.
Fazeela also tells us about her experiences of racism, sexism and divorce as well as the uplifting legacies of her parents.
Enjoy!
“And I would say to my students, this is a service in our culture, to bow your head and serve someone is not to demean yourself. It’s like the highest form of love. And so I believe that I really believe that. And so for me, that’s what the ethos of this clinic is about.” – Fazeela Khan-Osborne
In This Episode
01.06 – West Indies to the UK
07.35 – Why dentistry?
12.37 – Hospital politics
14.50 – Women in dentistry
17:55 – Business in the West End
23:47 – Getting motivated
26:03 – The patient experience
32:13 – Changing lives
37:40 – Failures club
40:39 – Treatment processes
45:39 – Daily life
52:35 – Children & personal life
57:31 – Dentistry on social media
1:02:10 – Dealing with loss
1:05:02 – The next five years
1:07:19 – Legacy & last days on Earth
About Fazeela Khan-Osborne
Fazeela’s extensive career has gained her an admirable reputation among some of Harley Street’s best. After qualifying from the Royal London in 1994, she continued her training in Oral Surgery and completed her Master’s degree in Restorative Dentistry with Distinction.
Fazeela writes for numerous journals, lectures on Implant Dentistry worldwide and is positioned on several editorial boards. Fazeela is also a Fellow of the International Congress of Oral Implantology as well as being a tutor on the Diploma of Implant Dentistry at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
She is a member of the Association of Dental Implantology and the British Association of Aesthetic Dentistry. Fazeela currently works at The One-To-One Dental Clinic on Harley Street – a multidisciplinary aesthetic and implant dental clinic with a full dental team.
[00:00:00] And I would say to my students, this is a service in our culture, to bow your head and serve someone is not to demean yourself. It’s like the highest form of love. And so I believe that I really believe them. And so for me, that’s what the ethos of this clinic is about.
[00:00:22] This is dental leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry.
[00:00:34] Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki, it gives me great pleasure to welcome Fazeela Khan-Osborne to the podcast because he has become a household name in the area of employment policy and teaching of Implantology. It’s lovely to have you on the on the show Fazeela. This podcast really about getting to the person behind the persona. And we always kind of start with the same question. Where were you born? How did you end up in dentistry? What kind of childhood did you have?
[00:01:06] Thanks for having me, guys. Real pleasure and privilege. I’m a West Indian kid. I was born in Guyana, in Georgetown in the 60s, mid 60s, and I was born to two parents that were human rights judges. And we traveled around based on wherever that was predominantly sent to. So we were a British Empire. Kids really in that sense, grew up in the sunshine, walked on the seawall every day after work. You can imagine mum and dad in the front and the rest of us trailing behind. Really happy childhood, as I was saying, to prevail here. I’ve got five brothers, so I’m No. Five of six and technically I’m the shortest. So, you know, I’m not the youngest, but I’m the shortest. So, you know, we just grew up with very simple, no TV, no phones, nothing like that. If we if we were having a birthday and we were having a movie that we’d fire the projector and the Disney movie would come out. It was that kind of thing, very outdoor life. So we’re really happy. Life came here, came here every year, actually, because when you were in that service, my parents were diplomats. You had to come to the UK as well as somewhere else, wherever you wanted to go. So we came here a lot. And then we finally my father was very British, obviously, and was educated here as well as my mum. So we came here in the late seventies. Seventy five, seventy six. And we came here for education. The political situation at home had got to the point where it was very dangerous for us. My dad was chief justice at the time our mail was opened. Every other phone call was a bit hard for one. And when you’re 10, 12 year old kids, that’s quiet. You look out the window and you see kids walking around and you you wonder what made you be behind the door and they’d be the other side of it. So, you know, I was very grateful, but my parents really came here to give us a better life.
[00:03:12] You remember actually the moment of arriving in New York, I remember.
[00:03:17] Yeah, absolutely. And I remember you. I was just coming up to 12. But what I remembered more was because National Service was becoming a conscription for women as well as men.
[00:03:30] I was coming up to 11 was the age and I was coming up to 12. So I was even past my sell by date on that one. And I remember being woken up one morning and bundled into a car with my brothers and looking out the window at the help, because obviously in that part of the world, you have a cook and a gardener people to help you. And then just part of your family, really. And I remember looking at them and thinking, I’m never going to see you again, but I didn’t know where we were going and I didn’t know if we were ever coming back.
[00:04:00] So I remember that vividly arriving arriving in the late 70s. You came, right? That was the winter of discontent. Yeah. So from all the bright colors to that sort of gray ju ju ju ju ju remember thinking you’ve downgraded.
[00:04:18] I remember thinking was the sun you know, why people why don’t people understand my English with my twang. And it was very it was, it was still the days of all the signage where you were the only colored kid in school. You were the only. I grew up in Richmond, so it was a very white middle class area. Very nice, but very, you know, a lonely place. If you didn’t have people that were like nice school. But, you know, it was tough. It was tough in the first days. And people would say, you know, when you go in home or, you know, that was when I was first introduced to the word walk, which I didn’t really know what that meant. I remember going home and saying to my mom, what’s the word she was? And she would say, oh, was that started already? But it sounds silly to say, but I didn’t really realize that I was a color till I got here. We were just kids. We just loved life. And that didn’t really come into our consciousness at all.
[00:05:20] So it was a bit of a rough start from that point of view due to the name calling and the and the the racism, so to speak. How did that manifest on you?
[00:05:31] At the beginning? It was just, you know, a little bit of it was a lot of names and it was a little I was the kid with long hair, pigtails and glasses, so, you know. Mm. Not fun. I got to five foot five when I was about twelve and didn’t go much after that. So I mean, you know, it was just and the thing is because I always had a brother in the school, it helped. But you did feel it was something you had to get used to and you did get used to it because the signs were still out in restaurants saying that you couldn’t go in or whatever, it was getting better, but it wasn’t done yet. And you were very aware of being in the minority in that society, let’s put it that way. But you were also very aware that your parents are working, but don’t, you know, work, working all day and you got to pull together. And and we just we’re very tight because apparently the lawyers my dad was was a human rights judge and my mum was appointed as a first female human rights judge, literally three months before we left. And so she didn’t take up post, but they were both barristers, essentially what they were doing here as well. Yeah, yeah. Although when we when we came here, you see my dad was fifty three when I was born well so but he was like forty, he was running around like baby and very, very active with his kids and my mum was sixteen years younger than him so we wouldn’t have to, I mean he was definitely, she was definitely the, the cool, calm, collected one. So we were really lucky. But he was already semi retired and still putting three kids through school because the kids had gone, but the bottom kids weren’t so. So it was tough for them because we had when you left a situation like that, all your money was there. So you kind of had to start again a little bit. So, yeah.
[00:07:31] When did dentistry come on to you? Oh, not for radar.
[00:07:35] I mean, why dentistry when you have both parents and in the US, I often wonder that I was the kid that brought the dog with the label like home with the kids that brought the kid home who who didn’t have didn’t have a nice home to go home to and they’d sit and eat with us. I’ve always been a caring person. I’ve always loved looking after people. I’ve always wanted to look after people. So I always knew that I would be interested or want to spend a decent part of my life doing that. So obviously, medicine would be. The thing that we turn to and I had also a member of my family who is a radiologist, so that was kind of going that way and I actually ended up starting there and then deciding, funnily enough, now that I’m out of surgery, funnily enough, deciding I don’t want to do medicine because I don’t want to do surgery. So I ended up with a medical biochemistry physiology degree and it kind of got very interested in genetics and that kind of thing. And I ended up working for Paul Nurse actually ICRA for a year to do my PhD and then decided I didn’t really want to kill animals for a living. So I fell into it really because I went to do my PhD at the Royal London with a guy who you guys are probably too young to know is a guy called Spears, who was a professor of physiology in relation to saliva.
[00:09:01] And I started my study with him and he said, why are you here? Why why are you in this lab when you should be out with people? And and it was you know, research is a hard taskmaster, really. And he said to me, go to dentistry. You love people, you’re good with your hands, go to the tree and you’ve only got to do anatomy. It’s only a term. And that was the time when you could do that and go straight into clinical, you know, the three, the full year. And so that’s what I did. What was your deal? It was on the saliva and there were a couple of genes in saliva and couple of proteins that we were looking at. The what how did that give you protection against dental disease? And I only did it for six months. So it didn’t amount to a lot. But it taught me to be really focused and to be really disciplined about what I did. And that, you know, I come from a very science background. So that that helped me a lot with dentistry, because dentistry for me is apart from the lovely bit of actually caring about someone, it’s really about the protocol and making sure that you do it in the right way. And I sort of get that quite easily.
[00:10:20] So I’m from there. Obviously, you went through dental school, and how did you find that? Were you sort of somebody who was sort of top of your class and all that sort of thing?
[00:10:31] No, I had a great time in dental school, so I wasn’t. But I was kind of in the middle. We had thirty three in my year and I was always around number eight, nine, that kind of thing. And I wasn’t I could do it. But there was nothing special on the hospital. Yeah, it was when it was actually the London hospital. So there was a big and I was really lucky because I had a great year and you know, we had a laugh and we had a good social life and and we worked hard, too, but we played hard as well.
[00:11:08] So which did you qualify as a dentist? Nineteen ninety four. OK, same same time. Yeah.
[00:11:16] I mean what did you think then would you did you go like did you have it in those days?
[00:11:22] Yeah, it was just coming in and I basically decided to run for you. Yeah. And I didn’t, I didn’t really want to do it and I really didn’t because I didn’t want to be sent to Colchester to do it. And I really got that year, the final year the Royal London or the London was really good at, you know, different hospitals are good at stuff. We were good at oral surgery. We wanted to get a tons of conservation, but guys were. So I really started to to to go towards oral surgeon because it was something I was really barbershops, basically, and I wanted to be better. And then I won the surgical prize and something happened that year because normally you’d get housetop when you’re in hospital, you know, and if you didn’t get it, then you wouldn’t get it anywhere else. And I remember walking past the the staff room of the oral surgeon room and overhearing a member of staff saying, well, I’m not giving her the job. And it really pissed me off. And I thought, right. And I’ve done a really good rotation and everybody was fine and I had a good time and did the job well. And the remarks that came back were really good. And I thought, I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of turning me down.
[00:12:37] So I didn’t apply. And I applied instead with John Langdon, who had done a bit of research with and I got an interview and I got a house job at Jorges instead, which was great. So I left and I just thought, I’m not doing that, not playing that game. And I just found that there was a little bit of that kind of thing going on in hospital. Even though I loved hospital, I didn’t like the politics at all. So I went to Georgia, do my husband job, and then I went to Keen’s to do the second bit. And then I decided to go back to London now on my own terms. But this time I was seeing one of the staff members married to him. So that was a bit awkward. But he was in restorative and I was in surgery, so it didn’t matter. And I spent another 12 to 18 months there doing right up to locum registrar. And then I went and did great woman straight in Newcastle. So I did the whole law in about six years, had a great time. But it kind of kills your life when because in those days we didn’t have you know, there was no contract. You worked 90 hours a week for duty.
[00:13:47] Did you have a plan from the career perspective that you were going to be a surgeon?
[00:13:51] Yes, I but I did. The one thing I didn’t want to do after having done all of that time was I didn’t know. I didn’t you could have got away with not doing it at that point. Just about, actually. But I didn’t want to do cancer patients because they all died. And that really hurt me. I mean, despite my tough appearance, I’m actually a bit soft and I get to know these people and then we would dehumanize the hell out of them and then they die. And that really bothered me. So I kind of made this decision that I wasn’t doing my space. And the other thing that happened was I looked at the list of consultants at the time and they were six hundred of them and two were women and both were unmarried and both were miserable sods. And I thought, I don’t want to be like you. I want a family, I want a life, but I want to do my surgery, you know? So I made a choice to bring surgery into practice and do it my own way.
[00:14:50] I mean, even even surgery at practice wasn’t really done much by women time.
[00:14:55] No, not at all. I think I know. I know. Well, that’s part of the problem. And I think, you know, in those days and it’s our own fault a little bit, you know, it’s funny. Lately, women in dentistry, she’s become a real topic again. Again. Right. And I tried to almost distance myself from that because I don’t think that we we are a special case. I think if you want to do something, you get you get off your arse, you do it. And if it takes you 10 years, it takes 10 years. And it’s persistence to actually get to where you want to go. And I had listened I when I built my practice that week, I had a kid, I bought my practice and I sent my master’s exam by myself at the time. I remember getting I’m in the breast feeding my son and giving that kid to my husband and saying, can I just go in the pub for a quick bite with the boys just before I go home again? And he said, Yeah, OK, no problem. And you know what? I’ve always been one of the boys because I grew up with boys, go out with boys. There was no concern about, you know, if you’re going to do it on your own, you know what I mean? So it was tough, but it was. All right.
[00:16:10] So then let’s let’s get this out of the way right now. So the women in dentistry thing that’s come back now, do you have some sort of sympathy with why that happened?
[00:16:22] I don’t genuinely I find I think there are a lot of talented women around, but I think they’re talented because they’re talented, not because the women. So that’s one thing. I think this the one about what we’ve got kids. But I had two kids. I had two kids. I have parents to look after, to practice, to look after the education to do you know, it’s about being well organized. It’s about my moms. I was very lucky. I moved back to West London so my mom could help me help us. I also had to even though we’re divorced now, you know, my ex-husband was the most supportive, fantastic person on the planet. And frankly, any education I wanted to do, he would say, you go do it and I’ll stay home and look after the kids. So I was super lucky. So between that, my nanny and my parents, I got it done. And it was just a question of organizing. And for a while, for about three or four years, I took, took, took, took, took the whole time. And because that’s what it required. But, you know, I was just very lucky. But they were supportive 100 percent. And of course, I got in with people like Koroit with Zacky, and I’ve been friends for twenty three years. He’s one of my best mates.
[00:17:39] So at what point do you remember it’s switching from, you know, you qualified as a dentist, you did this all surgery route and bought a practice. At what point did that change to West End high end teaching and all?
[00:17:55] Ok, well, I go to the University London practice, so that was based in Gower Street anyway. So it was already in slightly Western. But when I was a kid, we used to walk up and down High Street and you’d see all the little prince, typical immigrant story. And my dad would point out all these little gold plates. And I thought to myself, if I ever get good enough, I would love to have a plate. And for me, it was about achieving being good enough, not just arriving there, because you can. So it was an important thing for me. And the reason I wanted to be there was because if you go anywhere in the world and you say that you practiced there, there is an understanding or at least a belief that some of the best people in the world practiced there, that there is this collection of knowledge and expertise. And I wanted to be at least part of something that meant something. I think certainly when I was twenty five years old, I’m not sure I feel the same way right now, but because it is a very hard task.
[00:18:58] Master the West Westend could expand on that a little bit for me. Well, there’s the obvious things, right? You haven’t got walk by traffic. Yeah.
[00:19:08] You know, you have you know, there’s no really business in the West and it’s a it’s a boys club. There’s no question about that. When I, I still get mail saying, Mr. Osborne there, it makes me laugh. Actually, the whole the whole thing makes me laugh. But when I up in practice, I had done my and restorative and I done the top, my special area was Dehradun it and I think because my parents were a bit older, certainly my dad, I was really interested in this concept that, oh, they’re old, so they really deserve dentures. Why would they want nice teeth? And that whole thing disturbed me a lot because I have treated people who are ninety six years old with implants because they say in my chair, I want to eat my steak just like you, and why shouldn’t they. And I feel really strongly about that. And I think your ability to be the best part of yourself, to look in the mirror and think I’m still here, I’m still, I’m still great, I can still eat, I can still socialise with my friends. All of those things is what keeps you living. And so I wanted to create a place that wanted to look after everyone. And the whole idea of one to one was the care that I give you one to one is custom. It’s between me and you. And so that’s how the idea came. And in fact, the one to one name came because just before my dad passed away, he gave me a sculpture with a man and a woman looking at each other. And for me that was one to one. And so I used that as my logo. And I you know, I signed my lease on the 14th of November, the year my dad passed away.
[00:20:53] You never saw it, but he knew about it. And the ethos has always been when you come in this clinic, we sit down with you and we listen to you. And we we we look and we examine I really believe in the concept of sitting down for an hour and a half trying to gather as much info as I can. And also for me, I always say to people, how can I help? You know, for me, it’s and I always say to my students, this is a. In our culture, to bow your head and serve someone is not to demean yourself, it’s like the highest form of love. And so I believe that. I really believe that. And so for me, that’s what the ethos of this clinic is about. And when I did my education, I have to say, and this is where I think it’s changed massively for women, you know, most of the time that I went to a course, most people thought I was there to make coffee or I was going to clean the premises because they actually suggested it to me a few times. And that was just how it was, you know, and the day my life changed was a damn upsetting. So I said this was my first real mentor. I mean, I was with him for 15 years, very long time. And the day I spent that day and I remember coming back out of thirty three Harley Street and opening the front door, the sun was shining and I walked out into the street and I thought, now I know what I’m going to do. So that was my one of my moments of grace, I think.
[00:22:25] Do you see the kind of person to rise out of the witness, you know, like the next person when they thought when they heard that overheard the person in the corridor saying, I’m not giving the job to her, would have melted under or you felt you like you enjoy being mistaken for the cleaner because you’re going to teach them what is known.
[00:22:49] But I think when I was younger, you get used to being you get used to people expecting a little bit. And in my family, it was totally the opposite. My father was very pro women. I’m a Muslim girl. And he he expected more from me than even said to the boys, No, it’s not that I find that quite sad. I find it sad that people don’t have good expectations of you, you know, and I think that’s something I’ve tried to change when I teach because I really, really believe that anybody can be taught anything. And I think that teaching is about the acquisition of skills. It’s about change. And I really think if you believe in something, anything’s possible. And I was and that’s what my parents gave us. They gave us that belief. And it’s not so much the I I respect it. I certainly when I was younger, I expected it and I got it. And I just thought, OK, here we go. Here we go again.
[00:23:47] Does that drive you and motivate you? Does it does it make you think, you know what that person thinks I’m the lady. This person is not going to give me the job. I’ll show. And that give you more drive.
[00:24:00] Yeah, it does. It did at the time. Without question. I definitely had a much more feisty I think it mellow with age. I definitely had a much more feisty. Well, you put the barrier down. You know, I’m I’m a great believer. When people talk to me about barriers, I say to them that barriers in reality and the barriers in your head and I think more barriers of it sometimes than reality. And I am a person that if I want to do something, I’m either going through it, around it or over it, but I’m not going to go under it. And I fall down all the time. I fall down all the time. But the thing is, I am surrounded by a family that loved me. Come what may. They are unconditionally at my side. I’m supported in by my friends. You know, I said about even Asher and I have friends I’ve had for thirty years. And even when I fell down in the sense that I don’t know whether you will bring this up, so I’ll bring it up. When I got my letter right, that was four years of hell. Hell, because you suddenly feel that everything has been swept from under you and you suddenly start to believe that you’ve done something terrible. You’ve really that you’ve hurt someone. And it’s appalling. And I remember Corey and Zachy coming to my practice of the day and they sat down and read the letter and said, write, what are we going to do? And it was always we it was always the Three Musketeers, you know. And and I and I hugely remember Corey saying, if they come for you, they’ll come for me, too. And so I was always really lucky because loyalty to my friends is any of my friends call me anytime of the day or night. I will get in my car or walk there if I have to to get to them, because that’s what friendship means to me. And I think that’s why I’ve survived this long, really fiscella.
[00:26:03] Tell me about your patient experience, because from what I’m hearing right now, your whole life and everything is about loyalty, love, care and all of that. And so how do you how do you wrap that up in your in your patient experience? It seems to me you’re less of a businesswoman and more of someone. Is that, as you mentioned, to serve to give that ninety six year old the ability to bite into a steak for the first time in 20, 30 years solely through your patient experience, what happens? A walk through the door? Who do I meet if I pick up the phone? Who do I speak to? What is the experience like in your clinic?
[00:26:41] So usually a lot of my work is referrals, so it’s not the referral from in-house patients. So I think that’s a big plus for us and also a lot of my students and work. But although we’re doing that work together a lot of the time or is just direct referrals. So for example, I have referrals from each other and of the people in the area that I work with. So they will ring and we will have normally had a letter before. So we’ll be aware some white front of House will know straight away that someone’s called and they will be welcomed and say, yes, we’ve got the referral. We’re going to send you an email. Would you like to send us back to your availability? And we would normally say to them, we’ll call you by the end of today to get this sorted for you. Then they’ll come to me and show me that. And if I don’t know about it already, we’ll try to find the appropriate time. So, for example, if the patient is 90, I’m not going to offer them a nine o’clock appointment. I’m going to offer them at 11:00 to do a fourth appointment because they’re not going to get out of bed at 7:00. So things like that I’m fairly attuned to then depending on what it is, they will be called by my head nurse who looks after my patients and she will get to know them. She will ask them if there’s anything they’re particularly concerned about. She’ll ask them how they’re getting to us, you know, just in case there’s any delays, all that kind of thing. And then she’ll follow up on an email saying, I’ll call you the day before your appointment. If you have any concerns, please contact me before.
[00:28:14] So that happens when you walk in. We’re ready. We know you’re coming. So my head nurse will welcome you three covid. We would have known. We will have you a cup of coffee, whatever you want. You will sit down and then they’ll tell me straight away and I will go to to the waiting room or the waiting area and pick up the patient myself. I’ll then take them through and we sit in like a little coffee an area and sit down and have a chat. So the first thing I do with my patient in that scenario is to sit down and learn something about them, learn what makes them tick, why they’re there, what their experience has been, what worries them, what makes them happy. What they’re concerned about today is that away from the dental chair? Yeah. So we have a couple of armchairs. We have a coffee table, that kind of thing. Very simple. They might have a cup of coffee still in their hand. And then we’ll move towards the dental chair and I’ll say to them, this is what I’d like to achieve in the next forty five minutes. We’re going to go through it in this way so they know exactly what’s going to happen before we move to the chair and then we get to the chair. So I will do a full exam photographs. I tend to ask them what are the three or four things that they want to achieve? And I write them down in their own words. And I say to the if you decide that I’m the person who’s going to help you, we’re going to come back and look at this at the end when I fit. So I know whether I did this right.
[00:29:43] You look at just what’s really important about what you just said there is. You’ll know this payment because there’s so many people on Facebook who will advise you during a consultation to say, you know, you’ve just said if you decide that you’re the right way, I’m the right person for you, which is far more humble than some of the advice put out there, which they say, if I think you’re the right patient today and I decide. And so that puts that idea of scarcity in the patient to make them more likely to convert. Yeah. Or as you’ve just flipped that on its head and actually put the choice in the patient’s hands.
[00:30:25] Well, I think it is their choice. I think it’s also our choice. Yeah. I think, you know, if I feel and I’m I’m wrong sometimes about this, but I feel that most of the time I have some connection to people. And I think you have to have an alignment or a connection with the person you’re going to serve in that way, because it’s going to take 12 months sometimes. And it’s not just about the technical. Let’s get through the technical bit of the work that you’re doing. My area is is full mastery, but I don’t do all I’m for. I tend to do all on eight. So I’m actually trying to do the bone grafting of the gum grafting and put everything back so I don’t make units bigger than three. The biggest unit I’ve got is a three unit bridge. So I’m actually spending a lot of time, maybe 12, 18 months doing this. But make and the other thing I don’t do is I don’t do dentures ever. So for me, adventure is like in my hand of. Do you immediately load about 90 percent of what I do is immediately like, yeah, so obviously we have all the fancy stuff now with all the planning, the digital planning. We’ve got a lab here now and all of that and all the city and all of that. But for me, I want the technical side of things to be behind the patient care. And for me, that’s really important. I don’t want the patients, so I’m just going to have a impulsivity. I want them to feel that they’re coming here and we’re going to change one set of teeth to work for another set of teeth to do. And that’s a real responsibility because you can’t really afford to get that wrong, not to mention the financial investment they’re making. But it’s the fact that once you’ve taken all that away, you can’t put it back if you like. So you have to take that really seriously.
[00:32:13] What I find about the whole teeth in a day process procedure, out of all the treatments that we provide in our own clinic is the one that has, I would say, the biggest life impact. Absolutely. Above and beyond that is cosmetic dentistry, teeth whitening, even payment and orthodontics. Right. Is that you’re actually giving these patients back, Cruickshank’s and yeah. The ability to not worry about something falling out of their mouth. Absolutely. Or just a whole new menu of food, right? Yeah. Have you got any stories you can share with those of patients whose lives have changed? And what is the one that sticks out that’s had the biggest impact on you?
[00:33:00] I remember the first one I did, the first one I did was a lady who came and everything was moving to the point where she brought her models and said, you can’t take an impression because everything will come out. So I was already shit scared about what I was going to be doing if I was going to be doing it. So. So that was a big thing. And she was only sixty seven. So for me that wasn’t that old. And I sat down and I remember saying to her, and I’ve done lots of versions of this a lot, but I’d never actually done it all in one go. And I always made sure I surrounded myself with people that were a bit better or a lot better. So that wasn’t very difficult. And I made sure and I said to her, OK, so we used these two models, which were OK, and we kind of guesstimated what we were going to do. And I had everybody there on the day and I knew I could do the surgery. And my ex-husband was a prosthodontics, so I knew I had him as a backup. And he we did this as a double act for nearly two years.
[00:34:01] And at the end of it and I’m not joking, have we finished a 10 to one in the morning? It was about ten hours apart. A whole lot. And I remember her daughter coming to get her and everything was fine. I did it under sedation, so everything was cool. She went home and the next day she sent me a photo of her eating and she said, today is the beginning of the rest of my life. And I still have the photo and I still have the text to remind me of how fallible I am and how, yes, this can go well, but how lucky I am and how grateful I am to be surrounded by all those people to pick me up. And they do. They operate for eight hours is no joke. And I was really lucky. And I and I said to myself, I’m going to do five hundred and then I’m going to go and I’ve done five hundred and three. But but I also decided the last one I’m going to do for free because that would be my best one. Nice.
[00:35:06] Do you remember your first implant fame if.
[00:35:08] Oh yeah. I’ll tell you something, it’s funny, we were talking about it yesterday. I have it in my drawer because I do have it to look at. So every time I open the door, the surgery is looking at me. Yeah, it happened after 18 months. And I remember saying to me, I’m so glad because I was beginning to worry that you’d think they weren’t. Yeah. I remember every single day, every time I pick up an infant, I remember that you’re only as good as the last one. Really? Really. And, you know, I learned a lot from that. And I don’t worry that the implants will fail because after twenty six years later, you know what to do, because you’ve actually made all the mistakes and you’ve mostly made all the corrections. So by now, you should you should know something.
[00:35:58] If we ask if you want to say this question about mistakes. Because from from I don’t know if you’ve seen black black box thinking. Yeah, yeah. It’s about it’s about we can learn from mistakes and how in medicine we don’t sort of learn from our mistakes. What we don’t learn from each other’s mistakes because everyone hides their mistakes.
[00:36:20] If you had to think back, what would you say is your biggest mistake and what have you learned from it?
[00:36:25] My first big mistake was I was doing a placement with an oral surgeon, actually, and she put this implant in and I said, is it sound? And I wiggled it and it went into sinus. All right. And I remember thinking, holy bleep, what am I going to do now? And so my choice was right. Well, let’s go back to oral surgeon, open it up. We take it out. I remember saying to us that when it happened to him that you’re fishing around in this sinus doing this Cordella procedure, you’re fishing around. And then he literally set up the patient and the implant fell out onto the floor. And I remember thinking, yeah, OK, so after an hour of fishing around, I suddenly wised up and I said to the patient, can we just sit you up for a sec? And it fell on the floor. And in that moment, I literally looked up at the sky at the window and said, thank you so much. So there’s that. I’ve learnt a lot from that. I think putting implants in the wrong place, I think almost every kind of mistake you can imagine, nothing life threatening, nothing major, but every kind of thing that is not perfect.
[00:37:40] I have at least done once, if not more than that. And I think the difference is that when I go to surgery now, I don’t go with a plan. I go with 10 plans. So I always assume, well, if it goes to plan, we don’t need to talk about it and nobody does. You don’t learn anything either. But if it doesn’t go to plan, what are you going to do? What happens if this happens and this happens and this happens? And if I’m nervous, I will have spoken to cry about it or I will have spoken to six or seven of my colleagues and we have a club for failures. You can’t bring successes to this club. You only bring failures. And that is the best seminar we have. And there’s only four of us. But we bring the failures because we’ve all got the two, three cases that if you touch it, it goes wrong. And I still have a couple of those.
[00:38:30] Yeah, I mean, it’s it’s nice. It’s become much more fashionable to talk about in lectures. So you’ve been surrounded by some of the you know, the great looks at the flea and Koroit. What would you say? We just we just did a podcast with Paul Polman. Yeah. And the question of does it take to be a great implant surgeon because it’s not about drilling the hole, is it?
[00:38:57] No, it’s about knowing where to drill it. No. For me, the people my mentors are people like the two people you’ve mentioned, but also how Goodman, the Christian I went abroad and the thing that I learned the most was plan, plan, plan, collect as much information plan. Listen, go back, check it again and try to get some skills. You know, what I find hard is that you tend to sell what you do. And the problem is that if you when you’re younger, you’ve only got a few skills. So you’re trying to push those. And I keep saying to my students, life is this tool box of us every month, get a skill, get a tip, get a break and put it in there, because you might not use it more than once a year, but at least it’s in there. And I think for me, I have been on every major course going. I’m still learning. I’m still excited about what I don’t know, although it can be frustrating. But I find it for me it’s about trying to learn what I don’t know so I can do more and do better because I can always do better.
[00:40:07] So typically, this patient that you mentioned, the one that the new patient comes in my referral, let’s call it a full mouth rehab, how much time is spent away from that patient planning the case?
[00:40:20] If it’s a full full, I’ll spend an hour to one and a half hour sessions with them and then I’ll spend probably four or five hours writing the treatment plan and another three or four hours planning on the scan with the lab. Looking at the the stuff that comes is probably a good 15 hours of work before you get to the surgery.
[00:40:39] Well, easily. And the process of presenting your plan to the patient. Yes. They construe that by now we’ve got a lot of rapport. Yeah. No way we’re all going. Yeah, but I take it your prices are on the upper end.
[00:40:57] I think I’m in the middle. I remember once somebody said I was the most reasonable dentist in Piss Me Off that way.
[00:41:04] But I mean, I guess sometimes it runs to tens of thousands of pounds.
[00:41:08] I mean, a full month rehab is is definitely in the in the rebate of 50 plus years.
[00:41:14] So you’ve got to break that news to the patients because. Sixty thousand pound plan take us through it and the follow up process as well. I mean, so everyone’s straight away.
[00:41:25] No, but the thing is, when I do my consultation, the first one we measure, how many people come I don’t have 20 consults a month. I have three or four. So when you sit with me, there’s a good chance you want to be there. I’m not as expensive as Karibe, but, you know, I charge two fifty three hundred quid to sit in my chair. And it’s really for me to listen to what you want, what you want and also what you think you need. We’re very good at telling people what they need, and I’m not one of those people. I remember somebody saying people buy what they want, not what you tell them they need. So I’m very mindful of that. I sit down and I also learned a long time ago that people hold this notion of what they want in their heads for five days. And after that they’re off somewhere else, buying a car, buying a diamond, whatever it is. So we have a rule in the clinic, certainly for me, that when I see a consult from implant dentistry, you get by email and post a full treatment plan within five days, you’re then invited to come and talk to me. If it’s a simple single, most people will do that, but they will come to consult to do the rest of the investigations and then we would go to surgery.
[00:42:40] And if they need to see the therapist or the hygienist or or if they need to have a workup, some of the boys that I work with, they will I will segment the case into if they need. We can work that I do right now. I will send it to Tomko for Clark or somebody like that who’s been in my practice, and he will do all of that.
[00:42:58] They’ll remove all the carries the build the tools and we will set up the occlusal scag because that patient is having a fixed provision or whether it’s a rocket or whatever it is, even if they had a dentist to start with, because I find it a bit crazy that you’re selling this. And if it is not was 50 quid, we wouldn’t be talking about it by the crew. So you’re selling the most expensive thing in dentistry and you’re taking it to thousand and the first thing you do is put a disgusting flipper in their mouth. Well, what I what a great guy. What a great girl you are. So for me, that is the work you have just dehumanised that person. So for me, I would say to my students, if you do that, please let me know and please don’t ever come back, because it is the exact opposite of what I’m about. So the patient will come, we’ll talk it through at the end of the first ponza. I say to the patient, you have two decisions to make. One, are we doing this together? And two, how are we going to pay for it? And they are two distinct decisions. And in a sense, it’s like the jargony word is the call to action, if you like. So then I repeat that in my email and I say to them, if you want to do this, but you haven’t worked, it might be finance, it might be stage payments, it might be some of it’s on the course. Some of it is there are lots of ways to skin the cat. But if you decided that we are the people who you want to help you, then we can help you with the other side as well. And that’s really important to me. I don’t want to treat people who just have a stack of cash in the boot. I want to treat people who we’re going to make a difference to.
[00:44:40] But you tell the guy fifty thousand pounds, I bet you get a few shocked people, right?
[00:44:45] Yeah. But to be honest, maybe years ago. But I think nowadays people who are at the terminal dentition stage and they do not want dentures. And to be honest, I don’t have a single dental care in my practice because our practice demographic is from 18 to about, well, ninety six. But the point is the majority of people are within working age. So I’m going to get the middle ranking.
[00:45:11] I used to get a lot of everyday people that have just saved up and you just feel a huge responsibility for taking their savings, you know, so they know it’s going to be a fair amount. The one thing about media nowadays, find out whatever you want to find out so they know this already if they’re being referred. And a lot of my work is referred to the person. It’s a warm leave, isn’t it? Because the person sending Bulatovic.
[00:45:39] Tell me about the practice and you said you mentioned Tomko footlong. Yeah. How many associates are there? What’s the setup?
[00:45:46] Well, I don’t do associates, you know, so I kind of do I’m a pretend associate. So what I like to do, what I’ve always wanted to do is for each one of these guys to have their own little practice. OK, so they do do some associate work for me, but each one of them has their own bank of patients that belongs to them.
[00:46:10] So they rent the space, they take their own money, they do their own shit. And slowly over the time they are building their own little practices. And we essentially they pay a flat rate because obviously they’re young and they and they want to keep their expenses down. And I send the work on an associate 50 50 basis as well.
[00:46:29] But each one of them has their own little practice. And the idea is that eventually, hopefully three or four of them will get together and they’ll do it together as an expense share, but they’ll take their own money, have their own independence, have their own philosophy. But they will also have an ethos that is together. So how many of them are that? There’s four of them. And and obviously I have a therapist as well who looks after all of us. So so they all do a day, two days, three days. That is a full surgery practice. And they have gone through all of the courses that I’ve done. So I’ve kind of picked them based on I haven’t just picked on skill, actually. I’ve picked on that headspace, how kind they are, how honest they are, because I think if you have the right person, you know, me and Alphons are pretty cool friends. I love the guys. I love the way he does things. I believe in the same thing as he does. I think if you pick the right person, you can change anything. So same thing.
[00:47:31] A lot of time for our fans of such a lovely guy. And tell me about the vibe if you practice, Fazeela, what’s it like when you go there in terms of just the environment, the general buzz, the feel that you get when you walk in there with your team?
[00:47:47] Laughter I’m saying to the girls today, we love too much. There’s always we we were family. We’re not that big. Everybody’s part time except me. We look out for each other. We know what’s going on in each other’s lives. We care about each other. We also believe work is work. So when that switch flips, it’s time to put your game face on, you know? But the other thing is, I’ve been looking after probably 70 percent of my patients for at least 20 plus years. So they’re friends now. They’re people that we very sociable with quite often before pandemic. If a patient had said, oh, I’m not going to my husband’s not picking me up for another hour, I said, what? Don’t you pop upstairs with me, sit down and have a cup of coffee, have a chat. You know, it’s a very sociable place. It’s a very warm place. It’s very Western kind of feel. I love that vibe. There’s always fruit on the table. There’s always food in the fridge. You know, on a Friday night, we sit down. Even now, we try to have our practice meetings around, you know, an Indian takeout round, the one on the conference table. And I think I would like that family. I hope the big family I had at home, I brought to work. So from that point of view, it’s a warm, happy place. I’m not saying we don’t have moments when we’re I’m a grumpy soldier or somebody else else’s, but by and large, people are really great at their jobs. They love what they do. They believe in what they do. And I’m really proud of them.
[00:49:18] Sort so bossy. You so imagine. Well, first of all, what sort of bossy you when when you need to sort of batten down the hatches and tell someone they’ve done something wrong or really straight talking pain in the ass, you know?
[00:49:33] Well, if somebody comes to me, it depends on the mood. But I’m a very kind, caring person. If you need me, I’ll be there and I will help you. If you come and say it and say to me, can we have a coffee? And I sit down with you and I say, what’s the problem? I’m really don’t. OK, let’s do it. Let’s do it again. And I will be there and I will help and all the rest of it. But I’m also the person if I’m really stressed about something. Yeah, I’ll have a little swear occasionally. And I think I’m, I’m not tough, but I’m very straight talking. I don’t get what you say. Yeah. What you see is what you get and I don’t change. And the thing is but when I’ve said it, I’ve said it. I’m not somebody who doesn’t talk to you for days and all that kind of nonsense. I’ll say it and I’ll go. Are we good? Yeah, right. Should put the kettle on then. That’s kind of who I am. Mood everybody makes mistakes.
[00:50:30] What about your teaching? So you teach them on the course. Does that Crucell going with and.
[00:50:37] We suspended it. We did a couple of years, part of the reason we did that course was that we kind of grew up in an industry together and we actually wanted to share what we knew. So we did a couple of years and I was still at the royal colleges that as the lead to to. Yes, it. Yeah. And I had it. I’m not anymore. But I had a gig. I was associate professor at Stony Brook, so I had a gig there and I was just traveling a lot. And I was also running my own year courses, my own advanced courses for when I go. Yeah. So I’ve got a connection with how equipment in South Africa. I’ve got one question in Romania and all the rest of it. And so what I decided in the pandemic was to bring it all together under one umbrella and to just open it up. So now we’ve got an 18 month program which allows you to say diploma. We cover the curriculum, but we’ve got speakers and tutors. So the guys who have been through the course, taking the time and now tutors and they look after the general practices that come in and obviously the speakers like each other come and speak. And Alphons is one of my speakers as well, actually. But but what I wanted to do with the education is I wanted to create a place where people, young people could come see you in town and you got an hour to kill and you just want to come in almost like a like in the old common room school, you know, and you come in, make a coffee, sit down, somebody looking at a case and you just take part and it’s an open door policy and it’s a place where you can feel at home and welcome. And there’s always something going on. And the ones who are slightly older are teaching, the ones that are slightly younger, that kind of thing. And we’re doing that. We’re doing that. And we’re loving it, actually.
[00:52:24] And I just want to touch upon you, really, Fazeela and just sort of you mentioned ex husband. You happy to talk about that and.
[00:52:35] Oh yeah, he’s one of my best friends, actually. So I was married to a Welshman called David Osborne, who’s a senior lecturer at the Royal London and Restorative kind of came about a couple of weeks before I graduated and left. So when I came back, he was there and we eventually got married 18 months later. So he was still teaching in hospital, partly in practice. We had a couple of kids. And, you know, I think the stresses of life, we bought a free held in holosuite, bought 50 to that, nearly killed us. I’ve lived in Harley Street for about eight years. And I think, you know, I really knew where I wanted to go. And he was incredibly supportive. And I think maybe sometimes I wonder if I’m pushy. When I’m ready to go, I’m going, you know? And I think it was just the tough it was a tough we went through. So, you know, 2010 was a great recession even before that. And we ended up thinking that we were better separate than we were together. But we had one thing in common, other than the fact that we were both decent people.
[00:53:46] I was very, very lucky in that we both absolutely adored our children and we didn’t want to hurt them. So we had a very amicable divorce. I mean, obviously there were days where we wanted to kill each other, but very few. And even to this day, our kids say we didn’t really feel like you were divorced because you were just so nice to each other. And I worked with David three or four years after we were divorced because I’d worked with him all the way through before. So I was very fortunate. And I have happy children. And even though David is in Singapore, remarried to a very nice lady, you know, he is one person. If I needed some advice, if I was selling tomorrow and I wanted a really straight up, loyal, decent guy to give me a really good opinion, he would be the one I would go to. Mason. How old are your kids, Fazil? My daughter is twenty three to be twenty four this year and my son is twenty two this year.
[00:54:49] To either of them. Look at dentistry to be daft.
[00:54:52] One of them is, one of them is an architect in the making. So she’s going back to Cambridge to do her master’s in real estate, finance and architecture. So she’s fine, she’s fine if you like, of that seven, eight year road. And my son went into the family business of politics, philosophy and law. So so. Yeah. So I did one go to Cambridge and one go to Oxford, know what he’s thinking about going to do. His master’s there, but he went to work and he’s now in Austria this year just doing philosophy. He’s another one that wants to bring all the animals home and mend them. But I think he wants to do that with humans. So yeah.
[00:55:34] Did you guys not one of them to be a dentist?
[00:55:36] No, we didn’t. You know what we did? We kind of said when they’re ready for the career, we’ll open the door and have the chat with them. And they came to us and said, we want to do this. So we said, fine, off you go. And we basically said our job was to open all the opportunities to them and let them decide. But I can’t say I wouldn’t. I think dentistry is really amazing and exciting in twenty, twenty one, but really hard. I think the people, the the generation, the are the social media generation are much faster with each other than my generation was. You know, I’m fifty five years old. If I don’t like someone I just don’t go to the pub with them. It’s really simple. I feel the need to slag everywhere that I can find. And I think that harshness and the lack of grace is something that I’m glad that my kids would never be part of in my profession. And it’s this I’m better than you syndrome that I find really hard. And I say to the I treat the guys on my courses, the guys and the girls, they’re all twenty five to thirty five or even older. And I just say to them, you know, if everyone makes a mistake, everybody has got skills and everybody is learning skills and we need to be a bit kinder to each other.
[00:57:00] I think physically, you know, sometimes under the guise of what’s best for the patient, we can be quite cruel to each other. Yeah. And it’s it’s one of those things. It’s almost like you have licence when you’re talking about the patient. You’ve got licence to be cruel to each other. And and I see that quite a lot, you know, at the same time. Do you think Forstchen. The reason that they’ve been brought up on social media got massive advantages over huge.
[00:57:31] Yeah, but you know what I find, you know, for me, I would much rather pick up the phone and have a conversation with you about the fact that it saves all the twenty seven texts. And I’m Tony and you and you misunderstand me. And then we fall at the end of it anyway, whereas you pick up the phone and get what I mean is this and that’s the end of that conversation. So for me, what I find sad is it feels sometimes like the art of conversation is going all right. And I have to say, we grew up, especially on a Friday night, where we all sat around the table together. I lived with five boys through uni. Half of them would come home to mum and dad and we’d sit there, eat endless amounts of food, having a whisky and a cigar at the end of the night and just put it in the whole world to write, you know, that that conversation, that banter. And we still have it in the practice. But that notion of why don’t we just have a conversation? And in fact, when people come to me and say, how is it you get the conversion on your consults? And I say to the just have a channel for me when I consult a patient, if they buy, they buy. If they don’t, they don’t.
[00:58:42] I’m just having a conversation like I don’t know why, but I get the feeling I want to come to a party hosted by you. Why? I just feel like you’re one of those hostess with the most this kind of I love the food will definitely be good.
[00:59:00] You know, I’m not crazy, but I get on the summer. But you know what? There’s only like one or two things I really do. Well, everything else I just try hard. But, you know, I think. Well, you must kind. Thank you. Know what my dinner parties are like. You come, you have loads to drink at the beginning. We have really lovely food. And then I put some lovely Spotify and start singing or gets his guitar. That’s it. That’s what happens.
[00:59:32] It’s all downhill from there because I wanted to touch base on you if you were speaking about your dad in the sculpture earlier. Yeah. You mentioned to me before this podcast that your mom passed away not too long ago. Tell us a little bit about your mom and the daily conversations you used to have to have with you. Say your routine would be at some point during the day she was on speed dial, right?
[00:59:59] Yeah, always. You know what I loved about her? I wish I was anything like as like my dad, but crazy. She was calm and cool. And when she had something to say, you didn’t speak. But her entire life was her family, even though she was a very, very well respected senior lawyer. But she found the humor in everything. So if I was going out for dinner with anybody, I would get on the phone. I said, I’m going to need to tell you I’m not ringing you, but we’re going here and we’re going we’re going to do that. She knew everybody. She knew all my friends because she always encouraged us to bring our friends home. She always said, show me show me your company and I’ll tell you who you are. You know, it’s really old fashioned, but it is what it is. We had a bar in our house and, you know, my parents were you want to you want to have your your your cocktails till 3:00 in the morning. No problem at all of you come in the garden, whatever. And we’re just off to bed.
[01:00:50] So I was really lucky that I didn’t have to hide. I didn’t have to be the girl that had to put her face on in the in the bathroom before I went to school. I could do that at home. You know, I was very lucky. But my mom was the glue. She was the one who showed us how to love and and she loved us every single day. And she was our best friend. And she loved to laugh with us and at us at all the silly things we did. And now we miss we I miss her every day. I miss my dad every day. And with mom, it’s food. So even yesterday I said to my daughter, yes, let’s just cook that one thing that mom did. And, you know, we remember her story thinking about her every day and and just remembering the humor. But it’s something that is still very, very it’ll be there at my father’s been dead twenty years. It’s the first person I think of when I wake up in the morning. It is just one of those things.
[01:01:52] I’m fortunate not to be in that position. Right. But I know Songe lost both his parents. Yes. I mean, you were saying that it almost felt like the ground from under his feet disappeared, right. When when you’ve got that support, as you spoke to it, spoke about it like glue.
[01:02:10] And how did you cope initially when?
[01:02:14] Well, with mom, it was really difficult because she came home to pass away, you know, this old West Indian. And it’s not even. What’s the old saying? My mom was like.
[01:02:23] Four years old, she wanted to die at home and we managed to do that, and it was all of us, the grandchildren, everything. And I thought to myself, you just passed away, passed on with everybody that’s nearest and dearest, close to you, who love you quietly, not in pain. And we will remember you every single day. It was hard. It was hell, because both funnily enough, both my parents died on the same day, 17 years apart, which is weird. And they were buried on Christmas Eve. So Christmas is a tough time for us, but now that it’s getting less painful. I choose to you know, I’m I have both my parents photos of my surgery and my patients always say we’ve got the level they like here. And I say that’s to protect me against you. And we have a bit of a laugh about that. But is it cute because it makes you face your own mortality? Yeah, it does. And it’s a very good question that you ask that, because when your parents passed away, certainly for me, you suddenly feel like that golden cloak isn’t there anymore and you’re kind of on your own, even though I’m not on my own. And you will next year, the next generation. So even though I’m fifty five, I’m not seventy five. You think hang on a minute. I’m going to make the next X number of years count. So you start to. It’s not so much the exiting but is what am I going to do in the next five years because I don’t really want to do much more than that. I want to go back to it is a walk on the beach every day. But what am I going to do that’s going to make the last five years be the best five years in your life? So it does make you a bit nervous, but I’m not frightened in the middle of my career.
[01:04:12] It’s not something that I particularly talk about, but it’s not a secret either. I was very, very ill. I had a very good cancer when I was thirty eight and I lost two children and went through 12 years of surgeries and chemo and and a lot of people didn’t know. I just got on with it. And you know, it was quite nice just getting on with it. But when I needed them they were there and and my kids were there particularly. So I know what it’s like to wonder if I’m going to survive because they gave me three and I go, I’m already 13. And so, you know, I’m going to die when I’m good and ready.
[01:04:47] But again, a little bit of bloody mindedness. Yeah, I’m not ready. I’ve got still things I don’t want to do. But it does make you think every day is going to count, even if it’s just to have a coffee with a man.
[01:05:03] So what are you thinking for the next five years?
[01:05:06] Well, I want to grow this education thing that’s been going on for twenty odd years into something solid. So finally, I’ve put it into a company and I’m going to I would like the course to be less about me and more about them, more about the boys that are going to be the payments, Barney’s and the Toms and the Scott Phillips and all those guys trip and all the people that are going to take it forward. And, you know, I want to leave it to them. I want to leave that to them so that they can look after it and carry it. I want to do my best five years. I want to learn all the things I still can’t do and be a bit better. And I want to spend I promised myself before lockdown that I would work for six weeks and go home to or work for eight to go home for three. And it hasn’t happened because of this. But I’m definitely going to do that. I’m going to take the time to look at the way some more and to trek some more and to spend the time with the people that are getting old, because I don’t want to be that guy who says I wish I had because a lot of my family were in the seventies and I want to be there to live with the because dentistry can wait, you know, and the young ones can do it. And, you know, I want to have more balance in that sense.
[01:06:30] What would you do if you had half a day to yourself would be Fazeela? Sort of?
[01:06:36] Well, it depends who I could do it with. If I had the kids, we’d probably go for a really cool breakfast and then go for a long walk in Box Hill and just chat away. You live around there? No, but we go there quite often. I live in I live in music. Oh, well, we it depends. If I was in the Caribbean, it would be a different thing, but I would spend it with people I love. I would cook if it was not an activity, I would or I’d be on a horse somewhere or something like that. They would always be food around. But for me, life is people. Life is my family, my friends and the people I work with predominantly.
[01:07:19] Fazeela, that sort of takes us on too nicely on Suazo. Final question. Going back to what your mom and dad passed on to you, the sculpture and the daily conversations with mom. I imagine it’s your last day on the planet and you’ve got your kids around you. What would be the things that you pass on to them? Three pieces of advice that you’d want to leave them with the equivalent of the sculpture or whatever it is. What would you say to them?
[01:07:56] I would say to my kids, don’t forget where we come from so that you know where you’re going. That’s really important to me that we keep our food and our culture and all the things that glue us together from the from the elders to the to the next, I think I would say in everything you do look for a win win. Don’t do deals of any kind where someone has to lose, look for a win because it’s a much better deal. It makes you sleep at night. And the final thing is live every day, live every day as if it’s your last laugh, cry, love, do whatever you do and do it really well. And if you mess up when you put your head on your pillow, tomorrow is a better day. Always. It’s just simple stuff, you know, simple stuff. Look out for each other and be true to what you believe in, you know. And if it doesn’t work, if people don’t like that, well, keep quiet about it then.
[01:08:56] And if you could finish the following sentence and the topic is legacy write Fazila was dot, dot, dot a crazy, but he was kind, tough, loyal, persistent.
[01:09:15] And who never gave up?
[01:09:17] If I don’t to want a more positive one, imagine you’ve got a month left. Oh.
[01:09:25] Are you going to do your time, I would pretty much give up work if I had a month, I do a week of work. You lost three case, yeah. Yep. I can’t finish at the month.
[01:09:39] I do as much as I could do a week of work if you had a month.
[01:09:43] Yeah, I do a week of work. I love. I love. I love knowing the. Somewhere down the line, it might make a difference or might help. I know that sounds a bit. It sounds a bit highfalutin, but it’s not so I do a do a few days at work, I would try to I have a bucket list of one hundred and fourteen things. I’ve only got 12 left. So what do they want it? I can’t tell you that it was everything from. I still have to do Machu Picchu. I haven’t done that. It’s simple stuff. It’s like I have a walk on Nelson Mandela did that, you know, simple things. I would spend most of it with my kids in the bush in Guyana, in the Amazon, trekking for at least two weeks. And then I’d probably have my five favorite foods in the world and just chill with the people I love. I won’t do anything too fancy for me.
[01:10:42] That’s fancy, will you? Five favorite foods. Well, you probably should. Did you what’s your final meal? Yes, just to keep things really positive.
[01:10:56] Curry the execution meal from Kenya. I want to bring and aubergine curry with some callaloo which is like a spinach and some roti and some doel. Nice. Nice.
[01:11:13] It’s been absolutely lovely. Oh, it’s been a joy to continue. I really enjoyed it.
[01:11:17] Yeah, me too. I really, really enjoyed that. And I think the thanks a lot for being so open. Really well.
[01:11:25] I’ll probably come across as a lunatic, but it is really enjoyable when you are in the West then. I have listened to a few of them actually. And you know, I trained Sanjay and I, Sanjay and I, I taught Sanjay on his first the kidney. So I know I know Nick. I know them. All right. That’s the problem. We’ve been around so long and we eat again. That’s what we did.
[01:11:54] So whenever you’re in the in the West End number eight, the door’s always open.
[01:11:58] Thank you for food.
[01:12:02] It’s been lovely to see. Definitely. Definitely. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
[01:12:09] Thank you for doing this. Acento leaders the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders and dentistry.
[01:12:23] Your house payment, then Groody and perhaps Celenk. Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it if you did get some value out of it.
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