Implantologist Katie Blake couldn’t have picked a better time to purchase her first practice.

Shortly after buying Cairn Brae dental practice in Witham, Essex, Katie and her husband Alex had their first child just in time for the COVID pandemic.

She sits down to chat with Payman about her implant journey, training with Malo in Portugal, life as a new mum and practice owner, and much more.

Enjoy!

 

In This Episode

01.51 – Backstory

09.59 – Women in dentistry

14.05 – Surgery and implants

20.30 – Practice ownership & NHS to private

25.58 – Vision and processes

40.10 – Implant journey and inspiration

43.21- Building happy teams

47.16 – Blackbox thinking

56.38 – Finding associates

01.03.36 – Working within your competency

01.05.15 – Future plans

01.08.36 – Fantasy dinner party

01.10.41 – Last days and legacy

 

About Katie Blake

Katie Blake graduated from St Bartholomew and the Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry.

She has completed training in implant dentistry with the Eastman Institute and gained the MFDS in dental surgery from the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh.

Katie is the principal dentist at Cairn Brae Dental Practice in Witham, Essex.

[00:00:00] One of my favourite things which I don’t often see, because normally I must admit I’m out the door to get the kids from nursery at 5 to 6. But I happened tonight because I was, you know, staying around to speak to you guys. Was that all of the staff? Not all of the staff, but at least five members of staff, they park about two minute walk from the practice in a car park, which we rent some spaces. They all got changed, sat in reception and they wait for each other. The five people who are in that day parking together to make that two minute walk together and they could be rushing to get off. But, you know, five or six, you know, and I just thought, that’s so nice to see that, because they could go one by one by one, but they all wait and then they all walk over together.

[00:00:39] I was like.

[00:00:40] That actually kind of shows that it’s not that there’s a social, it’s not that the boss is buying drinks. It’s it’s nothing.

[00:00:45] It’s just that the family have that. That’s what they do.

[00:00:54] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:01:11] It’s my great pleasure to welcome Katie Blake onto the podcast. Katie is a practice owner implant ologist, which is really the reason I wanted her on the show today, because if they get enough, enough ladies going in to implant ology and figure out what it was about her that got her into it. Mother of two young kids. And when I went over to the practice in Witham, I just got a general feeling that this lady, whatever she takes on, is going to be a massive success at it. I mean, every question I asked the answers were all brilliant, better than I would I would have normally expected. And just a great pleasure to have you on the on the pod. Katie, how you doing?

[00:01:50] Thank you. Good evening.

[00:01:51] Welcome. So, Katie, this this podcast kind of like your life and times and so let’s start there. Where were you born and what kind of childhood did you.

[00:02:02] Yeah, I grew up actually not far from where I am based now. So over in Suffolk, pretty normal upbringing, lived in the country, nice house, pretty good school, then ended up studying up at Barts in London for dentistry, toyed with a few careers engineering, veterinary, something like that, but ended up with dentistry as my first choice and it kind of went from there, I guess.

[00:02:26] Why dentistry?

[00:02:27] Well, one of my dad’s best friends, who was our family dentist growing up, really good guy, very enthusiastic about his life, his patients and that work life balance, which I’m sure a lot of dentists have at the forefront of their minds at the moment, is getting that balance right. And he was very enthusiastic about someone in our family going into that. He tried my sister and she devoted over to medicine and then had a go at my brother and he ended up in sales. And I guess third time he tried me and I said, okay, sounds great. So did the classic work experience. But I think at any point in your dentistry career, it’s really about finding somebody who can inspire you, who likes their job, and meeting that person at that key point, whether it’s as a 15 year old, making your GCSE going into GCSE as A-levels or whether it’s later on in your career, I guess people call it a sliding door moment, get get the right connection at the right time, and that can just send your whole life in a different direction, essentially.

[00:03:31] What was it about this person that inspired you that sort of changed that direction for you? Was there a moment or was it something sad or something that you observed or.

[00:03:43] I think, yeah, probably more the the key ethics in in their practice, the enthusiasm. And like I said, I’ve always known that there needs to be this work life balance. And he certainly demonstrated that that was possible. There’s definitely an entrepreneurial background in my family and I guess all these kind of factors tied in together to make dentistry seem, and I still think it is a great option for bringing those aspects in together. I think there was negatives playing against the other career options at that point. You know, I love animals. I would love to be a veterinary surgeon, but I think there’s things about it that wouldn’t have suited me. So I think I’m in the right place.

[00:04:30] When you grew up in Ipswich.

[00:04:33] Yeah, exactly. So yeah, only about 40 miles from where I am now. But good thing about that, it’s just such a lots of friends and friends and family. My husband grew up not far who would sit for them together. Just took about a decade before we dated. So, you know.

[00:04:48] It’s a slow burner. What was.

[00:04:50] It like? What was it like arriving in London to study after growing up in Ipswich? I guess you’d been to London several times.

[00:04:58] Well, London.

[00:04:59] East London, you know, it’s kind.

[00:05:01] Can be a bit of a.

[00:05:04] Shock. It’s actually, I think, you know, alluding to being a.

[00:05:08] Third child again, I drove myself to university with my big brother who lived down the road. He’d just graduated from city uni and then he helped me unpack and parked the car by his flat. So I think there’s always been a fairly strong level of independence in my life, so I guess that kind of made it less of a scary step than it might have been for others.

[00:05:28] You know why, Katie? Did your parents encourage that somehow?

[00:05:33] Yeah, for sure. So grandparents and things, they have always travelled the world. Both my parents lived abroad when they were younger. We were very much kicked into being independent through travel and things from a young age. Age 16, I went out to Japan on a youth exchange program for the summer and we went and stayed in people’s houses and my Japanese.

[00:05:54] Is virtually.

[00:05:56] Non-existent as it was then. But really you can learn like we will find with patients who we don’t have the same first language with. You don’t need to speak the same language to. Communicate with people. I can’t remember the statistic. I’m sure one of you guys know.

[00:06:08] What’s the how much is nonverbal? Yeah. How much is.

[00:06:13] It?

[00:06:13] It’s an actual amount. Is it?

[00:06:15] It’s a lot.

[00:06:17] So. So, you know, I think going.

[00:06:21] Through experiences like that, great experiences when you’re younger, suddenly means, you know, turning up at university, you know, an hour’s train drive from where you live, you know, not maybe as intimidating as some sort of country bumpkins might find it.

[00:06:36] And what was uni like for you, Katie?

[00:06:39] Yeah.

[00:06:40] Uni’s great. I played a lot of sport, which I’ve always loved. It’s a great way to meet people, play clubs, club hockey, know it’s great, it’s great uni, lots of good education, not campus uni which you know, young people looking at universities. I think that would be really the only negative I can think of to to study at a London university. But it was great fun. You know, you can’t fault it. Whoever wants to university to work hard, play hard, I think is how we got through most.

[00:07:09] Of our dental dental degree.

[00:07:12] What about when you qualified, Casey? What was it when was your what was your first job?

[00:07:17] So I ended up down in.

[00:07:20] Fulham.

[00:07:20] For feet with a paediatric, one of the paediatric tutors from university. Just thought I’d try the other side of London for a bit. It’s really great. He taught me great key messages to deliver, which really said today to to kids. I then went on to Kings and did Max. Max, which was an induction of fire, I guess, is how I describe it.

[00:07:44] Great experience, you know, being chucked it as a.

[00:07:47] As a dentist alongside half the team, being doctors and nobody nobody else in the hospital knows.

[00:07:53] What you are.

[00:07:54] Means. You really just have to learn on your feet, which I think.

[00:07:57] Did you enjoy?

[00:07:58] You enjoy, Max?

[00:07:59] Max absolutely loved it. Yeah, loved it. And it was it was a strong consideration. But I think this draws back to what I said already in terms of that work life balance, you know, and and I don’t know how doctors do it. I have a lot of friends, obviously, from uni who are doctors. I’m sure you guys do as well.

[00:08:19] Probably as a.

[00:08:19] Doctor, you just work all hours. Why?

[00:08:26] That’s why he’s no longer a doctor.

[00:08:28] No, never done it. Never done an honest day’s work in my life. But yeah, a lot of my friends who I was at uni with as well. Right, is the work life balance is non-existent. You’re right. Yeah. I don’t know how they do it, but I guess you know what? It’s because we know a different life, right? We don’t know any different and and that’s all they, they normalise with. Right. So yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s easier to make that statement when we’re on the other end and you have and we’ll talk about work life balance later, Katie, because obviously we’ve had discussions where you took a bit of time out of your own practice and your situation allowed you to step out of dentistry, step out of your business. Yeah. Go and have a kid come back and start smashing metal rods in people’s heads again. And you know what I was I was quite impressed with because obviously, you know, I’ve got four kids. I’ve worked with numerous associates, some who have taken longer time out of dentistry. But you were very clear. You was like, okay, so Prav, we’re going to we’re going to tailor the implant campaigns down because I’m going to place my last implant on this day. Then I’m going to have X number of weeks off and then we’ll just it and then I’ll start doing some simple cases and then and then I’ll go straight in.

[00:09:52] Yeah. I mean, what’s stopping you? Save your baby.

[00:09:55] People being babies for centuries all over the world.

[00:09:59] And do you do you think do you think it’s harder for women to do dentistry?

[00:10:04] I think well, I listen to one of your other podcasts. I forgotten the lady’s name. Who was you were just discussing.

[00:10:11] A lot about about women.

[00:10:12] In dentistry. Forgive me for not remembering. And and I think, you know, like you said, that it’s a great career choice for women. You’ve got that flexibility, you know, to be in and out you trousers and things like that. I think the only difficulty somehow is when everybody tries to do everything, you know. And of course, I feel the pressure is the same as anyone else. You know, owning a business, having kids, you know, some something’s got to give somewhere. But children are resourceful things, aren’t they? They just get on with it. I think my opinion is that sometimes we’re all a bit too led by children and they just have to get on with it. But you know, they’re only little, so we’ll see how they turn out.

[00:10:53] Yeah.

[00:10:53] I mean, it’s an interesting point, isn’t it, to be led by your children or to lead your children in different directions. But there must be a tension, right, between the amount of time you’re spending with them and the amount of time you’re spending at work. And do you do you feel that you don’t feel like others do the guilt and all of that?

[00:11:13] Yeah, I think it is sometimes stressful. I’d say the thing that does often give is having any time for yourself, which I know is is a challenge. You know, there’s obviously been a lot on social media in the news and stuff recently about this kind of, you know, burnout stresses, mental health and all of this. I think it’s a really interesting point I’m very good at. I personally think compartmentalising things so I can go home and not think about work for a whole evening, you know, which can be a negative, I guess can be a positive. But it does mean that for me, at least when I’m not at work, I feel I don’t really get too involved. Not like I do occasionally wake up early and think about it, but I don’t struggle to get sleep at night, you know? So whether that’s a good or bad thing, it probably is what allows me to be very busy at work and then go home and be a mother and there isn’t much crossover between the two. I’ve got a great team at work, makes a big difference. You know, occasionally I can think of even a couple of weeks ago my husband was away skiing in February. Very important to go skiing even with a newborn baby. Home and I had a late patient. And so I sent the treatment coordinator to go and pick up the kids from nursery down the road and she brought them back to work.

[00:12:25] Because I.

[00:12:26] Can get there. So I think everything. You can’t do it all by yourself, can you? So, so having that, that support team, whether it’s for childcare, for the house, for the business, it’s, you know, it’s a team.

[00:12:40] Effort.

[00:12:41] Okay, Katie, your husband’s your right hand man, not just in life, but in your business as well. Right. So just before we get into that, you mentioned you met at sixth form.

[00:12:54] Yeah.

[00:12:54] Ten years later, you got together. Just just how did that just tell us about that? That I’m just curious.

[00:13:04] Maybe just a slow burner. I think I in a big.

[00:13:06] Group of friends, you know, and I think it’s a case of. Right, right person. Different time, right person, right time, everybody. Sometimes you think what would life have been like if you’ve recognised age 18, whatever? We met over 14, you know, but actually all your experiences make you the person that you are. So, so we got there in the end, you know.

[00:13:30] And yeah.

[00:13:32] So did did you have a ten year gap or were you in touch with each other?

[00:13:35] We were in touch, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, we’re still friends over the same group of friends. Yeah. Oh, cool. So, so, so yeah. We’ve, we’ve essentially grown up together, but, you know, it means you know each other, each other’s families. So bizarrely, my parents didn’t actually realise his first name for about the first two years that we were dating because we all call them by surname, which is Blake.

[00:13:58] And they realised it wasn’t two years into the relationship because they never had anything else.

[00:14:05] Blake. Blake So Katie, how far did you go in or surgery? Did you just do the one little house job or did you take it further?

[00:14:14] No, just the one house job. Yeah. And then a moment of clarity that although.

[00:14:18] I loved the job, I needed a life.

[00:14:20] So I actually tapped out of London and went down to Cornwall and did a few locum jobs, took a bit of time out. You know.

[00:14:27] Having done London and.

[00:14:30] London for seven years, you know, I wanted to go get a bit of bit of headspace, which is a great thing to do.

[00:14:36] You know.

[00:14:36] Lovely area bit, the back and beyond. So I thought I’d come back up for work where I came from.

[00:14:42] But then, so your oral surgery job didn’t particularly help with being a implant surgeon. You didn’t you hadn’t had enough experience of cutting people.

[00:14:51] And I think.

[00:14:53] Was it one of those jobs that you did jump in and take wisdom teeth out and all that.

[00:14:58] A bit? Yes, I think that the most important thing and why I would still always say to new graduates that doing a job like that is great is after you’ve been the on call person for a trauma centre in London.

[00:15:12] And your first person.

[00:15:14] Nothing fazes you. You know, so and I distinctly remember my last day on the job being on call and being called to the neuro ICU and they’d hit something was doing a tracheostomy. And I was the person they called to stop to stop the bleeding out of a hole in the neck. So having having had that as your kind of you are the person that they call for those sort of issues, really, you know, teeth are just teeth.

[00:15:42] Which, you know.

[00:15:44] So.

[00:15:45] I think can.

[00:15:45] Put things into perspective a bit. Not saying that it could make people blasé because I think there’s obviously we all know there’s risks of everything, but it certainly makes you think, okay.

[00:15:56] You know, it’s going to be okay.

[00:16:00] So then you decided you’re not going to go down that path and then what’s a general practice became a goal.

[00:16:07] Yeah. General practice. I was in a busy NHS practice in Essex, called off an old union, said, Can I have a job? And they said, Yeah, there you go. Which in that is a practice. You know, in retrospect, at the time I thought, wow, I must, you know, they really, you know, really good friends. In retrospect, I think if someone like me called me up now and said, Can I have a job? I would say yes. So I can.

[00:16:33] See see.

[00:16:34] Where it’s where, where they were coming from. So did a bit of that and then went up and did death tells in part course at UCL and it carried on from there really which is a great, a great foundation interest and course taught me a lot, exposed me to a lot of interesting lectures and things like that and was a pretty robust course. I found it robust, let’s put it that way.

[00:17:01] Take us through the decision making process. Because, look, the vast majority of men and women, by the way, don’t go to implants. What is about you that made you want to go that way? Did you decided from the beginning that you would be doing implants? Was there a particular patient, a conversation, someone you spoke to, a mentor? Like what? What made you make that call to go on Deaf Patel’s course, where so many people don’t like me as a dentist? I’d never even considered it for a second.

[00:17:30] Yeah. I think for me it was being in the right place at the right time with the practice principle at the time was quite enthusiastic about implants and supportive of somebody who wanted to do that.

[00:17:43] Was he placing himself being.

[00:17:46] Yes. So you were watching.

[00:17:47] Somewhere where your boss sent messages through. Oh, I’m just about to do this. Do you want to come and watch? And the answer is always yes. Go and have a look, see what they’re doing. So, you know, not an academic high flying guy, but just, you know, a decent dentist placing decent implants, you know, that I think is important. Obviously, that or surgery experience has always been really interesting, which I think actually stems from going out on a few charity projects. I’ve done a few over the years, sort of bridge to aid a few other of the Ugandan projects and Europe, Central America, things like that. So the doctors in the surgery had come from a few of those experiences over the years as well. So for me it seemed like a natural step. You know, how can you make.

[00:18:31] Or some.

[00:18:32] Kind of surgery sit in with general practice? I think for me that was the obvious way to go and looking around at courses, probably I should think still at that time. Definitely. You know, UCL is one of the reputable ones as far as I was concerned.

[00:18:47] Anyway.

[00:18:49] Let’s get back to implants a bit later. Tell me about the charity work. How did that come about and what’s the feeling of it? Do you feel helpless when you’re out there? There’s so much a mountain of work that needs doing and.

[00:19:01] Well, yeah, I think.

[00:19:03] Probably quite.

[00:19:05] Naively, maybe I think I went between like the second and third year of I think second and third year of uni. Out with Christian relief Uganda they called and that was just by chance finding them online I think I think always the heart’s always in the right place of all of these charities. They are trying to help where they can. Subsequently, having volunteered with British Trade, I know they’ve had a little bit of a change in the direction of the charity, I think, in the last year or so and caught up with them fairly recently. But I think anything like that, the idea is always, isn’t it, to train the people out there, you know, because there’s only so much that you can impact as a single dentist going out to the country and pulling out teeth for three weeks. Yes, you help some people, but where’s the long lasting help? So I think for me it was a good experience. It certainly made me realise how lucky we are with the provisions and things we have in the UK and the practical side of getting out there and getting on with clinical stuff compared to the limited clinical experience any undergraduate degree.

[00:20:09] Can can.

[00:20:10] Give you probably they gave me a leg up. You know, you get back to union, you can put up teeth better than the other fourth year student. So you get given the harder ones and you get given the harder ones and it carries on from there. So I guess that spirit of adventure instilled in me as a as a teenager probably. Maybe do that. Maybe do that. You know how life goes on.

[00:20:30] And Katie, you mentioned earlier when you were younger, sort of being an entrepreneur or businesswoman and was kind of like destined for you. It was it was in the blood for from a young age. When when did you decide that? Right. I’m going to be a practice owner. And what was your journey from where you were sort of in your journey? Learning to place implants, doing some work in your mates, practice and whatnot, and then and then moving into making that jump into practice ownership. And do you know what? It’s it’s a topic of conversation. You jump on Facebook and everyone’s opening in a squat, buying a practice, thinking of doing it, asking 101 questions. Just talk us through your journey and your thought process. Even before you you talked into being a business owner.

[00:21:17] Yes. So I was. Selling eggs at the end of the farm drive in age 12 on a business loan from my parents buying the chickens, I then have to pay back. So, you know, from that perspective.

[00:21:29] It’s all learning, isn’t it?

[00:21:32] The practice ownership part. I had a fairly strong idea of what area of the world I was going to live in. Family is very important to me. We still live next to my parents. You know, we had a bond. So for me, there was only a finite area and a finite size of practice, I guess, that that my budget could afford at that time. So essentially keeping an eye on the marketplace for, I think almost three years before this one came up. Half an hour drive from where you want to live, in my opinion. And you know, you have this much money. I want you to mix practice, wants to own the building. So really a combination of those things. We looked at a few, but I think it’s just waiting for the right for the right time, right time, right place.

[00:22:20] To cater you. Other criteria like right at the start mix practice have to own the building half an hour from home. To half an hour from home again. Yeah. Really easy that you just. You just want a smooth commute, right? And close to home. That makes sense. Yeah. And the mix practice and the.

[00:22:41] Building and.

[00:22:42] Owning the building. Yeah. What is it about owning the building?

[00:22:45] Well, this is something which I’m reconsidering. You know, if we do move to sue practices, would I do the same thing again? I don’t know if it’s naivety in business. I mean, it still kills me as it ever has when I’ve rented properties to think that you’re paying off someone else’s mortgage. And it’s basically the same thing with a lease. Oh, right. Yeah. So and I guess for me the, the other time I’m a is because of what a mixed practice. And the reason that was one of my criteria assessing when I.

[00:23:15] Bought.

[00:23:16] Would I buy a second mixed practice? I don’t know. I guess we’ll wait and see if.

[00:23:21] If, if what.

[00:23:22] The new NHS contract when it’s a whole different topic for debate. But you know would I think it does give a good security, it does give a solid patient base to somebody opening or taking over a practice. At least you know what you’ve got and you’ve got some patients to play with to start with, you know. So for me it was that.

[00:23:45] And what are your tips for converting NHS to private? So a lot of mixed practice owners will, will say actually I’ve got, I’ve got a, I’ve got a list of patients here that some of whom will convert straight across to private duty. Do you have any tips yourself in terms of converting any NHS patients to private?

[00:24:05] I think it all lies at making sure that you as a practice are making that patient feel valid, listening to them communication when they feel that they can trust you as a clinician. Yes, but the whole team, because the goal of any practice in my mind, practice ownership is to get to the point where you don’t have to work in the practice, you know, or at least at least the practice isn’t 100% reliant on you, but you’ve got to build the trust. You know, I don’t think it’s the same as sales techniques. I think it’s it’s a it’s a communication in a trust communication. And that will build a practice.

[00:24:44] Tenfold over all of.

[00:24:46] The marketing.

[00:24:47] And has has has the split from the NHS private split changed since you took over the practice and in if so, how.

[00:24:57] Yes. So we have very small NHS contract. Ace. We’ve had the practice coming up about two and a half years now. And in the last two and a half years, we’ve. Tripled the private coming through the practice. I think about five or six times the practice plan we have here. Now, some of that is covered. Yes. How much? I don’t know. I guess that will all come out in the wash in the next few years and we’ll find out. So I think it does help. I wouldn’t say we convert that many people because we don’t really try to to to flip the NHS over. But for me we get a lot of word of mouth, new people joining us and and mostly that’s through an experience a helping out. For me if a patient needs seeing that day they need seeing that day if it means, you know, I don’t have a hold out, I never have a whole life lunch, who does?

[00:25:51] You know, I help I have people.

[00:25:53] That you’ve got to care about people fundamentally. It’s a caring health care profession.

[00:25:56] You know.

[00:25:58] Perhaps you’ve never been there, although you’re more involved in in their business than than I’ve been. But when you go there does not feel like an NHS practice at all. Not one little bit, you know, the smiling people, the surprise and delight gifts calling patients before, before they even come. For the first time, there was some other amazing stuff. Little, little, little, little cupboard with with goodies for the patient that they just hand out whenever there’s a situation. And and very strong on the marketing side, which I guess you need to be in private practice. You do need that. But, but I’m quite interested in this sort of your vision. You, you seem to have a very sort of simple way of looking at things. And but I’m saying that with in I don’t mean simplistic. No, no, I mean simple. Did you have a vision for it when you when you came and saw the practice, are you thinking about buying it apart from it had those different criteria. Could you see that there were things that you could do better? And what were those things and how soon did you start changing things? Because it doesn’t make sense to day one stock going berserk. Changing things is that you don’t want to annoy you don’t want to disturb the patient base or the staff or anything. So what was that? What were the things that you saw about it that you thought there’s extra potential here? And then how long was it before you put stuff in place?

[00:27:25] Yeah, sure. I think a lot of things we have done and we’re not there by any stretch of the imagination. I’ll put my hands up and say, we don’t know all the answers. We’re just learning like anyone else is. We’ve spent a bit of time still going into other people’s practice. Whoever will have us to spend days with people, I try and do at least sort of two different practices a year. And it’s it’s it’s been really refreshing within the profession to call up people who we know or connect through other people and say, listen, can I come down to practice for an afternoon sitting with you doing clinic because you always learn from other people. I don’t know at all by any any stretch. So to have found that I think if you can come away from an afternoon with another clinician or another practice manager and pick up one tip that you then take back to your practice, you know, multiply that by hundreds of days, hundreds of tips, and that really does help a practice grow. I think when I took over the practice organically, we wanted to see where it goes. It was sort of still in parts, a little bit scruffy, but that has meant that it’s retained the sort of non-clinical family environment family feel to it. Lots of my patients now, the kids know the babies and all of this and it wouldn’t necessarily surprise them and hasn’t surprised them when they’ve come in for treatment. And there’s one of my babies in a pram asleep in the waiting room, which maybe isn’t the kind of slick London experience you’d get. But we’re not.

[00:28:49] In we’re not on Harley Street, you know, and I think when people know you as a.

[00:28:54] Person, they maybe trust you more, you know. So I think that that’s helped as to the vision, that’s something I have up here. We’re working with Mark Topley to try and get some of this stuff that’s in my head, my husband’s head down on paper so that we can kind of work on what it is that makes the practice what it is in order to help other staff recognise it. Get the message across on social media website as we expand, rebrand things like that. But I think you’re right that you don’t want to change everything at once. You don’t want to scare off that core of patients, you know, so and a lot of it we don’t see occasionally a patients say, oh.

[00:29:38] Looks a lot.

[00:29:39] Smarter than a few years ago and you have to pause and go, thank you.

[00:29:42] It’s very difficult for people.

[00:29:45] It’s very difficult to take praise, isn’t it?

[00:29:47] You know.

[00:29:48] So I think it’s very nice when you suddenly hear that recognition from a patient very, very different and able to accept that praise and think, oh, actually we have done a lot. I have a to do list as long as my arm. But actually to say, okay, well we’re getting there, you know, it’s two and a half years.

[00:30:05] Well, ten years is nothing. Yeah, it really is nothing at all.

[00:30:09] It’s.

[00:30:10] So considering that you’ve done a lot already, that’s that’s kind of the crux of my question, you know. You must have started pretty soon after buying it, making changes. Yeah. What were the first changes you made? I mean, what was what was glaringly obvious to you that needed changing at the beginning.

[00:30:29] Taking receptionists out of the back corner and put them up front so patients can see them when they’re walking through the door. Lovely receptionist she’s on maternity leave but comes by every month with her baby for lunch until she comes back, you know? And and everybody knows that. Everybody, like, say you’d walk in through the door and you have to look around a post into a back corner to find her. So why would you hide someone like that who’s who’s a great person in the back corner? So who pulled her out the back.

[00:30:54] Corner for the.

[00:30:56] Reception at the front? You know, it’s simple. Changes like that, I think, make a big difference. You know, refurbished, smart art, fresh coat of paint, even if you haven’t got the budget to, you know, if you haven’t got the budget to re plaster, don’t re plaster, but, you know, put some new lights.

[00:31:12] In the.

[00:31:13] Put a smelly thing into it doesn’t smell like a dentist. As soon as you walk in, it all builds to helping patients relax a little bit more, doesn’t it? Nobody really likes going to the dentist even. I don’t.

[00:31:24] Know.

[00:31:25] And from the treatment perspective, was that was that was there any implants being placed at that practice? Was there any Invisalign going on?

[00:31:32] There was no Invisalign. So we brought that in. Arturo, we brought in a CBC that there was some implants being placed, not any of the full.

[00:31:40] Mouth stuff, all.

[00:31:41] For type stuff I’m doing. It was sort of single implants, no marketing going on. So a few, what I would call relatively easy fixes have been done. The harder ones, the planning permission, the rear extension, they are still a work in progress, but we’re.

[00:31:57] Getting that.

[00:32:00] To Prav and I both know the area kind of a little bit from. We both worked with Andy Morpho for years and years and you look at Chelmsford, you think, Well, that’s a major hub, right? So there they will need all of this stuff. But, but I don’t know, maybe, I don’t know Witham very well. Yeah. So, but when I look at Sleepy Witham, yeah. And then I just don’t imagine that a town like that would have as much invisalign in it as, as you guys are obviously doing or enlightened or all on for or did you realise this anyway because you’re from the area or did you say, I’m going to be the one because it’s inevitably going to happen in a town like this or how? Tell me about that.

[00:32:43] I think. Well, I’ve never been to Western before. Bought practice here to tell you just drive past it on the A12 you know. Great has a train stop.

[00:32:51] Yeah yeah we did obviously.

[00:32:53] Look at the potential the new development.

[00:32:55] There there was a lot of housebuilding, there’s a lot of housebuilding going on.

[00:33:00] But in essence, a lot of people, particularly with more working from home, I think are moving slightly further out of London. And that’s I think is is giving either the new builds or the villages. You know, there’s some really nice areas around here, villages where all the houses are sort.

[00:33:17] Of tied.

[00:33:18] To 1.5 mil, you know, so so there is the money around here. And I know it’s not all about money, but you’ve got to have people who want to spend money to have a business 70.

[00:33:31] So I think that.

[00:33:31] There’s a wider draw. Yes, I think that’s the answer.

[00:33:36] Interesting. Prav What about your journey in marketing best practice. What did you do? What did you think? What did you how did you start?

[00:33:46] I think we well, I initially spoke to Alex, right. You’re at the house and I think you were having some challenges. It might have been with another agency or something like that. And and for me, with whatever practice it is, right. It’s just understanding the sales process. That’s the first thing. Because if you’ve got a terrible sales process, that doesn’t matter what marketing you’ve got going on, it’s not going to work. So understanding the sales process was really important and I think I believe I met your TCL stroke lead ninja at the time and it was clear to me that their sales process was good. The follow up systems, we had a couple of conversations around how that could be elevated a little bit and improved, and then we just kicked off with the basics, right? And when I speak to clinicians, you know, the first thing is, okay, you want me to market implants, know, the first question I ask is, Well, give me your clinical remit. What can you do? And the conversation with Katie was more about what she couldn’t do. There wasn’t very much so. So, you know, often to have that conversation, it’s a bit like, what are you are you are you a single implant, a multi implant, ones and twos or full arch and cases like everything. Send me everything.

[00:35:04] Right. So we so we kind of know what we can push, right? You can push the marketing that focuses on the identity patient focuses on the loose denture sufferer, all that sort of stuff. So that makes our life super easy, right? Because if we’re driving inquiries that come through and unfortunately either the clinic don’t have the ability to to service that from a clinical perspective, then then you’re struggling. And it’s the same with orthodontics, right? But you know, there’s there’s a lot of volume for children’s orthodontics and stuff like that, but we’d never dream of targeting that for a practice that focuses on, let’s say, invisalign or clear aligner treatment or whatever, unless it’s specialist service. So a big part of it is understanding the sales process. And then, you know, I think the benefit that you’ve got, Katie is having Alex there, who can keep an eye on things, who can respond quickly, who can monitor things. Do you see what I mean? And if things you know, if things are not quite going to plan or whatever, pick up the phone, reorder, adjust things, make some adjustments, and then away we go. And for you guys, I found that because your sales process was pretty robust, it’s is pretty straightforward. Generate the leads, they’ll convert and then away we go.

[00:36:22] But why is that? Most practices you go to or you work with, you’ve got to fix the sales process, the follow up and all that, I think. Katie, did you did you know this? Did you know this was key and you put that process in place or was it already in place when you bought the place or.

[00:36:37] It was not in place when we bought the place.

[00:36:39] I think there’s a lot a lot.

[00:36:41] Of things go on in the background. You know, a lot of different courses we’re sending. The TSOs just finished a course of Lord Horton, who does all of the course, stuff like that, even though she’s pretty confident at what she was doing already. So like I alluded to, already tweaked lots of things and suddenly it all comes together. Spend time on training so that it’s all the elements because they might not get it eco knows or the training they might get the girls second week at reception, you know. So I think you’ve got to make sure that everybody understands and everyone’s singing from the same same songbook, isn’t it?

[00:37:18] I think the thing is, though, Alex knows his onions, right? When it comes to processes and systems and stuff like that. And that’s that’s a massive plus, like having somebody in the business that knows their shit.

[00:37:31] What’s his background, what’s his what was Alex doing before he was doing this?

[00:37:35] So he did a maths degree. He taught maths head of department at a high school for nine, eight, nine years, something like that. The police for a year. Then I bought the practice, we bought the practice and and I suddenly thought, oh Christ. Luckily at the time he wasn’t decided that the police wasn’t for him. So we did a rapid, rapid conversion over into the practice just at the right time because.

[00:38:02] Because.

[00:38:03] As you said, Prav, there’s no chance I could be doing this by myself. I don’t know what I was thinking.

[00:38:07] Thinking I could.

[00:38:08] Which means that’s allowed. That’s freed me up to focus on the surgery, focus on the implants, and focus on the clinical side. He is non-clinical he knows a few dental words now, but that means anything.

[00:38:22] That’s not anything that’s not clinical.

[00:38:25] It goes to him both in terms of managing the staff, in terms.

[00:38:28] Of all of the.

[00:38:29] The marketing, the finances. There’s quite a clear delegation.

[00:38:35] On paper, though. That’s not a great background for what he’s doing. I mean, maths teacher and police expertise, did he did he do a lot of reading or going on courses or does he take a massive interest in businesses now? How does it work?

[00:38:49] Yes. So I think I think two things. One is that actually being in a managerial position within the teaching role meant that he didn’t know how to manage people. So I think the that side of things, yes, the massive business, I think actually do go quite hand in hand understanding the numbers. All of that he loves. And we actually he took advantage of the complete back catalogue of Chris Barrows stuff he put free online during COVID. So for most.

[00:39:18] People.

[00:39:19] Yeah, for most people, COVID was this lovely period of relaxation. We literally put our heads down for eight weeks, which couldn’t have come at a better time for us, to be honest with you. Would have the business got the business in the August, had a baby in September and COVID hit was it February, March and at that. So we suddenly we had our six month baby at home, which was fine, because that meant I got booked on maternity leave, in essence, and, and did half days of work and half days of childcare and got through.

[00:39:49] A real, real lot.

[00:39:50] Of vision for the business. So I think for us that worked that worked well and we learned on our feet what we don’t know, we ask. Lots of people will answer if you ask.

[00:40:00] And we do.

[00:40:02] It’s true. So tell me about the moving from single tooth implant. A couple of implants to full arch.

[00:40:10] Yeah.

[00:40:10] How long? How long did it take you to go from never having put an implant in to becoming an all on fall chick?

[00:40:18] Well, yeah, I think a couple of years. It’s. It’s the thing. Yeah, you just got to do the right job in the right place, you know?

[00:40:27] If you’ve got.

[00:40:28] I think if you’re in an environment with any aspect of dentistry, if you’re somewhere where you’ve got somebody who will help you, you can nip it and ask a quick question in the room next door. Then. Then I think you will naturally try.

[00:40:41] Things.

[00:40:41] Try things.

[00:40:42] More.

[00:40:43] We see it.

[00:40:43] But the course in UCL, the Dev Patel course, did that cover all four as well or not?

[00:40:48] No. So I went out and did some work at the Mala Clinic in Lisbon.

[00:40:53] Oh, did.

[00:40:54] You? And that opened my eyes.

[00:40:58] Yeah. So I thought, well, you want to.

[00:41:02] Learn about dentistry? Why not go to the people who invented oral? Four Kind of make sense in my mind. So went out there, looked at a lot of their processes. Yeah. And for.

[00:41:12] Me, the skyscraper.

[00:41:13] Thing.

[00:41:13] You don’t know it all by spending a few weeks at a place like that, but you can see an awful lot.

[00:41:19] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:41:21] What’s it like in there? Like, literally a 15 storey dental hospital. That’s what it looks like from the outside.

[00:41:28] Yeah. I can’t think about Florida.

[00:41:30] It’s like.

[00:41:31] It’s like floor 12 or something like that. Absolutely.

[00:41:35] I mean.

[00:41:37] They really have got their processes sorted. You know, patients do X, Y and Z. They’ve, you know, so I think, like I alluded to, you see different things. You take different things away. Their processes are.

[00:41:49] Phenomenal.

[00:41:50] So slick, you know, they just every little step is made to make the patient experience better in the clinical outcomes better, which is all we can try and do in dentistry is, is work against the, against the negatives. Keep things.

[00:42:04] Keep things high.

[00:42:06] Success rate as possible. And that’s what they do there, I think, in my limited experience.

[00:42:13] So clinically, who would you say are your sort of dental inspirations or mentors or even people you haven’t met before who’s really like, who do you look up to in dentistry?

[00:42:23] What I think obviously there are the Dev Patel’s and the public Mallory and things like this. You know, these are people who who are leading the industry as far as I can assess. Obviously, there’s a lot of people on social media and things like this nowadays. Very interesting. I follow people like some chart. I think what he’s doing is, is, is great. All of the AGI crowd when I was doing my implant diploma, I was with Wael Girgis, his Devonshire house practice over in Cambridge. His stuff is is really good. The ethics are just phenomenal. And again, that’s the type of place I haven’t been there for a few years now. But you go there, you see what they’re doing and you.

[00:43:02] Think, Oh, I like that.

[00:43:04] I wonder if we can just just work that into what we’re doing. So I think for me, it’s about having an open profession, you know, help each other out equally. I would say people want to come down to us and see what we’re doing. You know, everyone’s.

[00:43:17] More than welcome.

[00:43:18] I like having people around. I like talking clearly.

[00:43:21] So I recommend it. I recommend it. You’re going to get a bunch of people calling you now, you know that. But I recommend it because what I got from it was from I walked in from the outside, looked like an ordinary practice, quite charming, ordinary practice, you know, old building and all that. But when I went inside, extraordinary things going on in this ordinary town and and that if you could bottle that then then I’m sure. I’m sure people people will love to drink that sauce, that special sauce, because really, really a special feeling in that practice. And I remember at the end of the training for your team, I just turned round to you and said, I know this is going to be a massive success because sometimes you can just tell that you’re in front of people who are going to implement stuff. And the other lovely thing was how happy you were your team were, you know, because sometimes in that high stress environment of high turnover of patients or whatever it is, that sort of kindness can fall off, fall off the edge. And it felt like a family, you know, it felt like happy people who are happy to be there with each other. Do you work on that? Who works on that side of it or does that just come naturally?

[00:44:36] Well, I think it’s I’d hope not chance but put people in the right environment. Maybe it recruiting the right people. One of my favourite things which I don’t often see, because normally I must admit I’m out the door to get the kids from nursery at 5 to 6. But I happened tonight because I was, you know, staying around to speak to you guys. Was that all of the staff? Not all of the staff, but at least five members of staff, they park about two minute walk from the practice in a car park, which we rent some spaces. They all got changed, sat in reception and they wait for each other. The five people who were in that day parking together to make that two minute walk together and they could be rushing to get off. But, you know, five or six, you know, and I just thought, that’s so nice to see that, because they could go one by one by one, but they all wait and then they all walk over together. I was like, that actually kind of shows that it’s not that there’s a social, it’s not that the boss is buying drinks. It’s it’s nothing.

[00:45:29] It’s just that the family have that. That’s what they do.

[00:45:33] You know, which is so nice. And you can’t I think maybe you can build that. Maybe you can lead by example. I always say when we recruit or sometimes interview, I just don’t want bitchiness. It’s such a female dominated, you know, the risk of it being a bitchy environment with lots of nurses, lots of female dentists. I’m not saying guys can’t bitch, but you.

[00:45:54] Know, we’ve all worked in practices where that’s been the situation, right? I mean, you’ve never worked in a dental practice, but you’ve owned a few and intense practice. Sometimes you get this massive split where you’ve got two powerful women on either side of this split, and I’ve noticed it only worked in four practices, but like three of them, there was a situation going on. You’re absolutely right about that. Yeah. So you still you still no bitchiness from the outset?

[00:46:24] Well, I said to them, you know, and if there’s a problem, just call them in and get it over with.

[00:46:30] I’m not letting it fester.

[00:46:32] You know. So I know that.

[00:46:34] Style of leadership.

[00:46:36] If you can call it that, isn’t going to be for everyone. But I think hopefully it works. What can I say? We’re only a few years in. I’ll let you know in a decade how it’s gone.

[00:46:47] Who’s the good cop and who’s the bad cop?

[00:46:51] I’m the good.

[00:46:51] Cop until someone pushes me too far.

[00:46:53] And then maybe about once every six months, I get crossed.

[00:46:58] Did you have a word with Alex?

[00:47:00] Yeah, probably.

[00:47:02] Send in Special.

[00:47:03] Ops. Yeah, I mean, we’ve.

[00:47:08] Got a great team here, so hopefully that will continue to expand as we as we expand the practice.

[00:47:16] So we’ll talk about expansion plans and the future in a bit. But now I want to move on to the dark. Aside. Tell me about errors. Decision mistakes. Things you should have done. You didn’t do things you should’ve done sooner. Things you know, clinical mistakes as well. I’d love to hear about clinical errors. Someone who said at the end of the day, the trajectory of your your career has been quite, quite a steep trajectory. You know, you’re young. You must have made some mistakes along the way.

[00:47:48] Yeah. I mean, I think mistakes with patients.

[00:47:53] Happen.

[00:47:53] They happen to everyone is how they’re handled. I wouldn’t ever try and cover over a mistake. I think honesty goes a long way with patients and if things do go wrong, you.

[00:48:04] Know.

[00:48:05] Fess up to it and try your best to put it right. If you can’t put it right, then send them to someone who can. You know, I don’t see that things can be swept under the carpet, you know, and.

[00:48:15] It sort of.

[00:48:16] Alludes to what we just saying about staff management. You know, the style of my dentistry communication with patients may not be for everyone. Bizarrely, although I don’t think I’m a very empathetic person, I seem to have a lot of anxious patients because I say, Oh, you better get in the chair, you know, which.

[00:48:30] Somehow people seem to like when they’re nervous.

[00:48:33] That’s why. So I think for me, it’s, it’s you try your best to, to not have errors. If errors do happen, then then you’re upfront about them. I think with the business.

[00:48:46] I do, you know, why do you not want to discuss the actual errors?

[00:48:50] I think a few, I guess ones I can think of a kind of more the prostate context side of safer large cases. It’s marring that expectation with the patient. You know, they come in and their mouth looks a mess. You get something that you might think looks great in there, you know, a full arch rehabilitation, you know, all on for this case as a case, I’m currently on a full upper ceramic remake from scratch because she’s not happy with it, you know.

[00:49:18] So even though you are. Yeah.

[00:49:20] Well, she she was on the train, but she’s changed her mind now. So, you know, it’s it’s frustrating. Yes. Do you want to put it right? Yes. Does that mean that there’s no money in the case? Yes. But equally, I think it’s got to be it’s got to be right. You know, so and maybe that’s a communication thing, you know, that I’m happy that we will get there with that patient where we want to go. And probably by the end of it, she will be one of our biggest fans, you know, and probably will send us more patients after, you know, so it’ll all come back round keeping positive.

[00:49:54] I’m so interested in why. Why is it that you can stay so positive about that? And then you hear other people completely crippled by by complaint. What’s the difference?

[00:50:06] Yeah, I mean. I guess it’s taking a learning point from it isn’t it.

[00:50:11] That. Yeah.

[00:50:13] I think his one take.

[00:50:15] That did your best and you did your best.

[00:50:17] It’s really important isn’t it. You did your best, you know, whatever, whatever. Whether it was a communication breakdown or something else, you did your very best. You didn’t, you didn’t go out to make an error. Right. But some people some people are so crippled by it, crippled by being sued and being, you know, what’s your sort of vaccination to that problem?

[00:50:40] Yeah, isn’t it?

[00:50:42] I’ve always had my family look on the bright side. You know, I think flipping that from this patient has sent me a 20 page email with 15 photographs attached screenshots of the teeth from different angles that she doesn’t quite like the shape of that one canine tip. And now I’m going to have to spend 4 hours fixing it and another massive lab bill. It’s frustrating, you know, but the positive for me and I always look at a positive in a situation is that at least she’s telling me about it so I can at least resolve it. We’ve got communication lines.

[00:51:17] Open.

[00:51:18] And it’s a learning. It’s a learning for me. Off the back of that, we’ve then had a think at the practice. Okay, do we need to show patients more examples of final prosthesis? Prosthesis? Do we need to make sure that they’ve got that understanding? You know, a full arch on implants is not the same as teeth. You know, it’s the best that we can currently get to replace them. But it is not your own teeth. So this is leading to us rethinking our treatment coordinator at work to rethinking some of our consent process, you know, all of these factors. So for me, although there is negatives from a case like that, what can you take that’s positive? And let’s focus on that so that same thing doesn’t happen all over again, or at least you see them coming.

[00:52:05] Funny you should savour. You know, we do a lot, a lot of flashes in our clinic. So we do probably on a bad week. We’ll do four. On a good week we’ll do six. And I’ve been in on conversations with patients that that my business partners have been on. We’ve had a patient come in. Initially happy in the chair with his bridge and send it to a really good lab. Ashley Burns lab and patient comes back and goes, Do you know what? I’ve got all these, like, little shapes and characterisations and it goes it goes a little bit more lighter towards the end of my teeth. Right. So Mack sat there explaining to this patient that these look like real teeth. And what we’ve done is we’ve tried to replicate nature. The chap turns around and says, I want my temperature. Same shade from top to the bottom.

[00:53:05] Near the one completely clear.

[00:53:07] Right. That is what I want. And you know what? Give Ashley credit. Where where is due? We picked up the phone, spoke to Ashley and said, look, this isn’t our fault, but this is a concern that the patients expressed to us. He was happy on the day he’s come back and Ashley said to us, Mack, the use of premium lab and use a premium lab for a reason. We’re going to do this. We’re going to sort this out, and it’s not going to cost you anything and we’ll put it right. And then that gave us the confidence because we said to the patient we were going to put it right anyway, but we thought it’s going to cost us a few grand, right? The great thing was we had the back from the lab and we do a lot of these and it happens from time to time. And going back to, is there anything that you could have done differently?

[00:53:55] Well, funny you talk about that patient almost spot on with this one. It’s the same thing, right? My social media girl has a video of the patient crying with happiness when she first saw her bridge. Three months later, she’s back wanting a remake. So I don’t know what.

[00:54:12] You can do.

[00:54:13] No, I think you just you just got to take a view on it. And my lab techs remaking it with us for free as well.

[00:54:19] So.

[00:54:20] Yeah, so it happens. You know, it happens. And you sit back and you could kick yourself and like you said, maybe we should have shown them more pictures and this, that and the other. I think the outcome would have been the same. You can never predict that. Right. But we have because we’ve got such an extensive portfolio, we show them pictures on pictures, on pictures, on videos and pictures of previous patients. He will have been through exactly the same process. But you know what? Sometimes it’s their friends will say something, their relatives will say something to the then they’ll make a mental note of it. And then they’ll come back and they’ll explain there that even though they were happy. Yes. Sam down the road said, What’s going on with your teeth? I thought you’ve had them done. Maybe they don’t even look like you’ve had them done.

[00:55:09] We said, change. Change your friends, is what I said to someone.

[00:55:12] But apparently that wasn’t funny.

[00:55:15] It’s a feature of cosmetic dentistry that at the end of the day, it’s based on an issue of taste, you know, does the tooth hurt or not? That’s sort of a yes or a no sort of answer sort of thing. Right. Whereas, you know, it’s I think it’s like it’s sort of like cost of business and cosmetics in cosmetic dentistry that you’re going to have the odd patient like that. But I think, as Katie says, the way you handle that super important. But but I’m interested in the way you handle it internally yourself, your own head, where the next person might have thought, I’m not going to do any more of those. Whereas you look like the third person said, well, that happens. Let’s, let’s, let’s do it again. Let’s, let’s, let’s make it better. Let’s keep on going. And you just, you’ve got that practical, pragmatic way of looking at life. Katie It’s very interesting.

[00:55:59] And I don’t know where that comes.

[00:55:59] From.

[00:56:03] Did you say you would grow up on a farm?

[00:56:06] Yeah. We still live on a.

[00:56:07] Farm, so.

[00:56:09] I can see cows out of my bedroom.

[00:56:11] Window every morning. Yeah.

[00:56:14] That has something to do with it. You know, it keeps things real.

[00:56:17] Yeah. You’re not selling eggs anymore, though.

[00:56:20] Not selling eggs? No.

[00:56:21] We just have to raise my mom to get her.

[00:56:23] Out the hatch in the morning if you want eggs for breakfast. But, I mean.

[00:56:29] Like I said to my patients, implants is.

[00:56:31] Just.

[00:56:32] Just. Just like a bit of DIY is just a bit smaller, a bit cleaner and a bit more expensive. So.

[00:56:38] Can you tell me I met some of your associates. Tell me what you look for in an associate. And how. How can you tell if you’re getting that from an associate in the interview process and coming to work for you? And what’s it like working for you rather than working for someone else? Because I imagine, you know, like you were saying, to be surrounded by to have a boss who’s doing implants, that’s a massive advantage for someone who wants to get into implants. Right. So if an associate wants to eventually look at implants, maybe have that option open, it’d be amazing to work at your place right where someone’s doing loads of implants. Well, tell me about the associate story. How do you attract them? How do you keep them? How do you you know, what pisses you off about them, that sort of thing.

[00:57:21] I think I think the short.

[00:57:22] Answer is we’re still learning.

[00:57:24] Like I’ve alluded to in a lot of this. You know, I.

[00:57:26] Don’t pretend to know it all by any stretch. I’d say I’d say what I hope to deliver is a friendly, nurturing environment, enthusiasm and some experience, a willingness to share like people share with us in terms of getting people in and keeping people. I think recruitment is challenging. It’s something I hear from from everyone we speak to. You know, everyone’s really struggling with it. You know, the further you get out of London in the main city centres, I think the harder it gets as well. We are commutable just I’d say that that has been it.

[00:58:04] Wasn’t such a big train journey.

[00:58:05] Yeah. I guess, I guess that the thing for me is it’s, it’s that day in, day out and it’s building the long term, the long term associates into the practice. So recruitment is a challenge. And as to what you can tell if an interview I don’t know, we’ve had some luck. We’ve had we’ve had some some failures with associates even to date. So I think when we’ve got people we’ve been running a private VC equivalent for the last year is we’re aiming for people who are open to learning. You know, I don’t mind if people don’t know it yet. You only know what you don’t know. You don’t know what you don’t know. So I think I think for me, it’s having associates who are open to learning, open to sharing and and enthusiasm. I think the attitude has to be right for any associate. And I would base any interview or any associate more on that willingness to learn or willingness to want to learn from each other, from courses, to expand the attitude.

[00:59:04] Rather than the clinical.

[00:59:07] You know, you pay for them to go on courses sometimes, right.

[00:59:10] Yeah. That’s on our year programme. Yeah. Well I think it’s that thing.

[00:59:15] Of.

[00:59:16] Ideally want people who are going to be part of the practice long term so any courses that they go on will benefit the practice. I think you have to take a view on these things and hope that you build people up, you help them become the dentist that they want to be, and that enthusiasm, that love of dentistry will feed back into the practice and therefore grow the business. So so that’s that’s my aim with it, as I say, whether it will work also in a decade.

[00:59:42] But, you know, we talk to associates all the time, the love.

[00:59:44] And the passion.

[00:59:46] We get. We get associates on many Smile Makeover who are 100% sure that the principal is not going to buy the composite, 100% sure about it. And you think, well, you know, make a case or whatever, and then you get other associates coming and it’s almost like they’ve got carte blanche to buy whatever they want. And then I guess you’ve got your your, your, your higher level one. You actually paid for the courses. It’s rare. It’s rare.

[01:00:11] It’s not I mean, I wouldn’t say we go we go wild. I mean, ask my husband about the budget and he’ll tell me. But I think as long as people can justify.

[01:00:21] As long as people.

[01:00:21] Can justify what they need, why they want it, like you said, make a case for it then. Then we’ll we’ll do it, you know, because like I said, what’s what’s good for the associate, they’ve got a good attitude at work that will shine through. Nobody wants to see a grumpy dentist, nurse and receptionist, do they? I mean, so it’s getting that enthusiasm, enthusiasm, get that flowing through the practice and we hope off the back of that. Yeah.

[01:00:48] We’ll be good.

[01:00:49] Katie, you know, I think people underestimate being a local and what that means, you know, because if I was I think you yourself don’t realise that the way that you talk to your patients is such a natural way of talking to your patients because you know that community inside out, you know the type of people inside out. So, for instance, if I was you and I was hiring someone, then being a local would be for me the biggest the number one most important thing, because you can gauge the patients, you can understand the subtle cues when you’ve grown up in that in that community, whereas some hot shot from London comes there, doesn’t even get when the guy says, Oh, I work on such and such street or farm or whatever, has no idea what that means. Or I went to so-and-so school, has no idea what that means. And the subtle, the subtle, the subtle, the subtleties in communication are very, very local, you know, and we’ve come across this before where people say, Oh, I’ve filled up seven chairs for six weeks ahead and I just don’t know how I did it, you know? And they really don’t know how they did it. But, you know, they’ve taken care of people, but they’ve understood people and they’ve been understood by their patients. What do you think?

[01:02:09] Yeah, I completely agree. And I think that also ties into looking at location of of associates and thinking who is going to commit long term, you know, somebody who’s.

[01:02:20] From our perspective. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:02:23] You know, they may sick. Yes. But my ideal associate is somebody who is, like you said, embedded in the local, not the local local, but the wider community who is settled perhaps once the long term commitment, once those long term connections with patients to build a decent career.

[01:02:44] Do you have a chat with your associates about how much they cost and how much they need to make? Yes.

[01:02:51] Yes.

[01:02:52] Do they understand the numbers?

[01:02:55] Yes. And and that, interestingly, is something that I think isn’t taught at an undergraduate level and should be perhaps. I think dentists come out as self employed associates and have no idea about how to actually work work a business, because essentially they’re a small business within a business. So yes, we try and build a lot of that in we do targets. We do their weekly numbers in terms of NHS private looking at their costs, how do they compare with industry standards and make all of that information freely available to the to the individual so that they have an idea? Because when they’re earning, we’re earning. When they’re happy, we’re happy.

[01:03:36] And then we deal with your implant work when something’s gone wrong. Have you always bounced back from that or did you ever have a moment where you thought I shouldn’t? I’m not going to bother with this anymore because I think that’s how I would react. Know if I’m sure it doesn’t go the way I’m saying, because, you know, you build up you build up the complexity of the case. But it tends to be generally when things go wrong, they go badly wrong. And then I’m sure when you’re starting to put screws in bones, things go wrong more right. I mean, how do you how do you stay strong in that situation and not think, you know, I’ll just I’ll just keep it simpler rather than make it more complicated the way you have?

[01:04:19] Well, I think I aim to work within my expertise. I think you’re talking to Andy Moore on the podcast. He said the same thing. You know, I don’t dislike gayness. I think I’ve seen some. But you’ve got to be doing a decent number of cases in order to keep clinically competent within any part of dentistry. So so the bottom line for me is making sure that you you are happy with what you’re doing, you’re confident with what you’re doing, and sometimes putting your hands up and saying, listen, I can’t meet your expectations. You know, I can think of a case literally. She was ready. She was ready to commit. I thought I could get another surgeon in to help me do this. I go. And after a few consultations over the phone, I just thought, Do you know what? I can’t meet your expectations. You know, it’s not about money. It’s it’s about stress. And I refer to someone else in the end, which I rarely do.

[01:05:15] So what does the future hold for the practice or practices? Okay.

[01:05:21] We had.

[01:05:21] It depends if you’re.

[01:05:22] Asking me or my husband. Hey, I mean.

[01:05:27] I like to have a challenge every year or a figure every year. So. So so far I think we’ve gone sort of, you know, build a house, get married, buy a practice, have a baby covered, have another baby for surgery. Extension is the plan for end of this year. So next year, who knows? I’m building the looking to educational type thing we’ve got our first course loosely scheduled for is scheduled for September with Nova Bike running an in-house course, which would be the first one where we’re aiming to do based on GDP’s restorative dentistry stuff going how they can restore potentially implants stuff. We’re currently doing the rebrand of the practice, the new website and trying to launch maybe a some level of local referral stuff. A second site would be great. I’m keen to go now. I think my husband is the one in the background saying Hold up, let’s get this sorted first.

[01:06:27] So the little voice of reason on my shoulder. So I think this let’s give that give.

[01:06:34] That another year and then and then we’ll do it anyway and he’ll pick up the pieces.

[01:06:41] Katie was saying that she’s up for building something from scratch. Sounds amazing. It’s the right time for it. Katie, I think you should.

[01:06:50] Wow.

[01:06:53] I think you should. Oh, we would imagine. Have you ever been there? It’s a very quaint little place. I was. I was telling her you had put a Robbie Hughes here somewhere. You know, one of those wicked, massive warehouse conversion jobs. And it’s funny because we think Essex, us people don’t know the area very well. You think Essex where it’s all TOWIE and all that, but there’s this big bits of Essex that aren’t like that at all. Yeah. And much more quaint and sort of home counties than Witham is one of those. But I think it must be sort of spreading the TOWIE effect.

[01:07:31] Well, you know, you’re the.

[01:07:33] Whitening guy. So you tell us.

[01:07:35] What area of the UK does the most white teen? Liverpool.

[01:07:38] Liverpool and Manchester.

[01:07:40] Liverpool. All day long.

[01:07:43] Once in a while. The other side, Newcastle and Sunderland. Those areas, those areas that people want white teeth before they want a coat.

[01:07:50] You know. Yeah.

[01:07:56] We saw a lot.

[01:07:56] Of white to that, to Essex. Yeah.

[01:07:59] We see that bright shivering teeth mate.

[01:08:02] You know, the, the toilet toilet seat, white composite. We sell a lot of that up north and almost nothing down south. It’s been a real pleasure to have you.

[01:08:12] The corner of Essex.

[01:08:14] Yeah. You know, your social was quite nice as well, I think. What’s, what’s the page called? It’s not called Blakes yet because of your rebrand. Or is.

[01:08:25] It? It’s not so we’re not yet. Give us about three more weeks. So we’re in Canberra, which nobody can say or spell. But Katy, dentist is my Instagram, so.

[01:08:34] Katie’s just fun to connect through.

[01:08:36] That’s the best way to connect you dentist. Let’s get to the final questions. Let’s start with mine, because yours is more profound. Fancy dinner party, three guests. Dead or alive. Who do you have?

[01:08:53] Well, I’ve been toying with this question for the last week since you asked me, and one was a straight up easy answer, which was Arnold Schwarzenegger. I mean, what an inspirational.

[01:09:07] Guy. Hey.

[01:09:08] He’s come up before. He’s come up.

[01:09:10] Before. I know.

[01:09:13] He was one of mine.

[01:09:14] Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah.

[01:09:16] I mean.

[01:09:17] I think, you know. Yeah. Just. I mean.

[01:09:21] What can you say about him?

[01:09:22] I mean, I think just keep.

[01:09:23] Reinventing yourself with a new, amazing commitment to hard work and vision.

[01:09:27] You know, I think that’s that is easily the guy who you could pick.

[01:09:31] His brains apart. The other one, I’m slightly more random thought I actually had was Beatrix Potter. So the Peter Rabbit author just for her kind of passion and I guess playing a little bit on the kind of.

[01:09:46] Just.

[01:09:46] Because you’re female. She was in a different time. Yes. Are there still constraints to it nowadays? Yes. So I.

[01:09:53] Think.

[01:09:53] Again, it’s drawing on that passion, that ambition that not accepting what the norms of whatever time you’re in, hold you back, do what you want to do.

[01:10:04] She’s a small person, baby.

[01:10:06] David Attenborough.

[01:10:08] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s come up before, so.

[01:10:11] He’s come up before. I just think the danger is that Arnie’s going to eat Beatrix Potter.

[01:10:18] Yeah, I have considered that.

[01:10:22] I imagine she’s a small person. I don’t know why. I don’t know why, but interesting choice.

[01:10:26] I mean.

[01:10:26] I’m not going with maybe I could have three different dinner parties, you know, because I’m not sure that that would be necessarily the most cohesive group.

[01:10:32] Set I have to know.

[01:10:36] Let’s finish with perhaps.

[01:10:38] Yeah, a bit of fun.

[01:10:41] Katie, it’s your it’s your last day on the planet. You’re surrounded by your loved ones, and you need to leave them with three pieces of life advice, stroke, wisdom. What would they.

[01:10:56] Be? Well, I think a.

[01:10:58] Few you’ve already got the vibe of from talking. You know, positivity goes a long way, I think. Be positive, you know.

[01:11:06] Smile, laugh.

[01:11:07] It will get you a long way. Maybe not laughing at people, but, you know, positivity, really?

[01:11:13] Yeah.

[01:11:14] Positivity, I think really does breed positivity. So in any element of life, dentistry, I think keep that going and you can go a long way. And I think taking opportunities, you know, I.

[01:11:26] Think.

[01:11:27] You only regret the things you don’t do. You know, I very much say I’ll be fine and it drives everyone around me up the wall because I’ll just do stuff and then figure it out afterwards. So I think jump in, take the opportunity, seize the day, give it a go. And I guess the last.

[01:11:42] One.

[01:11:44] Maybe just be polite.

[01:11:45] You know.

[01:11:46] Dentistry, I think is a is a small world at the end of it, even outside of dentistry, everybody knows everyone. You know, somehow or another, you know, you don’t get anywhere. But by being.

[01:11:56] Rude, I think I think.

[01:11:59] Be polite, be nice and and the world is nice.

[01:12:01] Back to you on the whole.

[01:12:02] I love that. I love that. Thank you. It’s been a real pleasure. I feel like there’s a there’s a there’s a whole story of Katie Blake that’s going to play out now going forward because you’re so early in your in your you are you’re so early in your career and, you know, you just started. You just started. And so far, so good is all I can say to you. Because, you know, just like.

[01:12:27] I said, thank you.

[01:12:29] We’re going to come back and do this in a decade, as she keeps saying, ask me in a.

[01:12:33] Decade, after two decades, I’ll tell you. So I’ll come back in ten years.

[01:12:37] We’ll come back in ten years and finish the story off.

[01:12:39] Matt.

[01:12:42] It’s been a real pleasure. Katie, thank you so much for doing this.

[01:12:45] Thanks, guys.

[01:12:45] Thank you.

[01:12:46] Katie This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav. Solanki.

[01:13:04] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say. Because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

[01:13:19] If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it, too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks.

[01:13:29] And don’t forget our six star rating.

This week, dentist and entrepreneur Loven Ganeswaran talks to Prav and Payman about his Chairsyde patient communication app. But it’s his impromptu hip-hop performance that really impresses!

Loven talks about the challenges of building teams, raising funds and balancing time between clinical work and running a successful start. Plus, he reveals why his busy schedule will never get in the way of making music.

Enjoy!    

 

In This Episode

01.42 – Chairside and visual learning

16.19 – Purpose, passion and impact

26.47 – Building teams

33.49 – Equity and fundraising

54.03 – Hip-hop, impact and legacy

01.01.17 – Chairside  – pricing and platform

01.16.31 – The working week and sabbaticals

01.21.32 – Impact and performance

01.36.24 – Last days and legacy

01.39.43 – Fantasy dinner party

 

About Loven Ganeswaran

Loven Ganeswaran graduated from King’s College London in 2005 and went on to general practice in Oxford before becoming a partner and principal at Ascot-based Sunninghill   Dental Practice.

He is the founder and CEO of Chairsyde, an interactive patient communication app designed to help mitigate risk and boost case acceptance by explaining using simple, visual treatment explanations. 

[00:00:00] Impacts obviously important to you.

[00:00:03] If I can take impact and dive deep into that word. For me, it’s contribution to society or contribution to a community or contribution or play my role. Play my role in this world. Really? And what have I contributed to? If you know, at the end of the day, like, what were you part of? Everybody needs someone to stack the shelves as you need for society to run. Unless a computer or a machine is going to do it. Someone needs to do it. Someone needs to. You will always need nurses. You’ll always need people to contribute their role in society, and you can find passion and purpose in any of those roles.

[00:00:43] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:01:01] It’s my great pleasure to welcome the love of Janice Warren onto the podcast website onto the podcast. Love is a partner at Sunninghill Dental. I’ve known him for a while since he started his enlightened journey years ago, but also one of the founders of Cheer Side, which is a cheer side sort of tool to explain different treatment options to patients. And he’s going through the whole founder experience at a tech company now. Let me have you, buddy. How are you doing?

[00:01:32] Oh, I’m really well. Thanks, Payman. Thanks, Prav. It’s actually super exciting. I’ve never been invited to a podcast before, so I’ve been super pumped to do this and really grateful for the opportunity.

[00:01:42] Well, you know, you said you listen to this podcast, and so we usually we start with childhood and all that, but I want to kind of take it in a different direction this time, if that’s okay with you or I want to start with the latest thing you’re doing with chair side and.

[00:01:57] Okay, cool. Yeah.

[00:01:59] Let’s start with when did that come into your head as a direction you might be going into and why? Why?

[00:02:07] That’s a really interesting, really good question. Why? Okay. I was four years into my into clinical dentistry post-grad and I found I was also an PhD trainer at the time and I found that I was having these consistent problems that were coming through that I was experiencing. There were shared experiences with, with, with the PhDs. And it stems it all stemmed down to communication. It really all just stem down to communication. It was like a lot of the the PhDs were like kind of kind of afraid of this litigious space that was emerging. And there was a lot of fear being placed, you know, upon graduation or, you know, you need to do things a certain way. And I find that the main focus at that point is also on clinical dentistry, and communication sometimes takes a bit of a backseat. So for me, I’m a visual learner. I always have been. I’ve been, you know, when I was even at uni or even it’s actually a levels of drawing mind maps my whole, whole life. And I learned things visually. So I spent so many hours, so many hours with patients, one after the other, just drawing out teeth. And I’m a terrible artist at the same time, so I’m drawing our teeth, highlighting what an abscess is that it did it. It did it. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

[00:03:23] So there has to be a better way of doing this. And, you know, I thought there has to be more of a systemic way I can explain every single thing that I want to in dentistry, condition wise, pathologically or what not visually, and also showed them their treatment options and also show patients the risks in a standardised, transparent way where people can understand and really looking deeper into it, we found out that 65% of patients are visual learners, right? And so you had 100% of our consultations available. So that kind of really hit, hit home. But it was at that point that I was, I was just I think that was almost the beginning of a feeling that I want to do something visually, that that can explain conditions. But then I spoke to my best mate, who’s also the co-founder of Chair Side Kiri, and circling back, we decided to do a trip to Sri Lanka where we contacted a ton of dental companies and ask for filling materials, sterilisation packs. I would probably say instruments as well to some degree because we borrowed some from the practice and then we, we put it all in suitcase, put it in a backpack, and we went up to the northern northeast of Sri Lanka where we went to some orphanages. And in those orphanages, you know, care. And I thought, let’s do a bit of dental treatment.

[00:04:38] Let’s go and go and go and see these kids and see if we can help them. And there’s about 120 kids in this fast orphanage that we went to, and I sat with them and carried one of the most humble individuals I’ve had the pleasure to be surrounded by. You know, he was he’s not a dentist. He’s in tech. But he he was he was the guy who was holding the light from a torch through a torch while while we were treating these these kids. We were doing check-ups on these kids. And I thought, you know, the feeling that I got from that that we got from that was incredible. We had kids who were subject to war to tsunami, queuing up to have dental treatment in this little dental practice that we almost borrowed for for a day, once we’d done the triaging in the orphanages to go and actually do the treatment in the clinic. And we and then when when the community found out about it, they’d queue up round the corner and there was these kids and one of them came on a bike and his mate was riding the bike and he was on the back of the bike and he didn’t have one arm and one leg and he had on the other side he had one arm and one leg because apparently when when one of the bombs dropped, he didn’t quite make it into the bunker.

[00:05:45] Half his body was left out, half his body was in. And he came in with these I mean, it was crazy. And so this gave me this incredible perspective on. My fortunate position in life and largely because I was born in Sri Lanka and my parents were subject to a lot of what was going on at the time. And if it wasn’t for the fact that my father was offered to do a PhD in Scotland in a university in Stirling, I wouldn’t have moved to England, Scotland at the time anyway at the age of sort of eight months. And it was that split second decision that could have actually my life could have ended up being one of those kids that we’re treating in this orphanage. Right. Who knows? So I’m in this position now where I’m trying to do dental treatment, and I think I’m coming back thinking, yeah, I’ve done some charity work. Awesome. I feel great. But actually I didn’t it didn’t feel like that was that I did anything sustainable there. You know, I went in, I thought, you know, this is not something I can go into and do every six months. But it was one of the best feelings I got. Now, one thing that came as a by-product of what we did on that trip, and we did go again and again.

[00:06:48] But on that trip was we taught these kids off the cuff. It was a five minute thing which we wrote. We taught these kids a song, and we used visuals on how they how to brush their teeth. So it’s like in the Tamil language, it’s like, go to the left, go to the right, up, down, up, down. And these are kids who didn’t have toothbrushes. There’s like the most northern east village in Sri Lanka. They were using all the sort of anything they could get hold of. Really. These are kids who didn’t actually know the techniques of oral hygiene or the importance of the fact that you should do it twice a day. So we taught them the song and then we left and came back three years later. Actually, two years later, actually, we came back and it was incredible. The entire everybody who was there could sing the song in an assembly off by heart. And not only that, but the new kids that were coming through could also sing this song. And it almost became like a nursery rhyme about how to brush their teeth and if something as simple as that. And I was like, wow, no, hang on a second. This is impact like the dental treatment I did two years ago. That’s fleeting to some degree, right? But this is genuine impact.

[00:07:53] And at that moment, something hit me which is like, wow, this feeling is incredible. And then to know that then a year later, Kyrie went back, same sort of thing. That song is going, that song is that’s something that’s going to pass down. So then I came back to the UK and at that point this was now sort of like the year before we started share side. I looked at the UK and I found one was like 180 kids having their teeth removed under general anaesthetic in this country every day. And why? Fundamentally, it’s because of a lack of knowledge on the parents part and there’s obviously various other socioeconomic issues around that, but it is something that can be largely preventable. Caries is a preventable disease, right. Looking deeper into it, 94% of this population suffer from some form of the spectrum of gum disease, the spectrum, and then like 45% from chronic gum disease, which is, again, a preventable disease. But more importantly, I mean, if you look at the systemic impacts of gum disease or what we can find from gum disease on the rest of the body, Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular disease, I’m sure a periodontist would be much better at explaining this than then. I but, you know, we know the we know the systemic impacts, but these are all preventable conditions. So why why are we in a system where prevention is still not quite making it work in day to day practice? And I kept that kept lingering in my mind, going a few steps further.

[00:09:17] You know, Raj, I think Raj Rajaratnam had released an article and this it may have been before that it was it was a point where 90% of dentists were afraid of being sued. And these PhDs that were coming through sort of in the latter latter parts of of of my PhD training, you know, that fear was very much a real thing. And and I personally and all my colleagues, the associates were all feeling that. So why are we feeling that? And again, the running theme throughout patient health and throughout dentists satisfaction and happiness in the workplace all came down to poor communication or great communication. That was just the communication was a fundamental thing. Right? And then something just the penny just dropped for me at that point where it was like, I really am struggling with this whole explaining things and I find that patients eyes light up when I do it visually through drawing. It’s not a scalable solution for me on a daily basis to keep drawing pictures, right? At the same time, communication is not clear, but patients are appreciating, appreciating the visuals. How can we fix that and keep dentists safe at the same time? And that’s when the vision for our side kind of developed.

[00:10:24] And it developed through the core concept of we want to make it easier and safer for dentists to communicate effectively so patients can make better decisions about their health. And that is the fundamental drive for and culture and chess that is built on that as a foundation. Our values are aligned fully on that team. Everyone’s built with the view that we want to make it easier and safer for dentists to communicate effectively so patients can make better decisions about their health. So we’re fully empathetic on why is it that communication is such a problem in communicating better health to patients from the dentist part and being a practitioner, I feel like I have this inside experience on a daily basis as to the time constraints, the pressures, the stresses, the decisions and numerous decisions we have to make, the decision fatigue that we have as we go patients in the morning. You know, you probably, probably have a different view when you’re treating patients in the evening and late, late at night. It’s like we’re human beings at the end of the day and then adding extra elements to the workflow. I mean, how can we be compassionate about that to some degree when dentists already have so much going on? So all of these problems lingering, like, how can we build a great team to solve this? And so first and foremost, it was Cory and I with a PowerPoint presentation going around the houses, really trying to trying to get some kind of buy in from to build a prototype, really.

[00:11:49] And I remember we did a presentation with our accountants, sort of friends and family sort of network. There was about 20 of them in the room. And we did this sort of PowerPoint presentation of what we how we felt we could impact patient communication for the better. And, you know, we got zero sort of zero kind of movement on that. But what we did get was a lot of if you can build something and show us what it could look like, we’ll consider it. So Kyrie and I, we put sort of we were working at the time and I’m I was I was sort of four and a half clinical days at that time. Remember, we went five, we went to four and a half. I found around four and a half to be a nice spot for me when I was fully focussed on clinical and I use that time, that money, that income to facilitate on a monthly basis the ability and any savings to build prototypes and really understand what it is, the content, the animations, everything for gum disease for a fair few conditions and what that journey looks like. So we could explain that to investors.

[00:12:52] But more importantly, we then changed our stance a bit because we thought we don’t really want to explain this to investors. And that was something that was really powerful for me because that moment it became, we want to make this we want to explain this to patients and dentists. We want patients and dentists to love this. How can we build a prototype that the patients and dentists could love because everything else comes as a result of that, right? How can we impact patients? How can make life easier for dentists? So we continued on that journey. We built a user experience and and things were progressing on a on a side. I going to call it a side hustle called our side hustle, but on evenings and weekends and and really intense at that point. Then once we built our first prototype, we put it in. Chess originally was a screen in the dental chair, on the dental chair that patients could just watch and dentists could actually use use the tools. It was almost like a little, little proof of concept. At that point, we took the proof of concept back to the lead to the to the lead investor. And he was the first person to invest. And it wasn’t a huge amount, but he invested. He was very generous. He was very trusting. And we owe him a lot to this day. And at that point.

[00:14:07] He was he was he was he friend and family?

[00:14:09] Yeah. Well, he interestingly enough, he came on the the off the trip to Sri Lanka to three years before I was the one who helped coordinate the trip. And he experienced the journey that we experienced on those trips. So when we came back, we went to him and said, Hey, look, we’ve got this, we’ve got this idea. We think we can transform patient communication. We want to make an impact. We think this can impact if we think this can change the way dentists and patients interact. And it was at that point that we we secured that investment. And then things went from strength to strength at that point, because we were allowed to then turn that prototype, that proof of concept into a real tangible prototype that could be used by a fair few dentists. Right. And yeah, so so that’s how it kind of started. And it just went on from there. And we were able then to get two or three dentists on board to use the platform, bearing in mind we were very hardware based at the time because we had this tablet screen on the dental chair playing and dental animations that dentists could touch interactively. And the UI was horrible, the experience was terrible, but it did serve the purpose.

[00:15:14] It was almost like it played animations, but the biggest impact was patience. And I still remember one of the first few patients that that came across. It was this autistic child that I had really struggled to to get to sit in the chair. But the minute I put him in this chair and I had these visuals, he almost got drawn to them. And he sat back and I and I was and I was able to actually do a physical check-up on him. And the mom actually wrote me one of the most loveliest testimonials. She said to me, You know, this child has struggled to come and sit in a chair. He had really severe autism. So to actually concentrate allow you to to to carry out what you want to carry out. However, the minute you were able to switch on these visuals and show this patient exactly what you’re doing, but more importantly, engage with him and give him something to look at, he was a lot more cooperative, let alone the positive impact that the visual could have on his understanding of what we were trying to do. And it was at that point I thought, we’re definitely on to something here. Like the hassles, you know, you.

[00:16:19] I love the way you sort of extrapolate stuff from, you know, your experiences, you know, because it’s beautiful. It kind of gives meaning to your work, meaning to everything that you do because, you know, the next guy could have said, you know, I wanted to start a company and wanted something to help dentists make more money. And there it is, you know. But you started off with the orphanage and the the story has a lot more meaning to you than just doing a business. Is that because you’re a charming storyteller, or is that is that does your brain work in that in that way, that what you do has to have meaning? And, you know, like, I feel for it. It’s almost it’s almost like, I don’t know, talk to Simon about Parlour and he’s there’s there’s like a mission focus the mission to save the planet. That’s why he’s he’s got that thing. And I find difficulty. If you talk to me about my toothpaste, I’ll say I’ll tell you it’s the best toothpaste in the world. Right. I try you know, it’s the best. I haven’t got some stories to tell you about that or or, you know, how the best toothpaste in the world might change the world or and I guess we’re all wired differently. But but this. What about you? I mean, what is it? Is it is it that you’ve got this sort of mission that you want to get through?

[00:17:40] I think I mean, one of my core values personally is that I want to live my life with purpose and passion, and I want to only do things that I’m passionate about fundamentally because, you know, I want to wake up every morning and just really get excited about what I’m doing and the ability to create, the ability to impact people’s health and be in health care. And it might sound fleeting. I’m not sure it might sound something we might take for granted, but we’re actually involved in impacting people’s health, which I think is like firsthand incredible. But then to to be able to create and build something with people using ideas that we all have, using our brains, problem solving, thinking from using different methods of thinking, using different mental models. You know, it’s it’s also learning something new, like, you know, like building a business and all of that. It leads. It is almost like one of those challenges that you just fall in love with. And for me, I, you know, I’m very, very passionate about impacting if it can really impact people. And in in my case, people’s health, you know, that would have been a purpose worth or an a mission worth worth pursuing through my life. Right. So I find that incredibly rewarding. I mean, that gives me job satisfaction. I’ve always felt actually with my patients, if I’d be fair to you. I don’t like the word play, but the term here is play the long game and maybe not the word game either, but the two fundamental ways they play the long game and play the long game, in a way I think was Raji told me that Saroj Rajaratnam said he was an incredible comment because what it means, what he said is, look after your patience over the long term and expect nothing.

[00:19:31] Do the best by them over a period of time and expect nothing. And the value comes with time. And I’ve been in the same practice my whole life. I was in Fiji then I stayed there and became a partner there and I’ve seen that journey with patience and to be in a position where actually patients come back. Now that I’m only there two days a week, it’s like, oh, like, you know, it’s probably more stressful trying to squeeze everyone in, to be honest with you. But that’s what happens when you’re in a practice for a period of time, especially given the current climate where it’s hard to get into dentists. And I think that I’ve been rewarded with that feeling largely because I like to feel like I’ve always put patient’s best interests first, not expected anything as a transactional relationship at any point, but if they found value in what I did, they’d be interested in what else I could do for them as well over time. And yeah, that all stems kind of from from just being I guess, I guess just just being passionate about what you and having a purpose, having a real sense of mission. It makes you honestly feel. I honestly feel like I can’t wake up in the morning and be excited about something if I don’t have that. And I’ve been in jobs during my childhood, like during my my teens, where I’ve felt like I can’t do this, I can’t do this for the rest of my life. Like and so maybe that’s also.

[00:20:50] Just just going back to the piece where you developed a piece of software. You weren’t looking for money because you’ve got this purpose and you believe in this in this project, and you’re going to impact all these patients through education and helping them understand it and then become more compliant, shall we say. And just I think you referred to the whole game. Game, you don’t like the word game, but but the.

[00:21:14] Whole you know.

[00:21:15] Of educate. And I think communication is the key word that I think is the key to success of any practice, whether we’re talking about business, whether we’re talking about having patients happy dentists or happy team members, communication is key. But how do you go from that piece of saying, right, we’ve got this idea that I want to communicate and I’m going to produce this thing, this piece of software on a tablet. Yeah, that’s engineering. It’s software development is writing code and then the whole money raising piece. And then just take me back to when you go to someone and say, give us some money for this project. Surely there’s a whole conversation that happens about equity or how you get your money back and all the rest of it. And would you like to give us some insight into that?

[00:22:01] Absolutely. So when Chair said when we talk about the hardware, the software, I think one of the biggest things we did, you know, you make decisions and with a view of what this vision could be and you pivot so much as you learn from the feedback. And when it was a hardware based solution, you know, we actually had a manufacturing line in China and we had to and we’ve got a pattern for it in the UK as well, for this piece of hardware that sits on a dental chair, you know, where you can always Netflix and fill to some degree, you know, but you can also learn a lot about what you want to what you want, want to understand. And I think we’ve learned some lessons through that journey and also through the software development journey, because what we’ve actually done is I’ve been very privileged to be able to have to connect with people who are experts in their field in that space. And that for me was the secret. It was to find the best minds who have either done it or who are doing it. And in dentistry, the only thing I can compare it to is having mentors and and really tapping into that and seeing if you can learn from their experiences and if they’re happy to share those with you. There’s you know, you can really you can do anything you want if you’ve got advisors in the necessary space. So let me put it this way. In the software side, one of my cousins and again, I feel life is really interesting because things just align.

[00:23:25] But my cousin who who came to this came here when he’s 24 from Sri Lanka, lived with us for five years. He’s older than me, but he owns a software house. Well, that he built himself then. It was my grandma’s funeral, sadly. And I met and we we got the flight down to Sri Lanka and he was I was talking to about what we’re doing share side. La la la la la la. And he’s like, let me build you a team, a tech team. And the more I got into it, he’s like, I would love to be part of this. Like, this sounds like something worth pursuing and to the point where he sort of separated himself from his his software house. And he then came in, came on board as what we call the CTO and really built an in-house tech team from the ground up, all the processes, all the things that need to be done, the systems. I’m very much we’re all very much orientated on people’s systems and processes. So really getting all of that right aligned with the vision. And if we can, if you can hire talented people and you understand for me understanding a clear vision and a clear sense of purpose and having a strong set of values. I have a 65 page blueprint about chess that I wrote just, just on our culture, which for me was important for me because it allows us to to employ, to recruit way.

[00:24:48] But you can’t we can’t we can’t continue we can’t go forward without discussing that again. Go on. 65 pages.

[00:24:57] 65 pages. A lot of it’s probably waffle, to be honest.

[00:24:59] No, no.

[00:25:00] But it’s it’s almost like a journal of thoughts of of everything from vision, from our vision, from our mission, from this thing called the hedgehog concept, which I find really fascinating, which is what you’re passionate about, what your world class are and what your and what your economic engine is. And it’s a Venn diagram and where you sit in that as a business. And for me, it was like what we’re passionate about, we’re passionate about helping dentists and impacting patient health for the better patient understanding because we’re trying to get specific as possible. And then what are we while class that we’re going to be. Well, class building innovation that can transform patient communication for dentists. And what’s the economic engine? Well, we have to build a business model around that, sort of like it’s a SAS product at the minute, but there are other various elements that come into that. So that’s one big major part of like that. There’s a huge element as well of leadership, what leadership looks like, what level five leadership looks like, what it is to act with humility but also professional will, you know, but also inspire and empower as we grow. So there’s sort of a chart on that. And then and then as you go past level five leadership, there’s a partner and like who we hire and what that looks like and what the values of the company are.

[00:26:22] To who is that and who is that.

[00:26:25] Like? So fundamentally, people who are highly disciplined and highly passionate about the purpose, heart, strong work ethic. And integrity. These are some core things that are non-negotiable when it comes to our side. I’m a true believer in consistency and discipline over time.

[00:26:47] How many people have you got now?

[00:26:49] We’ve got a team of developers, animators and a business team, so we’ve got three elements of cheer side. We just recruited a new someone in marketing, which is like, I’m just trying to count. So we’ve got six, six, seven, eight, about 15, six, six, 15 to 15 and we’re still recruiting two more. So. I’m about 17 now. But we’ve we’ve got a long way to go. It’s just. I mean, it’s just a beginning. But, I mean, we’ve also learned our lesson. So we’ve got to know who we want to hire, how we want to hire, and what those those people look like because they all have a stake and they will have skin in the game. And skin in the game is a really important thing, a concept to me, because everyone has to have if the chessboard has to be their company, it has to be their company. They’ve got to feel it, believe it. So they have equity. They will have shares, all options. When you do that, you have a long term relationship. And when you when you have long term, when you make long term decisions with long term people, you end up making really good. You have to make sure those people are the right people right. And you never get it. I mean, it’s hard to get it spot on every time, but one way of filtering it is not based on just talent. It’s also based on personality. It’s also based on those values that we uphold. And the extension of of who we are is the leadership team. But also, when I talk about the leadership team, as soon as having a democratic way of way of working, there’s so many different cultures out there like freedom and responsibility and all of this. Right? But I found that I would love to have a team that’s freedom and responsibility, but it’s so hard. It’s so hard. And so it doesn’t come without its challenges.

[00:28:28] I’ve got a few questions that stem from all of that, what you’ve just said. And I’m just I’m just going to be sort of sort of, first of all, drill down into I’ve recruited hundreds of people over the year, and I feel like I’ve got the process nailed down. And when I finally do think I’ve got the process nailed out, I hire someone in a serial right point. In case that happened to be a senior senior web developer that I ended up hiring, technically, even my current senior developer will tell me like gifted beyond gifted, right? These guys, this guy was right in ERP systems for banks and stuff. Amazing. Passed all of our tests came aboard long story short fired him. He’s not he’s not been with us long. Payman knows when I hired him didn’t last very long. And it was a values based thing. Right. You talked about you like to hire people of integrity, values, this, that and the other. How on earth do you test for them? Because until this is in my in my limited experience. But until they’re in your business, until they’re communicating with your team, until they’re attending discussions where perhaps they disagree with team members or disagree with you as a leader. Right. And that’s and that’s all. Okay. Is how they respond. You can’t test any of that. Right. So a lot of the time I get it right. There are times even now after being in business for 16 years, I can’t do it all up. So how do you test for integrity and how do you test the things like values and all of that? And then I’ve got a second question after that, which stems down to slicing up your equity and all that razzmatazz, because I’m curious about that more than anything else. But let’s let’s just stick to recruitment for now. How do you test.

[00:30:20] For okay, so deep seated values are something that you learn over time. And I don’t think it’s something you can test in in a in an interview. I don’t think it’s something that is fair to test in an interview almost and based. It’s almost like judging a book by its cover. But there are definitely questions you can ask based on experiences of how people have performed.

[00:30:43] Go and do. Tell me, tell me. Have you hired some good people?

[00:30:46] One example actually that worked really well for us is we have a policy that we actually when we do one interview, then we all go out for lunch on a separate interview and a second interview where it’s a lot more formal and you learn a lot from that relaxed environment. In fact, there was one guy that we thought was incredible and he was on paper and he interviewed really well. Actually, interestingly, when it came to the conversations over lunch, it was almost like, I hate to say it, but it was almost like the examples he gave from his experiences with his last company. Like everyone else was really bad at what they did and he was a maverick at what he did. And it almost you started to realise that actually, you know, these, it’s these little things. And I think I think I’m very again fortunate to have co-founders who are quite good at also reading people and also good at recruiting alongside. I mean I personally have as part of the dental practice, obviously recruited nurses and and dentist and whatnot in the past. But then, Sanjay, he’s been recruiting developers for four years. Kyrie, he’s been in in recruitment in the the banking and tech space as well with experience. And also we have an advisor for recruitment. So with all of that in place and with our core fundamental things that we look for, we’re fortunate to have sort of four I would say I’m not going to say four, eight years and eight eyes from four people that can all input into what what they’re noticing from, from the behaviours and the conversations that these, that these potential employees have that fit in line with the culture of chair side. And it’s probably sense and I think it might sound soft, but I think it’s more of a feeling and based on how and what and how and what people act in, how they act in certain circumstances and when posed with certain questions and more than what what actually how they actually respond.

[00:32:40] I think that’s a very good point, man. I think that’s a very good point to have to have some relaxed time with the potential candidate. That’s a buddy. Excellent idea.

[00:32:50] Excellent. I mean, how high is low? Five, how fast if hopefully you don’t have to fire fast. Right. But hiring slow is part of that process. And in fairness, we came across that accidentally because I think when we with one of the candidates, we actually, you know, just coincidentally ended up going for lunch early doors. And then we learned a lot from that lunch.

[00:33:11] We learned from that.

[00:33:11] And we learned so much also afterwards because because it was a case of like, oh, we went, you know, went to went to the bar to play pool afterwards, all of that. And then when the guards down, you get to understand if they’re the right cultural fit and especially with some of the, the experience based questions that come. And I think, I think over time you try and build a kind of understanding, but we’re still learning. I’m always learning. I’m not the best at that at all. You just have to try and minimise the mistakes and reduce the number of mistakes you make.

[00:33:41] It’s an amazing stuff, buddy. It’s amazing stuff. Tell us. Tell us. Let’s go back. Let’s go back. Childhood before and why people go, hey.

[00:33:49] Before we do that, let’s finish off the question about the equity. The staff get in, check all that because I’m really, really curious. So we started off we started off the conversation about like you go in for to raise money. And, you know, it’s interesting how different businesses approach this. And I always find it really interesting that, you know, you’ve got this business and on day one, you’ve got a tablet and you’ve got some animations, and then you show someone a prototype and you say, give us some money. And in exchange for that, there’s going to be some kind of exchange. Usually it’s equity talk to. I don’t know how comfortable you feel sharing the numbers, but just talk to me, if not just about the thought process of you’ve got a company that’s not generating any revenue right now. It’s an idea. It’s something you’re passionate about, and you’ve got a prototype and you go to an investor, be it a friend, family member, or someone you went on a trip with and say, Give us some dough and we’ll give you this in exchange. Talk me through that. Did you did you do it like a valuation in your head or a future valuation? Just take me to those conversations, mate.

[00:35:02] So, so, absolutely. So just as a guiding principle, you need if your business there’s two types of businesses in my mind, there’s a cashflow, a solid cash flow business. You could call it bricks and mortar to some degree. Nowadays, it doesn’t even have to be bricks and mortar, but it is fundamentally a a revenue based business. And then there’s another business where you can add value through scale. Right. And that value doesn’t necessarily mean commercial value from sales. It could come in various, various means. But you’re building the value of the business because of the number of people you are impacting per se. Right. So when you exit business, I guess my understanding is that you can exit a business based on a multiple of EBITDA of a of a cash flow because you’re selling the future cash flow or you’re fundamentally selling the values that generated the uses or not. When I say uses, you’re selling the fact that, you know, you’ve got a concept that people love and they’re willing to pay for or someone’s willing to pay for somehow. Right. And interestingly, I have actually coming back to just on that exit point share side is actually like we’re building a business for life. Like it’s not actually something that we’re looking for like a, you know, most start-ups are going to have an immediate five year runway with an exit or whatnot. We don’t actually have that. We want to build a business that will last. And through that journey, what happens? What happens? Well, you know, something happens along that journey. Great. But so going back to that with knowing the end in having the end in mind and knowing how we want what our North Star is and knowing that we want to build a business that will last, we know that having people on the journey, this isn’t going to be something that is going to be a quick overnight thing.

[00:36:43] So we have to build. We have to have significant investment. It’s not something that we can to achieve to realise the vision of impacting patients around the world through visual communication. That’s not something we can do, you know, door to door sales. Right. And hope for every transactional cost. Also, one critical part here is that we’re Chesnut is a product that’s not replacing an existing product in a workflow, if that makes sense. We’re not the new. So that replaces the current SUV. That’s not what we are. We are an additional option in a in a climate where patients demand to know or wish to know more and dentists are at the risk of litigation. So we’ve come to a point where we’ve created a solution to help mitigate risk but also empower patient understanding. Therefore, that solution is a culture change, and that culture change comes with its own challenges. I can’t promote chair side or the team can’t promote chair side as Oh, we’re the new so common users, we’re PMS. We have to almost explain what it is we’re trying to do. We are we are a patient community onwards for so long we’ll are we a patient communication platform? Are we a patient education platform? What sounds what sounds sexy? What doesn’t like what is our reality? And so actually getting the words because we are not replacing an existing software or an existing part of that journey, you could argue we’re replacing flip charts, you know, where you had those pictures of teeth.

[00:38:10] So all of that requires investment. So to get that investment, you need to somehow a firm, in my opinion, really have a purpose that is worth pursuing, that is has a tangible business model around it and has a tangible market that is willing to be impacted by it. So when you raise money and you value your business, there’s this thing called the total addressable market. Where how big is this market? Look, you can’t raise, you know, £1,000,000 if you can’t value a company £1,000,000 if your market there’s only sort of ten people willing to spend £100 in that market. Right. It’s just not going to happen. But if you’ve got a market like dentistry where there’s one point you know, 1.2 million odd dentists around the world, this is call it 42,000 dentists in the UK. You know, maybe there’s an opportunity where you can build a product to target a specific niche within that domain and therefore you can then in in my understanding, you have a fair assessment of how many people you think you can impact over what time early doors investors get a more favourable share and you value the company according to your total addressable market, according to your potential economic model and the various impact in revenue streams you can generate from that, right.

[00:39:27] Yeah, but what did you tell, what did you tell the investor that came down to in pounds and pence and percentages.

[00:39:33] Pounds and pence. I would I think.

[00:39:36] If you honestly don’t want to talk about that’s.

[00:39:39] No we can I think at the beginning it’s fair to say there is also this incentive called this by the way. Yeah. Where you know early doors investors get.

[00:39:52] What’s a.

[00:39:53] It’s it’s seed investment entrepreneur seed investment entrepreneur scheme. I can’t remember what it’s called, I think. I can’t remember what the the. So the idea is it’s.

[00:40:07] An investment enterprise scheme, but the same sort of seed. So it’s a it’s a it’s a good tax break for anyone who is wanting to invest. So there’s there’s a tax benefit from that. And it allows you to go out to mass market and I guess give a percentage of your company.

[00:40:25] Up.

[00:40:25] To a pool of investors who you choose to invest. You invest in your company under that enterprise scheme, if I understand that correctly.

[00:40:34] Correct. I mean, I guess what it is, is, you know, high risk individuals are able to invest in businesses that are non bricks and mortar, that are not, for example, property and stuff like that, and put money in and have a potential tax relief on that investment. Right.

[00:40:53] Quick question on that. So did you set up an SES as an investment platform for chair sites or was that correct? Was that your original strategy before you approached your number one investor or did that person bypass that and get into the equity early doors?

[00:41:11] That investor was already savvy on that. And it was it was it was our accountant’s advice. And by counting, our accountant was the first investor here. So his advice, well, it’s the other way round. He’s the first investor and then became our accountant. Right. So he was like, look, we can raise this off ses the da da da da da. In fact, you know, here we go. Here’s some, here’s some funding. Let me go with it. Let’s go with it. And we were like, okay, really, it’s a case of how much equity would you like to have in exchange for the amount that you’re putting in? And we believe that this is how much we feel we can let go of to make it interesting for you, but also scalable for us as we go through this journey. Because, you know, you can’t give away 50% of the company on day one for a very small investment that if you’re raising big money later on, you know, you could get diluted quite heavily. Right.

[00:42:05] So and then and then go on going forward, when you get like a rock star, sort of you go higher that you want to hire. What ends up being the the ownership part, the do you are you following the usual thing that tech companies do with share options and all that for people?

[00:42:23] Absolutely. Like every every every we we mean the ethos that aside is that everyone’s part of the journey and wherever we go, however we get there, when we get there, we will get there. Everybody wins. That’s the idea. And if you’re a rock star, you win to just as much as if you’re not a rock star and you just contributed in a different way in your own. And that’s why hiring is really important for us. But then they’re all part of an option pool that is safeguarded that they can access as part of the agreement within chance.

[00:42:52] So back back to that original piece where what percentage did you hive up and say, we’re going to give that to SAS and as owners we’re going to hold onto the rest. Where where was that comfort point for you?

[00:43:06] I think a good question for me. I think early days, we wouldn’t want to give away any more at that point then I don’t think anyone would would want to give more than I think incubators generally give away about 7%.

[00:43:20] Okay.

[00:43:22] So the market there is a market average kind of thing, but each industry is also different, right? Like if you’re going to build, if you if you’re going to if you’re going to need to start off, if you need seed investment of like 10 million because you’re building like something that can enter your brain and you need R&D like research grants to be able to actually embed a chip in your brain. The R&D itself will cost about five mil. Right? And you can’t then go to go to an investor and raise, you know, what, 20 to 25 grand as your first investor and give him 50% of the company. That’s not going to happen. So there is every industry is different, but I would say 7% is typically what most incubators offer, as I think they might give you six figures for that.

[00:44:09] So did you give any did you give up 7%?

[00:44:13] It’s not like we didn’t do that. We didn’t actually do that. And we didn’t raise we didn’t raise that at that point. He was a much smaller investor and is a much different equity stake. But just to give you an idea.

[00:44:25] Do you know what I’m not I’m not being I’m not.

[00:44:29] Nosy, Mr..

[00:44:30] Newson. I’m not buying this book. I’m not I’m not being Mr. Nosey and I’m actually being Mr. Inquisitive and I’ll explain why. And I’m just about to jump into a partnership with a couple of people.

[00:44:43] And.

[00:44:44] And there’s, there’s a, there’s a business idea stroke model that I think is fairly powerful. And the people involved a the right people in that business.

[00:44:55] Should we get it out of him?

[00:44:58] That was proven right. Obviously. Love it.

[00:45:00] Love and let’s get this.

[00:45:01] Out of, you know, love it, love it, not make anything.

[00:45:06] Host, guest host. This week is loving and just.

[00:45:09] Yes.

[00:45:10] It is. Prav, take.

[00:45:11] A.

[00:45:12] Lovely thanks again. Thanks for joining.

[00:45:15] Me. So I’m just going to tell you that I was born and raised in Manchester and my dad drove a taxi and owned a corner shop. I had a tough childhood and I was bagging spuds in the corner shop for a living.

[00:45:28] All right. What was it? What was it? What was it? It was the basic area without giving it all the way. So you might as you can’t say what you said and then not say the next thing gone.

[00:45:36] I’m going to tell you why I’m acquisitive and I’m not being a nosy, you know, what is the there is this business idea, right? That revolves around three individuals who’ve got this idea to take it to market. And there is an opportunity for us to go and raise some money to kick start this project. Now, the reason why I’m curious is that the idea is great. The concept’s great. We there’s a mission that we believe in and we’re all pretty positive about it anyway. So but the business has got no value, right? Because there’s a product, there’s an idea, it’s potentially a service behind it, but it is cash flow zero. So we can go out to either individuals that we know we’re going to put our own hands in our own pockets to kick start the business as well. But if we want a massive cash injection. We’re asking ourselves this question at the moment. What percentage do we let go of before we go hunt it? Right.

[00:46:37] Really good.

[00:46:37] Question. And that’s really good. That’s why I’m asking that is why I’m asking you this question right now, because I am curious. I don’t actually care about the numbers, the percentage like you talked about, 7%. And then you said, oh, well, this investor got a different deal in this, that and the other just broadly speaking. And it’s not a tech it’s not a tech product, by the way. But broadly speaking, like how do you even have that conversation with investors with yourselves? Right. Because you could just pick a number out of the air. Right. We’ve all watched Dragon’s Den. Right. They make an absolute fool of themselves in value in the companies for like 10 million quid and they’ve not even got a product or whatever. Right. And embarrassing themselves. That’s what I wanted to learn from you May is just just get some insight because you’ve done it. You’ve been there and done that, right? We haven’t.

[00:47:30] Now, of course, I mean, I think I think there’s three parts to any I believe, anyway, from my learning. Sure. One part is understanding product market fit. The next part, I’m just going to lay this out as to how I how I see this. Right. So you’ve got product market fit. You need to achieve product market fit. There’s a huge investment element there with high risk that’s super early stage, that’s you’ve got this idea, but you haven’t actually proven the concept, you haven’t proven usage, you haven’t proven that people are willing to purchase it or not purchase it, and that is probably the highest risk. So there’s a risk to reward ratio based on that phase. So if you’re coming in at that phase early doors, you’re more likely to get to take a bit more equity. But you also have to be understanding of founder motivation. Right. If the founding team don’t have enough skin in the game where it’s worth their sweat equity, and that’s fundamentally what you’re valuing your sweat equity. Right? And then we bootstrapped for years. For years, like I can say, we didn’t we didn’t raise we raised hardly anything for about four years and then had then we were revenue generating and then we were going, you know, sort of like that that raised that funding round. That’s more significant. But what it did was it proved the concept at each phase and you raise enough that you need to to create a runway that takes you to the next phase. So the way I would see it is your concept or the who you wish to back. What is their runway for, what they wish to achieve, and what could the valuation potentially be at that stage? So I’ll give here’s an argument. They say you’re going to you’re in lemonade. You’re selling lemonade. Right. And you think you’ve got this mission, you’ve got this.

[00:49:19] But you’re selling patient education software to pitch to us. Yeah.

[00:49:24] Thank you. Yeah.

[00:49:28] You can give us a glass of lemonade while we listen to you. Me?

[00:49:32] Imagine. Imagine it’s us going and then going.

[00:49:34] Yeah, we’re the lemonade and you’re in. You’re saying no. Hopefully at that early stage, you’re saying, right. I think we could if we get this product right, I think we can make vegan lemonade. Vegan lemonade, we reckon can scale. There’s a vegan market of X, Y, Z. And in the first year, we need to we need food. In the first six months. The first year, dude, we need.

[00:50:09] Is there any eggs, meat and dairy in lemonade?

[00:50:13] I don’t know. Water, lemon, whatever. It’s the process. It’s the process. I’m not sure. Okay. Yeah, let’s let’s call it let’s let’s call it the way the bottle was made. Maybe in the content, but anyway, very bad.

[00:50:31] Whatever the process is.

[00:50:32] Whatever the process. Yeah. So just an argument just it’s just an argument. I use the word vegan because there’s a niche market, you know, it’s targeted, you know, lemonade already exists. Fine. You’re saying we’re going to target this market at this time, this many people, we think we can hit this many people. But first, we need to build to make the best vegan lemonade. To make lemonade we need we need one. We need 150 grand. Right? Most incubators give you 150 grand for seven, 7%. And you say we think that that over six months to 12 to over 12 months, that that 150 grand, you know, that will pay basic wages. We never took salary, but some people may want to take salary that will allow us to, you know, source the product, you know, build the IP, whatever, whatever, whatever, get the actual ingredients right, get the flavours right. And we know that maybe five out of ten people at that stage will want to buy this. Buy this sometimes at seed stage 150 is not enough because you haven’t quite solved it. You might then go to the next level of seed and you might say, I want to raise some more. And I think the trade off is how much if this did go in and if your vision was 100,000 a week that you’re selling, you’re selling this 100,000 a week. And eventually, you know, I don’t know, Procter and Gamble might buy it off you. I’m not sure you will then say to the investor, hey, I think that at this stage in the next 12 months, we can raise more money at this point because we would have hit these targets, hit these milestones. And therefore, this is. Sure, sure, sure, sure. If it’s. But let’s say.

[00:52:11] For this business. I want a million quid. They want. It’s that out there. For sentences. I mean, like you’ve been through all. I’ve never. I’ve never raised.

[00:52:25] Money. Why not? Why not? Why not?

[00:52:27] Is that. No, no. But off the back of a. An idea, right? In your experience, the edge?

[00:52:35] Yeah, 100%. It’s out there. The market’s a bit funky for the next three months. Three years. The projections. I was reading this thing from Sequoia Capital, this really great projection where this thing where there’s like. The next three years is probably going to be quite challenging raising money. But the money is out there and I would probably say scaleable money as opposed to like scalable investments as opposed to cash flow rich investments where more favourable in the past two years for sure, three years, I’m not sure about the next three years. People are looking for more secure cash flow rich investment options. But having said that, the money is out there. You can raise you can raise a million. You can raise 2 million. You can raise 5 million. There are enough, especially in London, there is enough investment to go. It comes down to whether they believe in the purpose. They believe they’re passionate about it, and they believe there’s an economic engine that is tangible and that actually, honestly, I think it comes down to the team. I think it’s if they actually believe in the team because the vision, the product changes, the idea changes what the idea might be at seed stage once you’ve tested it in the market could be completely different when it’s actually the thing that people are using. But if you’ve got the right team that can navigate through that, the challenges and the pivot, I think that’s what people invest in largely. Yeah, yeah.

[00:53:55] Love that, man.

[00:53:56] I think I think I’ve only come to learn that over time. It seems so much, you know, things in hindsight seem so much more obvious.

[00:54:03] So tell us, tell us. Tell us then. More about dentist. What made you want to become a dentist and what made you want to stop being a dentist?

[00:54:12] I originally wanted to do I originally wanted to be a rapper that was actually rap.

[00:54:19] So did Proud really know?

[00:54:21] I grew up listening to NWA and Ice-T back in the day and.

[00:54:27] Oh, amazing.

[00:54:28] How we realised I didn’t have the voice or the.

[00:54:31] Lyrics.

[00:54:33] But I’d study anatomy and biochemistry instead. Payman is winding you up.

[00:54:40] The Fair.

[00:54:41] Enough. So what you wanted to be.

[00:54:43] I thought you actually. I was actually quite excited. I thought.

[00:54:45] You did. No, no, no. I’m just a good storyteller, mate, and. But come on, tell us, rapper, who was your inspiration? Inspirations. Why?

[00:54:55] I come from a point where I think I think I was around at that particular at a particular age, I would probably say 14, 15, where the UK grime scene was in its infancy and it was transitioning from garage, transitioning from garage to, to, to sort of this like more emcees, none of these tracks and having these these lyrics. And I also I think at that point was really was listening to a lot of West Coast hip hop. I think I think in that phase, Tupac and all of them guys were like really making commercial movements and Jay-Z was becoming a thing. And I think I just had this really this I was super passionate about songwriting. And if I would actually go to the crux of it, I think at school it was the thing that I was good at, if that makes sense. Like when I say good at very subjective, but like it was the thing that I felt like.

[00:55:45] I felt like you were in flow.

[00:55:47] I felt like was my thing, right? Yeah. And we do battle raps with other schools and I would be challenging and you know, I wasn’t I probably I wasn’t the captain of the football team nor was I probably the the, the, the coolest kid in on the block at the time. But I was passionate about songwriting. I loved it, I loved it. I did it in my sleep. I did it with my free time. And I felt like I was I felt like I had my identity and that identity like and I still am attached to it because it was such a big part of my identity, but it allowed me to express myself. It was a great platform for expression, but also it allowed me to be myself. And that was something that I carried through. And I’ve been very fortunate to meet friends in the industry who are now full time musicians as well doing their thing and watch them grow and succeed. And, and I was really lovely. But there was there was a point for me where I’m not saying that I ditched it, but I had to make some decisions whether I wanted to follow something I was really passionate about, really passionate about, which is a music thing that was like, I mean, absolute no cash flow like zero negative.

[00:56:58] Like you can’t raise you can’t raise money for that or anything. You just got to graft it. And in hindsight, I learned something about myself. Through that journey is like, what if I actually I didn’t pursue I pursued, I graduated as a dentist and I went three days a week dentist when I graduate because I want to do two days of music. I said when I start earning some money on music videos, I do this on a really pursue my passion. And I ended up becoming a dentist for days and ended up becoming a dentist five days. And because at that point it became like, I don’t know if I had the graft at the time because dentistry was becoming a thing where I was really starting to enjoy the clinical practice and then life kicks in and it’s like, Oh, you know what? I need to, I want to I want to do this course and that course and do this and do that. And then that kind of starts taking over and the whole music thing as well. I felt very like, I think it’s a personal thing at the time, but my mindset at the time was I’d make a song right and I’d go to one extra and BBC one extra would say, Go to the Asian network, and I go to the Asian network and they’d say, Go to BBC one extra.

[00:58:12] And it was like, Oh, and I played my stuff on this Radio one show, which was lovely, but it was also especially a show with Asia. So I was like making, I was like having these Asian beats, but I was also like, I’m saying completely Western. I can’t even speak Tamil or English. I’m not I’m not part of the Punjabi crew. So I didn’t really have the Bhangra thing. But I love lots of Punjabi mates and I loved that music. So we’re a very weird niche of like, wow, you know? And I kept being ping pong and I was like, I can’t build a sustainable crib. But actually in the world now, if I have the courage and I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think I had the courage at the time to actually take the plunge and pursue something I was super passionate about and see where it led. And I learned a lesson from that. And now that. Gratitude. Sorry.

[00:59:01] Regrets?

[00:59:03] Yeah. Well, regretted the timing. Yeah. You regretted the fact that I accepted it as it was and thought.

[00:59:10] You know what didn’t fit right?

[00:59:12] Yeah. Like, I mean, my niche was so small I was making, but I could have. I could. You know what I know now you can build a following of a small niche and then expand, right? And like, I was also super insecure about releasing stuff I just wasn’t 100% happy with. So I’m a bit of a I was a bit of a procrastinator in my own because when you make music, you are the brand, you are the product, you are the solution.

[00:59:39] You at the end of it, isn’t it?

[00:59:40] Yeah. So I was so paralysed by that and I was like, Oh no, you know, it doesn’t really sound too great. And I don’t really have an understanding of market and all of that. And I was just making music and. With what I know now. Like, if I just stuck at it. Like, I think. I think sometimes there’s something. Yeah.

[00:59:58] Sorry, love and sorry. Sorry to interrupt, but tell me this this then moving into the communication side is is kind of that story started with the wrapping. You know, you have the music.

[01:00:11] The music.

[01:00:11] And I actually actually did.

[01:00:14] Yeah. Yeah. That’s kind of kind of where it stems from. You actually connected the dots there? Payman. Yeah, true thing. Yeah. I mean, I learned that and I thought, I’m not playing at this time. I’m just going to really, really blitz it. And if there’s something you’re passionate about, have the courage to really go for it. Take some risks, try it. Obviously educated risks to some degree, but that was a real life lesson. And I still I still write today and I have this hope that like not this hope, but I’m putting it into practice where still recording stuff and just, just putting it out. I think I come to realise as well with that music thing is like that’s everlasting, that’s evergreen, that’s forever that, that is me as a person. I’ll continue to write and do it for myself and to do it for anyone who’s willing to listen to me. And so that’s kind of I’ve kind of made peace with that.

[01:01:07] But that’s how I feel about this podcast. That’s how I feel about this podcast. Really, really. I just feel that, you know, it’s for whoever wants to listen to it and for me.

[01:01:17] But for me, why is that not the best way it takes out so much of the nonsense in your head when you want to do something just for you and for people who want to be part of that. Interestingly, I think it was my younger brother who taught me that he’s five years younger than me, but it was the career he chose. He didn’t choose anything. He didn’t pursue sort of the financial returns of a particular career. He went into like a start up world in like the basics of of VR in a time where, you know, VR was not really a thing. And and I was like, Wow, man, you really inspired me. Like, you just done something you’re just super passionate about zero kid. You really love that kind of stuff and turned him back. Looking back on it, I’m like, you know, that’s that’s kind of kind of important. Just pursue what you’re passionate about, take some risks, have the courage, do it for yourself. And same thing with chess. I’d look if we can impact one patient and we can help one one dentist and it adds significant value. Surely there’s other dentists and patients that will want it right and we just have to try and find them.

[01:02:16] What’s the business model worth? How do people pay for it?

[01:02:20] It’s a subscription product, so it’s a SaaS product at the moment where, yeah, you can you can pay monthly or you can pay for an annual license, which is a bit cheaper. And we’ve tried to keep it, keep the costs as low as possible with the view that it’s an early product. You know, people need to experience it to keep the barrier to entry low at this point and the free.

[01:02:40] Trial or something.

[01:02:41] Yeah, there’s a, there’s a month free trial and hopefully the early. The early users reap the benefits from the from the early incentives.

[01:02:52] To talk us through what happens. Patient comes in needs, needs. Something can explain it to him. Hit the screen.

[01:03:01] Don Yeah. So what.

[01:03:03] Happens is your video comes.

[01:03:04] Out okay. So like really evolving care side now is a cloud based platform. There’s no screen. Yeah, we have that screen as a premium. It is a cloud based platform. Yeah. You sign up within. I would probably say once you’ve filled out your name and a few details, you get access straightaway. You’re in the chat, you’ve got all your conditions. It’s a Netflix style approach. So you’ve got Imagine Netflix, but imagine you’ve got conditions, treatment options, risks, and then you start condition and you can take your patients through that visual journey showing them their condition, their treatment options and their risks. The entire conversation is then timestamped, tracked and stored in your notes to say This was set at this time. This was played for this. This percentage of this video was played. And you can annotate, you can draw, you can do anything you want in an interactive fashion. You can then jump on a video, call with your patient, and again, share all of that content on a video call. Say you’ve had a situation where the patient’s been around. You know, you’ve got large treatment plan and you want to discuss, jump on that and have that conversation to a video call.

[01:04:04] And so you’ve covered what must have been a big time for an accelerated because of the video call. Right.

[01:04:09] That I mean, that’s when it spiralled, to be fair. That’s when it spiralled. A few things came off that we had like within three months we had like 400 practices sign up and then that was on a practice model. Now not the dentist model, but the X number of dentists.

[01:04:25] And then how did that feel? That was to felt like amazing and scary at the same time.

[01:04:31] Do you know what? It’s incredible. But it was five years to get to that point. Right. And like it was just timing. Like the product was in the right place, the market had an immediate need and then it was through that that the visuals became the thing that people loved. Like, okay, a cool video calling, but actually I can share visuals. How can I use these visuals in the chair? Oh, by the way, this is the original product which is chair side, which is like a SAS based cloud based product. Go into Google app com, log in and show your patients anything you want to do on your phone. Do it and your wherever you want and if you want to jump on a video call so that spiralled it and that sold, I think that created awareness for us. That’s what it did. And since then, you know, we’ve been able to go to sort of improve the content while we’re increasing scale. But more importantly, what we’re focusing on user experience, we’re focusing on on having the best content that will that the dentist want to help articulate their messages, whatever that message might be to the patient, whether it’s it’s your perio, whether it’s implants, whether it’s ortho, what the risks are.

[01:05:35] We’ve got animations on like IPR, you know, really explaining, you know, resorption, all these things that, you know, you might not articulate in a conversation or patients might not grasp. You can actually visually explain it within 8 seconds using chair side. And that’s the beauty of it. It’s actually faster and it’s a lot more thorough. And then everything is tracked and stored in your notes. So, you know, there’s proof in five years time, if anyone comes up to you and says, Hey, you never told me that I had gum disease. Well, actually, I did. I even showed you how to use a tepee. And that’s know that was the next one and I showed you this and so on. It’s all timestamped at 9:00 on a monday, 4th of July, whatever the date is. Yeah. So the idea here is in the most automated fashion to help communicate easily, effectively, transparently, using a very straightforward journey that is absolutely customisable whilst having being protected at the same time. And then all of that can be emailed to the patient automatically. So based on what you clicked or those, all that content gets shared to the patient and they can consent to that there and then.

[01:06:41] Does. It connects with the practice software.

[01:06:45] We have we are going through that process right now. The video calling does at this minute, it’s integrated. And it’s a very good question because it’s the question we get all the time. And, you know, what I love about dentistry is like generally from the dentists, through the groups, through to the software houses. Is there is this collaborative like feel? I really feel like people are open to collaborating now. Sometimes there are barriers to collaboration, like technical issues and stuff, but generally everybody is willing to support and help each other. I think that’s a that’s like there’s an abundance mindset as opposed to a scarcity mindset in dentistry. I feel from my experience that’s a really positive thing in our community.

[01:07:26] So for so for example, the you’ve got a video calling platform which I’m assuming has got booking and you can like set appointments or availability or whatever.

[01:07:38] On the video calling side.

[01:07:39] Yeah, yeah, like calendar or something like that or some kind of your version of that. Can that interlink with the dental diary? So the double bookings are not made because we found we’ve built a few bits and pieces of software and the one thing that we found is getting knocking on the door of SWE and trying to get them to open up their API. Yeah, it’s like Rocky not to mate.

[01:08:06] I would probably say the hardest part. I mean, integrating bookings is near enough. It’s a huge challenge. It’s a huge challenge. We don’t have that because we can’t actually get that to happen at this point. And so that actually makes it very challenging. And I don’t think it’s the fault of any of the software houses. I just think it’s the way things are built that are feasible. It’s actually quite difficult as we move, as everybody moves to a more cloud based solution like, you know, you’ve got dental and you got everyone’s moving to sort of more cloud based. That becomes a lot more, I would probably say, achievable.

[01:08:46] Fine. And then you can push your patient data into, let’s say, dental, really, because that’s got an API that allows you to push and pull and whatnot. That’s obviously so I guess it depends on the practice software in terms of what you can and can’t do.

[01:09:01] Yeah.

[01:09:02] But I have a question for you, Prav, when you say to get so to open their API. Yeah. Isn’t that just the revenue share that would determine whether they would or they would agree.

[01:09:14] So there’s technical constraints, point number one.

[01:09:18] Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[01:09:19] And then point number two, I don’t know whether it’s or you guys are too small to talk to. We’re not opening an API or they actually don’t have an API. And for those who are listening that don’t understand what an API is, it is just a language that allows you to connect my software to your software where I can push data into it and I can pull data out of it in both directions. And sometimes you have a one way API that just pushes data out and you can just pull it. Or sometimes you have a two way where you can throw data back in and ideally to connect with a third party software platform, you need some kind of two way API where you can throw data in and you can query it and pull it back out. It’s the easiest way to describe it. And with certainly with software of excellence, that’s that’s not been possible. However, speaking of Dental, their engineers will get on the phone with you and have a chat with you and be very collaborative in terms of if you want to build a tool for their platform and they’ll give you all the documentation code as well. Yeah. Really. Yeah. Yeah. And that, that love of what you’re saying, they’re very collaborative.

[01:10:26] Yeah, very cool. I mean on that note I actually as I said, we are really have a really great mindset. Like they are really open to collaborating, they really want to improve the dentist experience. It’s important to them. I actually think that that because as a we own density now I know.

[01:10:48] Yeah.

[01:10:48] So I think the focus is more on the growth of it’s much easier. I think it’s just easier as we have so much on their plate, they’ve got all these nice things that they have to program and the changes every time they have to program. Yeah, I can imagine even just trying to like work with the tech team on chair side and that’s like like a 20th of maybe, maybe even less like of what so is, is a beast in terms of, in terms of the things that need to be programmed. I can understand why actually getting onto the roadmap is a bit of a challenge, but there is definitely I think there’s definitely a push for everyone, you know, naturally moving, cloud based. I think that might be the future is the integrations and the cloud based platforms.

[01:11:27] Yeah. So just out of curiosity, what integrations like let’s say you’ve got the the best Dental platform that you have. Let’s say somebody comes to you and goes, look, I’m all of. Chair side sunshine right chair side is the is is the censor point of my communication. Which dental practice software should I.

[01:11:50] Get.

[01:11:51] That has the best connection with chair side? And could you describe what that journey would be? Would you be pushing and pulling data out? Could you fire patient data over into the practice software, into that patient’s record? And then curiously, how do you identify James Smith in and James Smith in chair side as being the same human beings when this 25 James Smith’s in the system.

[01:12:21] Very good point. I think the best way for genocide is three levels of integration. The first integration is that when you when you start an animation, it works within the platform itself. So we’re not like you’re eliminating that need to go onto the Chrome based platform. I think that that is that’s a natural, like easy, better user experience. Then the next part is having the name. And so like when you, when you go through an animation sequence on Shoreside, what we call flows, when you go through a flow like a period flow, you’re actually everything that’s being recorded is being recorded under that patient that’s been opened on. So. Right, so you’re not entering. So like honestly, I’m opening up James Smith, I’m looking at the previous notes and I’m looking at his x rays and then I’m opening up the chair side under James Smith because James Smith is already open. I’m using chart side to to explain the visual chair.

[01:13:20] Side is already connected to s away and I can open up chair Smith Chair Smith James Smith Chair So I can open up chair side under that patient’s. Nelson It will fire that patient chair side records open who’s already in sway. So those that’s connected already, right? Is that what you’re saying?

[01:13:45] No, that’s what we’re working on right now.

[01:13:48] Oh, okay. Okay. But if you want to take the best.

[01:13:52] I’m just telling you that. I’m telling you the dream tree with this.

[01:13:55] But but but if you were to take the best integration that you’ve got with a cloud based platform, I’m assuming dental is probably the strongest connection you’ve got. Or maybe there’s another one. What are the possibilities as it stands right now.

[01:14:09] And endless possibilities with with platforms like that because. It’s almost like I’m just plugging in different elements.

[01:14:15] Yeah, but I’m talking about in its current incarnation now I buy chair side and I buy generally. What can I do today.

[01:14:24] You can open up chair side on like today. Yeah. We don’t really you can’t do anything right now because it’s not life, it’s not acting.

[01:14:31] Okay.

[01:14:32] The API is the APIs are being both APIs are being developed, they’re being plugged. So I wouldn’t want to tell you what we can what it will become. But if your answer is today, there is no no deep integration.

[01:14:48] Well the possibilities are endless.

[01:14:51] Huge. Yeah, yeah. But, but.

[01:14:56] But I guess and when we’ve developed pieces of software to integrate.

[01:15:02] It just, just links. Those have two things don’t have to stitch I’ll let the guys I have from Kuroki they’re, they’re not even trying to be within each bits of the software.

[01:15:11] Yeah. They don’t have to be. Yeah.

[01:15:14] That’s the whole Andre Allo. That is the Holy Grail.

[01:15:17] I mean it’s a question they ask the most because I mean probably same with everything, but just like could like and as I mentioned like that they’ve done such a great job. I would probably say trying not to rely on anyone is the best thing. Like if you can be stand alone experience but on awesome. But then the next layer is cool. If you can’t integrate, it makes everyone’s lives easier in terms of the experience. But we set out to build this as a standalone product with no expectation of any integrations because we can’t worry about what we can’t control too much. Yeah. So therefore, if it’s not, if it’s not on the table, we can’t, we can’t expect that to be the be all and end all of, of the success of share side or the failure of chatter. But is the success of chat side fundamentally? And if we if we rely on other people, it could actually lead to the failure of a business. So it’s not it’s not the right thing to do in my eyes. Yeah.

[01:16:13] Yeah. Just a bonus if it happens.

[01:16:17] To the British people change a lot of things in terms of experience. You know, it’s already restricted. We’re all restricted on time, just generally what we do. But in the clinic, more so. Right.

[01:16:31] So what’s your what’s your week? Is it how many days are you doing clinical. None. Or, you know.

[01:16:36] I still do. On on it feels like a day, but it’s actually two like officially. But I take so many like odd clinics here and there, like dental shows, all of that kind of stuff. But yeah, a day to two days a week that’s transitioning down now. And that’s, it’s, it’s more so because of the responsibilities I have to the practice. And yeah, but on a personal level it’s also because I get to use this thing and it’s new innovation on in the trenches every day. Like every day I’m in clinic with every patient and really understand and understand how we’re adding value that that for me is really important because I get to see every incremental change, every animation, how it plays out with my patients on a weekly basis. And I can feed back immediately. I can see the flaws, I can see, Oh, hang on a second. There’s no chance I’m going to do this. I don’t have enough time. How do we make it better? How do we make it quicker? So that for me in the trenches is, is an opportunity as well as upholding some of that to.

[01:17:34] Yeah. I mean, the question is, do you do you plan to stop completely or do you not plan to stop completely? We haven’t decided yet because I know if you’ve heard Prav was the one who pushed me. I was on one day a week and Proust pushed me and said, Look, either you’re pregnant or you’re not, or some other phrase you missed was.

[01:17:55] I’ve got a way. I’ve got a way with choice, way with words.

[01:17:59] It just depends who on a canoe and one foot on the shore or something like.

[01:18:03] That in a canoe on the shore, mate. More likely to be the pregnant bit or something. A bit more crass than that.

[01:18:09] But he pushed me because it’s really hard to stop it. It doesn’t feel right to stop with patience either.

[01:18:14] I think that’s probably the hard part for me. It is. It is hard. I’ve you know, I’ve more so more so because I, I like being wet fingered in dentistry. Like I like that feeling of when I speak to my colleagues, I speak to my colleagues as peers. And I don’t want to you know, I enjoy that still. I enjoy saying, hey, I used this or I did this with this patient and this happened and this result and it’s it’s I’m a dentist, you know, I actually really love clinical dentistry. I really, really enjoy it. It’s the opportunity to impact people firsthand there and then is huge. And I’ve had conversations with friends outside of health and there’s like, how do you feel like I mean, you just impact people straight away like there and then in a 20 minute appointment, 50 minute one half an hour appointment, hour long appointment on the day. And I think that feeling is is quite addictive as well, you know, when you have those relationships with patients. But I also am appreciative of the fact that, you know, it’s it is wise to go all in and it is coming to that point. For me, I think the hardest decision, one of the hardest decisions is actually letting go of it because of the love of it. But I hope I hope to still do some clinical here and there and not completely discard. I’ve had some great mentors, advise me accordingly. And like people like Raj Rattan, who’s the dental director, who then to protection going on about what an incredible individual human being but that’s that’s another story it’s just as as a human being a philosopher thinker and also as someone who knows and has seen everything in dentistry, you know, when he became the director, he still does some clinical work on on the side today. So there’s an argument for both just to not skill as well. But I think that’s a hard thing as a dentist. It’s like any skill, right, as well. And you have that attachment. So I don’t know. I’m I always.

[01:20:09] Think I always used to think, though lots of mothers stop for five years and then start again.

[01:20:14] Hmm.

[01:20:15] I wish that was five years is to be my number. You know, you can stop for five years. Loads of women do that or that. Or do they. Maybe, maybe I just made that up.

[01:20:27] I mean loads.

[01:20:29] Must do that.

[01:20:30] Right? I know at least half people take sabbaticals, right? Yeah. You can always go back on courses and learn how to redo certain things. If you’ve been five years out. There’s no excuse. I have no excuse. I’m just pondering. I just need to.

[01:20:46] Know, too. It’s actually difficult to find. I mean, the first thing you said is I want to talk to my peers as peers, which, by the way, that won’t really stop. Yeah. You know, I haven’t practised at all for ten years now. I still talk to my peers. Like peers kind of thing.

[01:21:01] Yeah, kind of thing. No, don’t worry about that. Yeah, I think, I think, I think there’s a point of diminishing returns where you have to take the plunge and just go all in on what you believe in and what you’re passionate about.

[01:21:14] And I think what Prav said to me, something like.

[01:21:17] I have a timeline for that and that should come to fruition.

[01:21:22] But did you know along the way you’ve spoken about or you’ve said the word impact a lot?

[01:21:29] I didn’t realise. But it’s great.

[01:21:32] You have. You have. I used to think about impact a lot too, but. And you’ve said it in so many different ways. You’ve said that you said impact on one human impact on the world impact. You’ve said a few different impacts, obviously important to you.

[01:21:47] If I can take impact and dive deep into that word for me, it’s contribution to society or contribution to a community or contribution or play my role. Play my role in this world, really? And what have I contributed to? If you know, at the end of the day, like, what were you part of? Everybody needs someone to stack the shelves as you need for society to run. Unless a computer or machine is going to do it. Someone needs to do it. Someone needs to. You will always need nurses. You’ll always need people to contribute their role in society. And you can find passion and purpose in any of those roles, some harder than not. But I believe you can, depending on what your personality type is like, you know, maybe certain certain roles allow for you to enjoy experiences because, you know, there’s some jobs out there that are less stress but allow you to earn a certain income and allows you to have experiences. But there’s. But then in your job or outside in your experiences, you may wish to pursue some impact, whether whatever that is or some contribution. For me, I want to hopefully contribute through my work as well as in whatever it is that I do to society. I think that for me gives me fulfilment and if on that journey I can, I can earn a living. Happy, happy days.

[01:23:03] Did you used to see the rat as that? Or was it just fun?

[01:23:08] Impact impact. The rap was I’m kind of like I’m that.

[01:23:13] That was fun for you. Like what was it?

[01:23:16] Was it fun?

[01:23:17] Was it like that? What’s your which one was it? Know when you said on impact the.

[01:23:20] Impact it was.

[01:23:21] For society. Do my bit on society. For society.

[01:23:24] Honestly speaking. Honestly speaking. The bits that I wrote this track called Teardrops, which is about the conflict, which is about orphans in Sri Lanka who had gone through the tsunami and whatnot. And like I remember performing that once and when I had like people messaged me saying they actually it brought tears to their eyes during that summer. Something with impact that was like resonated for me.

[01:23:47] Is it somewhere online if someone wants to listen to that?

[01:23:50] Teardrops? Yeah. I mean, YouTube took it down because I actually used at the time, like when I made it, I actually used some UNICEF images accidentally, which I didn’t realise, but UNICEF images and then there was like this copyright thing and they pulled it. But I mean, I’ve got stuff now that like I could like it’s, it’s, I’m actually going to be putting some stuff out just for myself really, but until my, my Instagram in the next couple of weeks. But again, it’s cathartic. It’s like therapy almost. I wrote this track, How are you? Which is how hard a friend, a very close friend of mine who’s unfortunately at a very young age, his wife passed away at the age of 37 in in quite very difficult circumstances. And I realised that after that my relationships with people changed a lot because I was actually asking people how they were, but actually asking you how are you like on a deeper level, how are you not just, Hey man, how are you? And it’s bad me on to write something that I was really quite passionate about in them. It’s that kind of thing. It’s almost like journaling is like therapy or therapy.

[01:24:54] You should do a podcast, man.

[01:24:58] What? You should. You should. Shall I rap to you guys? Please.

[01:25:03] Please. Please. No. Sure. Go.

[01:25:06] Would you let me do this? How are you thing? Right. Do it. Okay. All right. How are you? No, really, how are you? The question is kind of simple, but the answer is really true. There’s something deep inside that you might want to say. And I don’t mean. Yeah, cool. I’m cool. Yeah, I’m okay. In true friendship, we’re meant to circumvent the niceness, and they say talk is cheap, but to me it’s priceless. Forming connections comes from communication. But when was the last time I called to discuss my trepidations? So many around me with Hunchback. But this ain’t Paris. Heavy weights on the shoulders. Too hard to manage. I go in line. Everyone’s fine. Ain’t nothing savage. So maybe it’s just me on this journey with the excess baggage. Look. What if it’s okay to not be okay? What if it’s cool to not be cool? Society’s provided us with the stigma seen to be strong. But by burying my feelings, I feel I no longer belong. Centuries have passed shaped our perceptions. But who are they to define? What is perfection? Vulnerable was dishonourable. The emotional was weak. How much longer can we accept this for? Three emotions. How I speak. We still connect every minute just to hot spots, not humans blog our everyday lives. Like on a show like Truman. If ego is the enemy, testosterone keeps testing us, let alone progesterone imposter syndrome, preventing us from being ourselves. Share the weight of our feelings. How we use them deserves a greater meaning. The power of three words can go a long way, when answered honestly changed the course of our day. So next time we meet, maybe I’ll find the courage just to say thank you for asking. Yeah, I’m not. Okay. Jesus. Bloody hell. Wow. Wow.

[01:26:52] Bloody hell, man. Thank you so much, buddy. Thank you so much. Oh, definitely this podcast to a place that had never been before.

[01:27:00] I thought, you’re going to carry on wrapping them up.

[01:27:06] But I think we go back to back.

[01:27:08] But if you give if you give 10% of that song to Prav, I’ll stick it on the back. Let’s do this, buddy. Buddy, that was so good. That was so, so good.

[01:27:18] It was beautiful.

[01:27:19] It was beautiful. That means a lot to me. That really does mean a lot to me.

[01:27:24] It just. Just just the meaning that hung on every single word there. And funnily enough, do you know what I was speaking to? I was speaking to Bob earlier today, because we’re having this conversation about this business course that I’m doing later on this month. And we came we were having the conversation and we were talking about how were you? And we had the conversation this morning and it was like. It’s a question that you don’t expect an answer to. That was the conversation that we had this morning, and it really made me think about the fact that actually, when we asked that question, how are you? We don’t. Majority of the time, we’re not looking for an answer. Right. It’s just a you’re okay, you’re all right. And you’ve just.

[01:28:17] Lost the communication tool at that point. But then, you know, he said that to me and said that to me and I go, Oh.

[01:28:23] Yeah, you know, I mean, actually, this is what we’re so used to. And understandably, we’re so used to just saying how coincidental. In my conversation today, by the way, that’s.

[01:28:36] Really like.

[01:28:39] It’s.

[01:28:39] Literally why I was just I was sat there and if anyone was watching the video, I was I was struck. Do you know what I mean? Just just deeply struck while I was listening to it, because I’d had that conversation earlier, I was reflecting on that conversation that I’ve had with Bob, literally about that this morning. And Bob’s the guy who’s going to write the show notes. So he’s going to listen to this and he’s going to chuckle to himself because he knows the conversation that we had this morning. So it’s so surreal. But the depth of every single word that hung on what you said was was beautiful because there’s no other way that was defining.

[01:29:14] That was I was like.

[01:29:17] Oh, so I could do that and start up and be a dentist.

[01:29:20] Man Yeah.

[01:29:22] Look going on that you put some content up, but he put some content out like that because that was really strong. That was really strongly.

[01:29:31] For my birthday. I actually said to myself, I want to do this. And I got I got I got the video guy who shot something for our side. Lovely guy, Lucas. He’s coming round on Saturday, this Saturday to film about just me in the camera, black and white, just me dropping about five of these different ones that I’ve written. Six, six of them. See how it goes? I just put them out and. But it’s not like I can’t believe. Like I dropped the first one here.

[01:29:58] Buddy, buddy, you don’t even need this. This guy to come around with his camera, pull your frickin phone out because he’s. I’m being serious, right? I’m being serious. Me? Because what you actually just dropped there was I think will impact so many people. Right. Because at any one time when someone’s listening to that, I can assure you there’s a lot of people who are not all right.

[01:30:24] And.

[01:30:24] They want to be questioned deeper. Well, right by the right people. Yeah. And for you to do that as a production in black and white, nicely added, nicely polished, rather than just get your phone out and just do it here and now and whack it on Instagram or Facebook. As a marketer, I can tell you now the second version less polished you raw will have far more impact me promise you.

[01:30:55] Fat.

[01:30:56] Do you know what I don’t let not take Don’t let that camera guy hold you.

[01:31:00] Back You know what happened? You know what happened there. You went for perfection. Paralysis? Yeah. Because you were worried about doing it just like when you were a kid, when you were going to do the rapping. And and then he snuffed it out. He snuffed it out like. Like like a Gary Vee kind of guy. Now you got to do it, dude.

[01:31:17] He’s right. He’s right. And if that’s something that that I try and think deeper into why what things program program means or us to to behave in certain ways. Right. And, and I think I must come from a I want to do it. But now, you know, I just I’m not in the camera. No, not right now. You know, I’m going to have dinner. Yeah. And I will get it done properly. We get we’ve got proper video guide to come and do it. But, but actually sometimes the best things are just done impromptu just like that. And just click send and post it and see where it goes. You don’t need to have a marketing plan behind it. Sometimes you don’t need to have a strategy behind it. You just do it.

[01:31:55] The strongest content that you will produce will be stuff like this. What you’ve just done now, right, that isn’t planned, isn’t pre-production. You’re not fumbling your words or you just go with the flow, right? And whatever happens happens. You pull your camera out, you record something, you share it out there on social and just let the world unfold. Mate, whoever whoever resonates with that resonates with that. Right. And we know the feeds are all made for these devices, right? We’re watching them on these devices. We film on on these devices and the algorithm drives it. You produce a flippin picture, perfect, polished production. I’m confident that you’ll have more impact if you just pull your phone out in about 25 minutes.

[01:32:37] I think you’re giving me this this you’re giving me a bit too much credit for this this this production here, by the way, were made with a camera. But you are right. It’s still a level ahead of a raw, raw footage on your phone, which I think you know. In hindsight, actually. Spot on. Yeah.

[01:32:56] But Doo did do start writing again for sure, right.

[01:33:00] I’m I have recently I don’t know why it is I have recently like. Just being honest with myself and stuff about myself, really. Which is quite nice actually. You know, even younger is like, you’re rapping about other stuff. I mean, Teardrops was a really passionate one for me because it was about the history of my culture, I suppose, and the things that that people where I’m from in Sri Lanka also went through. But but you know what it is, guys? It’s like this really weird thing. Like, now is so good. It’s like it’s ever since I definitely social media has helped with that but to just be genuine and just do what comes to mind and put yourself out there and do it is way better than before when actually you had to go through the barriers to get played and what you got. What got played was what people wanted to hear. Stuff like this would never have got played back then and kind of thing, but I feel now is a much better time for it. But as far as process, as.

[01:33:54] Prav says, it also means much more competition. But but you know what you just did? There was bloody good dude.

[01:34:00] The best part of the podcast mate. Yes, right.

[01:34:03] Yeah. Bloody good.

[01:34:04] Being serious.

[01:34:05] That was promised to that rap expert. I know I’m not, but perhaps the rap expert. Well, but he was excellent. All joking aside, it was all excellent.

[01:34:14] Was it just you didn’t rap, mate? You told the story. Yeah, and that. And that’s what you did.

[01:34:22] I was so glad we started at the end. This time I’m so happy about it. Like, I might never have got to that rap man.

[01:34:28] Sure. Payman Payman payment or credit to you, buddy?

[01:34:31] Yeah. Yeah, it was the onion. Right down to the core of it. That’s where that’s anyone who knows. Like, I mean, I was I was at uni obviously with a lot of dental students. So there’s a lot of the like gen cache, those guys who all were like whereas similar time Sanjeev Sanchar together then Dosanjh was emceeing with me at one point from together, you know. Oh really. Yeah. Yeah, he was in. I’m going to call him out on it. His name was.

[01:35:00] Let me see what. Emcee Ray Radia.

[01:35:04] Radar. Yeah. Crazy. He was easy. He was like, We lived in horse together. He’s like, he’s such.

[01:35:12] A great kid. And Kisch as well, were they? Were they?

[01:35:15] Jen was deejaying. He was doing the whole deejaying thing. And they still doing.

[01:35:18] Where? Where was this?

[01:35:19] That was a kings. Oh, yeah. So that was that was a good time. It’s a good time.

[01:35:28] Amazing, man. We’re one hour, 40 minutes in. Amazingly.

[01:35:34] Wow.

[01:35:36] Let’s get your. We might as well get a final question, Steve. And, you know, just I just like I said to the character, guys, I want to I want to see you in the next round, you know, like in the next finance round to say, hey, man, where we where we at now? You know.

[01:35:52] Like.

[01:35:55] Amazing. So amazing having you on my body.

[01:35:58] You guys have been such, so easy to speak to. I’ve really enjoyed it. I, I haven’t even. I didn’t even realise what the time is right now, but I’m like, oh man, it’s such honestly, such a pleasure and I’m so, so, so, so grateful to come on and be able to even be able to rap. Like, I never thought I’d do that here, but yeah, great.

[01:36:20] Like, it definitely was the best bet.

[01:36:22] But without.

[01:36:24] Question. Without question. Even imagine it was the last day on your planet and cheer side has already impacted millions of dentists and and and become this forever company that you’re never going to sell. And it leaves that legacy. What would be the three pieces of wisdom that you would leave for your loved ones?

[01:36:47] Really? Okay, really interesting. I would I think these these three bits are important to me that I would like to to share. I think the first thing is be curious, just be curious and explore your curiosity and learn to be student. Be student and learn through experiences, learn through reading, learn through understanding people and interactions and expand your curiosity. I think that has led me to to really because through that curiosity you find out almost what you’re passionate about. So the second one for me is discover what you’re passionate about and be passionate and then pursue that passion and have a purpose. Align with your passion because when you have passion, you can wake up every day and really enjoy what you do. But also you can be passionate about simple things. You can be passionate about like birds, passionate about things that we don’t take for, we take for granted. But when you when you live with that passion, everything has a meaning and a story behind it and depth to it. Even the words, how are you? You know, like you can unravel so much out of it. But if if you don’t, if you’re not curious and you’re not passionate, sometimes, you know, we get on with our daily treadmill of life and you miss sometimes I found that I miss the beauty of things when I’m not in that space. So yeah, the, the first thing is definitely be curious and be alert, always be student learn. The second thing is find things that you’re passionate about and pursue them and live with purpose and find purpose around them.

[01:38:21] And then the third thing for me would be courage. Have the courage to take risks. If I didn’t have the courage to take risks, maybe I wouldn’t have explored the music thing at that point. And maybe if I had a bit more courage, I would have actually pursued it. If I didn’t have the courage right now, I wouldn’t maybe be doing shoreside or something that I’m I love because I do my best mate, do it some of the great, the best people I know, some of the best minds I know, and my cousin as well as involved. And I’ve met so many people like yourselves through that journey. And that was all at a time where, you know, the risks I took were, you know, cut. My job was lose, lose, lose, lose, whatever came of that stability, security, all of that. And and just generally, even on a day to day basis, you have the courage to take risks that you’re passionate. But I think it all intertwines to each other to be curious about life and explore and continue to continue to learn. And then once you while you’re learning that, be passionate about when you find the things you’re passionate about, you know, explore that and find purpose and then have the courage to take risks. And then I think for me, that’s helped me a lot. And if I knew that a young, younger age, I may have done, you know, explored a lot more as well.

[01:39:35] So it’s beautiful, man. It’s amazing advice, isn’t it? Amazing advice.

[01:39:43] Thank you. France is a dinner party.

[01:39:46] It just doesn’t seem as important now, doesn’t it? Fancy, fancy, fancy dinner party. Ballet.

[01:39:52] Fancy dinner party.

[01:39:54] I think it’s dead or alive.

[01:39:56] Okay, cool. For me. I found. I find Leonardo da Vinci incredibly interesting. Like he’s someone who is, like a thinker. Like a painter. Like an engineer. Like, you know, he was everything. He did everything. And he was actually really, apparently, according to history, really great many things. And I just don’t understand in a world where now we focus in on one thing and be really great, that one thing. How someone back then had the ability to to master so many concepts. And just as individual. I just love to. To understand his mind. So I think Leonardo da Vinci, for me would be someone who has always stood out as a quite remarkable person in history. If what they say about history.

[01:40:40] It’s a good one.

[01:40:40] I know you’ve had this already on the podcast a few times, but just because of the place that I’m in in my life right now, I think Elon Musk would be super interesting for me, this whole journey that he goes on. Mine’s on a much smaller scale, but nonetheless some transferrable ideas there thoughts, problems, concepts, processes, systems, all sorts but ideas. So I think that’s really, really cool. And the final one for me is a personal one because I’m a Bitcoin fan, like kainos been my guy. So like I’ve never had a chance to really have a chat with him. So I’d love to have Kaino come down. He’s a he’s an MC, he’s a rapper in a UK based guy. He, he, he, I think was someone who was ahead of his time, was ahead of his time. If he did something now, he’d be huge. But he he was at a time when the scene there’s a time and a place for everything. And one thing that whole grime UK garage movement taught me was 20 years ago was the birth of a culture. 20 years later, those who loved it, I mean years ago are now buying the CDs that can allow it to be a sustainable sound. Or you can actually have people like Stormzy and them come through and make a living of it. But it’s these guys just like NWA back in the day or even the precursors of them Run-D.M.C. really built. Hip hop is a similar thing, and I was one of those guys who built the crime scene, which the UK music scene. So for me understand like having him there would, would be super cool for me. That’s a personal one.

[01:42:07] Amazing body, really.

[01:42:09] Amazing.

[01:42:11] Woman. Thank you.

[01:42:12] So lovely to have you, buddy.

[01:42:13] Thank you so much.

[01:42:14] Thank you, guys. Really, really been a pleasure.

[01:42:19] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav. Solanki.

[01:42:34] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

[01:42:49] If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it, too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening.

[01:42:59] Thanks.

[01:43:00] And don’t forget our six star rating.

 

Neil Gerrard got an early start in dentistry, helping out at his dad’s lab, where he first started making models aged just 13.

But after spending some time as a clinical dental technician, Neil enrolled in dental school to scratch his itch to work more closely with patients and see the fruits of his labour pay off first-hand.

And dentistry is still very much a family affair for Neil. He now practices alongside his wife and brother, who continues their dad’s CDT legacy.

Neil chats about how it all started, the origins of his hard work ethic and gives his perspective on technical and clinical dentistry drawn from his years of unique experience in both disciplines.

Enjoy!

 

In This Episode

02.55 – Backstory and work ethic

12.39 – Switching to clinical

24.50 – Business culture and structure

31.57 – Team training and motivation

42.53 – Neil’s patients

52.55 – Clinical-technical tension and tech

01.05.50 – Guarantees

01.13.41 – Surprise and delight

01.19.21 – Black box thinking

01.26.47 – On employees and associates

01.39.54 – Charm Vs clinical skills

01.44.37 – Fantasy dinner party

01.47.39 – Last days and legacy

 

About Neil Gerrard

Neil Gerrard is a former clinical dental technician turned dentist and one of only a handful of UK dentists to hold British Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry (BACD) accreditation, for whom he is also an examiner.

Neil is the author of There is No Perfect Dentist—a consumer guide to choosing dental professionals.

 

[00:00:00] But I must admit, without sounding too pious, I do try and sort of keep true to myself. I only talk about things that I use in practice, and I only talk about things that I know work. Because if I don’t, if I talk about a product that I haven’t got faith in and then somebody buys that product, uses that product, and then they don’t get the outcomes with it. Again, nobody’s going to listen to me again. And, you know, I’ve been lucky. You know, I’ve never been good enough to work properly with with Enlightened.

[00:00:34] But this is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:00:59] It gives me great pleasure to welcome Lewis Mackenzie onto the podcast. Louis is a long time friend and mentor of mine, educator, general dentist, now ahead of head dental officer Dan Plant, Clinical Lecturer at Birmingham and at King’s and General General good guy on the lecture circuit, someone who probably is the most entertaining lecturer out there. Every time I’ve seen you lecture Louis, the crowd’s been in stitches. And in my story, most notably, the person who introduced Palmer to me. You didn’t. You weren’t quite the person who introduced the poem. But as soon as I met the Palmer, you called me and we knew each other, I think from the Manchester MSC, we were supporting that and you know, the best lectures on our many smile maker, of course, I think, you know, Lewis certainly. And I would agree, a once in a generation talent found his start in Birmingham Dental School, where Lewis was putting on hands on days for the students. And he always mentions you, Lewis, as his key inspiration. Well, lovely to have you, buddy.

[00:02:13] Well, thank you very much. It’s a very nice sir. That’s an excellent introduction. And pretty hard to.

[00:02:17] Pretty hard to live up to. All right. Well.

[00:02:20] All I can say is we’ve all got a similar haircut. So we’ve got something in common, haven’t we?

[00:02:29] Lewis, we’ll get back. We’ll get to the back story in all of that. Yeah, but just just on that Depeche front and I was thinking about this, the number of others you must have inspired. I mean, I know a few of them. You know, Millie Morrison, live scorer who introduced to me people like a few I know a few of a few of your graduates, but you must be responsible for so much good dentistry coming out there. Do you feel the weight of that when you have a new class?

[00:03:01] Not not really. But those are those names that those names that you mentioned are sort of extraordinary talents. I would say of all the things I’ve done over the years, one sort of skill that have got is being able to recognise this sort of unique you I think you said it sort of once in a generation talent. Depeche was definitely the first. And I remember I met him during the final year in 2009, and I run a special study module, run it for nine years. And Depeche was the first ever year and. He came on the he came on the course, and the first exercise I ever got him to do was just some occlusal composites and just to sort of set the set the bar. And when I looked at these composites, I thought. Shit. I’ve got to improve my teaching here. This. This bloke. This bloke is an absolute genius. And. And as you say, Millie. And we’d live again. They’ve just got this unique talent, and I’m not sure you can teach it. My. My role really was them was just to put the materials in their hands and just just just let them go with it. But but, yeah, they don’t come along to too often. Another one that comes to mind is Richard Lee. He just just emigrated to New Zealand, actually. But again, when you when you when you’ve I think now I’ve done over 1000 hands on courses. And so so you really get you really get a feel for somebody who’s just just way, way out of the ordinary. But Depeche was the first for definite and he definitely made me realise I need to up my game on a teaching point.

[00:04:49] And at the time you were a general dentist, you used to visit the dental school for hands on sexual for what was that was what it was.

[00:04:58] Yeah. I was a part time lecturer. I started, I’d been in practice for about ten years and then I’d always had that sort of little itch about doing a bit of teaching. I’ve done a couple of courses myself and sort of really enjoyed them. And yeah, just started doing a Thursday afternoon on clinic, did clinic for many years, probably about eight or ten years. But then I found a real passion for Phantom Head teaching. So I like it because it’s a level, level playing field, everybody starting with the same cavity and you get a really good opportunity to sort of rank the students and identify those who have got weaknesses. And so this special study module that I put on and ran for nine years, Depeche, as I mentioned, was that was the first year. And yeah, just, just really, really enjoyed that sort of aspect of it. But yeah, sort of clinical lecture is the title nowadays. I don’t do any undergrad teaching. It’s just purely postgrad working on the working on the master’s at Birmingham and the Maths and a couple of master’s courses at King’s. But I do quite a lot of, as you know, hands on courses around the country all the time. Anyway.

[00:06:04] What is it that makes somebody stick out, Lewis? Is it is it generally how inquisitive they are? Is it does it just come down to you, look at the work and think, crap, that looks amazing. How did that happen? What is it that is there a like if you could bottle that up and put it into a formula, what would it be for these super successful delegate guts that you’ve had?

[00:06:27] I think it’s when they do something that hasn’t been taught, they’ve just got that eye for it. They can just see something, explain something, but then take it to the next level. So one, one of my mentors, Adrian Shorter, we might chat about him later on. He, he said to me, don’t, don’t be upset when your students are better than you are. Take, take, take pleasure and pride in it. The thing is, with people like Depp’s Millie, Liv, Richard, they were always already better than me before they started. So. But I think it is that just that unique sort of X factor, whatever it is. And if you could bottle it then, then it’d be worth a fortune. But I don’t think you can. I think we can all. I mean, you’ve only got to look on Instagram and Facebook now to see the you know, the beautiful, beautiful quality of dentistry that is literally within anybody’s grasp. But then you’ll see the others who just take it up to the sort of the next level. I think one of the first contemporary couple of contemporaries that I saw of my sort of era were Jason Smythson and Tiff Qureshi, where I just thought, Wow, that’s a bit special. And then I mean, the nice thing about the people we’ve talked about as well is that they’ve gone on to become really great teachers as well, because that for me is an extra skill. You know, there’s plenty of people doing extraordinary dentistry nowadays, which is brilliant, but to be able to communicate that to us mere mortals, I mean, I go to to the enlightened course. I go to Dipesh lectures now and I’ve got my notebook out because he’s constantly pushing, pushing the boundaries when it comes to teaching and practice, because he’s just got that eye for aesthetics, that eye for colour, which, which, which I haven’t got.

[00:08:10] It’s interesting what makes a good dentist and then what makes a good teacher? Let’s agree firstly, two different things. You know, there’s many good dentists who aren’t great teachers and but I think with I think you gave Dipesh the advice that he shouldn’t go on any composite hands on courses so so that all the ideas would be original his own. He wouldn’t feel like he was taking an idea from someone else or something like that.

[00:08:41] That definitely wasn’t.

[00:08:41] Me. Sure that you don’t like my advice is going as many course.

[00:08:49] So yeah. Absolutely. There might be. There might be. There might be crap courses, but.

[00:08:55] You will always.

[00:08:56] You’ll always pick something up off them. And and of course he did. Chris Of course, there’s another legend. He did. Chris all year long course. I mean, he was only in fact, that was that was actually a really nice sort of bit of feedback that I got that Christopher has always had. I don’t know what the rules are nowadays, but it used to be you had to be graduated, I think, for at least three years before you could apply to go on Chris’s course. But then he made an exception unless they’d done the special study module at Birmingham Dental School in their final year. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So. So Dipesh and Emily got on their lips, done it as well. And of course, Millie now is one of Chris Christopher’s associates. So he knew what he’s talking about.

[00:09:41] And the teacher herself, not in composite, but more Invisalign. But but it’s interesting, you know, because we were doing a little series called My Mini Tip and we had dentists and I took it for granted. Every dentist has got one or two tips and they probably do and maybe camera shy at that moment or whatever. But I guess the difference between a teacher and a technician is a teacher has more tips that came from them. You know, that that things they do slightly differently to the rest of us need teaching.

[00:10:16] Doesn’t that’s true and but I think we all fall down the same holes anyway, don’t we?

[00:10:23] Yeah, that’s true.

[00:10:25] And that’s how we learn by by sort of reflecting. And I think in the let me use the term old days, we’ve probably the first of several times this evening, usually it was sort of ten years or so before you did any sort of postgraduate qualifications. Now, obviously, dentists are doing it a lot earlier and, you know, certificates, diplomas, even mscs on our MSC course, we’ve had some literally sort of first year, first year graduates. I just wonder whether actually doing these courses earlier on actually reduces the risk of you sort of falling falling into the regular sort of pitfalls. Or again, the old fashioned mantra is you need to make a few mistakes and then do the course and then learn basically based on your experience. So I don’t know what it is, but certainly there’s as you know, there’s a trend for courses a lot earlier nowadays.

[00:11:23] Yeah, I think in the US it’s slightly different, you know. When you talk to the academics out there, they haven’t got that mantra of become a generalist first. You know, they. Well, some do. By the way, I don’t think it’s the right or wrong. You can’t say one is right and one is wrong. But but you’re right that the sort of the general thing that people have been saying here is you learn a lot of things first and then go and specialise into one one area that you like to see, try a lot of things. But I remember when when I did my elective in the US, the advice wasn’t that it was, it was, you know, as quick as possible, try and get into something. And and I’ve given that advice to a lot of people as well. Louis, you know, because people asked me, Hey, what should I do? My answer is, pick one thing and just run with it. You know, get really, really good at something. You know, if you want to if you want to do something, pick pick one, pick one and go. But, you know, you’ve seen so many students come and go. Would you say that specialising these days is a good idea? Or would you say that general practice where you’ve thrived if creches thrived, crystals or ideas? Which way? Which way would you advise someone to go?

[00:12:41] Often down to the individual person. But don’t forget, whatever you choose, you’re going to be doing it for the next 30 to 40 years. So you’ve got to make the right decision. I wouldn’t close certainly early in your career. I wouldn’t close any doors because once it doesn’t take long in dentistry to sort of do skill, not necessarily skill, but lose confidence. And then you’re kind of you’re going down that one little route. And of course, obviously no perio. You can just do that all day long. But certainly when it comes to sort of aesthetic restorative, is it something that’s going to sustain a sustain for for 30 or 40 years? One interesting thing I’ve noticed, talking to a few young dentists and even a few lecturers recently is is just focusing on front teeth. And which is a bit of a worrying, worrying situation when we’ve got, what is it, a year’s missed missed appointments due.

[00:13:38] To.

[00:13:41] Due to the pandemic. And obviously 70% of all problems occur on molars, which they’re not as they’re not as instagrammable. But that’s where most of the most of the trouble is. So yeah, it’s I mean, you must see it a lot on your courses and of course it’s lovely dentistry to do, but is it sort of sustainable for that length of time? I don’t know. Certainly just don’t know whether obviously every restoration is going to fail and are these almost sort of aesthetic cosmetic specialists. Their whole career is going to be about replacement of existing restorations or management of of marginal stain and stuff like that. So it’s down to the individual. But certainly I would say early in your career, don’t, don’t narrow it down too early. That that would be my advice.

[00:14:36] Not.

[00:14:37] You know what? What you’ve just been saying there, Lewis, in terms of how long these restorations, every restorations go into eventually fail, etc., etc.. Right. There’s two bits of, I guess, information I’ve received from from. So TIFF has always pushed the you know, you don’t really know how good a dentist you are until you’ve seen how long you work lasts and you’ve got that long term follow up. And he always talks about his ten, his 15 year follow ups and he knows how long he’s dentistry lasts. And funnily enough, I had the opportunity to interview a guy called Daniel Boozer. I think his name is he’s an implant guy over at the ADA. According to everyone who I spoke to, he’s he’s one of the gods of implant dentistry. Anyway, cut a long story short, when I was interviewing him, I asked him about what advice he’d give to new students who are getting into wanting to get into implant dentistry and how would they know how good they are? And he said exactly the same thing as TIFF, that it’s about this long term follow up that he’s got cases. 35 years ago we placed an implant and they’re still stuck there in somebody’s head. And he felt that that was the true measure of somebody who was really good. What do you think are the concerns with all of this? A lot of front teeth, dentistry, composite veneers and things like that. Now, obviously, a lot of the courses are teaching that. And then the longevity of that in terms of, I guess how long these are going to last. How is it? We’ll see. Easiest way to describe it. Is it a huge problem waiting to unfold and happen when all of these, you know, composite veneers sort of mature in 5 to 6 years time and they need redoing with either more composite or porcelain. And then something you just mentioned, which I hadn’t given any thought to, is that are these dentists reskilling by just focusing on that?

[00:16:37] Really good questions just to sort of start at the beginning of that. You made a really good point about the longevity. I’ve worked in only one practice, the same practice for 30, 31 years. Wow. So so you know what works, but equally, you know what doesn’t work.

[00:16:54] Yeah.

[00:16:55] We’re in the kind of the infancy with composite veneers at the moment. Obviously, the materials have come along massively. Again, advertising payments wonders there. When I started using enamel, really, that was the first time composite veneers actually became a thing for me because of the Polish and. Composite versus versus porcelain. We could do a whole whole hour just on that. Composites got its disadvantages with regard to sort of technique, sensitivity with regard to surface lustre. That’s that’s where enamel works because obviously it’s a microfilm that keeps it keeps it shine. But the way that aesthetic restorations usually fail, where they’re direct or indirect is usually marginal stain. They don’t usually they don’t usually drop off certain materials. They will composite materials. They will lose their surface lustre. So it will be interesting to see exactly, say Prav a few years down the line. Payman to remember exactly the same thing happened in the nineties with the with with porcelain veneers. Well, that was very much that was very much the the thing the thing to do. All the courses were based were based around that. And then if you choose the wrong patient, if, if you’re not bonding to enamel and people, people came unstuck and I think probably moved away from that. But you know, either restoration, if it’s done well, it is going to last for years. But again, you also make a very good point that doing dentistry for the second time is is is a challenge because you’ve got to you’ve got to take it off.

[00:18:32] And, you know, when you’re cutting, whether it’s ceramic, whether it’s composite, are you in material? Are you in dentine? Are you in enamel bonding resin? So yeah, it’s a real it’s a real challenge. So but I would say just to add to that, the foundation of skill with not necessarily young dentists is some amazing, stunning older dentists as well with composite is because the foundation of skill I don’t think really we know yet they might just literally just need polishing. I know I’ve got I’ve got re enamel cases where where the composite veneers still again as you say in my latest anterior composite lecture, I’ve got a re enamel veneer at ten years. Tiny bit of marginal stain, still shiny, absolutely never been republished at all. So I think now because they’ve got the skills, you’ve got the the bonding techniques, you’ve got the material technology, they’re going to last longer. And of course, as every generation goes, they’re just going to get better and better and better at them. So maybe it will be the treatment of choice. I know Dipesh is sort of now he’s sort of half and half isn’t. He loves he loves composite, obviously, but I’ve seen him lecturing more and more on ceramics.

[00:19:49] Now.

[00:19:50] Do you know when you talk about restorations lasting? So the purpose of which let’s say somebody has a composite veneer is less functional and protective and more cosmetic when you refer to them lasting. Do you mean just staying in touch or do you mean lasting in a in a cosmetic way?

[00:20:09] Yeah. I mean, they’re not going to fall off. You know, you might get a little bit of chipping, but of course, that’s that’s easy to repair. But yeah, it’s really a patient factor. Is the patient you’re happy with them? And and I think that I think that’s the main thing and that would that would probably drive the replacement. Yeah. They’re not, they’re not going to drop off if they’re bonded to enamel I think Trevor Burks who did this massive study millions of restorations that have been done on the NCE and and labial only veneers came out tops. They last longer than at any other restoration in dentistry, so they’re not going to fall off if they’re bonded to enamel. That’s the best bond in dentistry. So they’re going to last. But yeah, so it’s going to be cosmetic. It’s going to be cosmetic failure before before anything else.

[00:20:53] Which which year did you qualify this?

[00:20:56] 1990 graduated with a with a marvellous four four, four years in one term.

[00:21:01] Course Payman not not missed five years.

[00:21:05] Yeah. The good old course. And so I was, I was going to say you’re not old enough. Right. But when did like your composite come.

[00:21:15] Well like your has been around it thinks is the since they on the first composite that was out. I’m trying to think I’ve actually got a picture of Trevor Burt with with one of the original curing lights. It was probably I would say probably the seventies don’t know for certain.

[00:21:33] We have Wilson on the on the podcast and he was talking about when they were developing it with Eisai and it was.

[00:21:39] Yeah.

[00:21:40] It was one one shade only. Right.

[00:21:43] Yeah.

[00:21:43] Yeah. So yeah. And then there was a clues in of course the first composites you have to mix yourself and there was no polymerisation shrinkage issues because you had so much air in them that the material just didn’t cause any problems. But yes, so light curing really sort of probably sort of seventies, it sort of kicked off.

[00:22:03] But you know, people like to say that the current day dentist, I mean, even outside of COVID, that, you know, the newer, younger generation don’t have the skills that that let’s say our generation had because they didn’t they don’t drill enough teeth. Do you have another side to that story that says they’re they’re a lot better than us because of whatever other you know, whatever other thing they do have that we didn’t have. You know, they get taught patient management or, you know, what are they being taught while we were drilling teeth?

[00:22:33] Well, I think it goes further back than that. They’re just really, really clever.

[00:22:39] You know, I thought, yeah, I.

[00:22:42] Want to know when I it was a B, it was a B and to CS to get into dentistry in 1986, I smashed that with the two B’s and two.

[00:22:53] Sees. It was.

[00:22:56] In those days you buy three, you get one free with.

[00:22:59] General study.

[00:23:02] So yeah, I mean they’re superintelligent. You’re absolutely right about the undergraduate experience. You know, they’re going to do a lot less than they did with regard to everything, you know, particularly amalgam skills, you know, some dental schools, they’ll almost do non extractions again depending on where depending.

[00:23:20] On the why is that because enough patients to have their teeth extracted.

[00:23:25] Just I mean we work Birmingham’s fluoridated so even back then my oral surgery experience was was very limited and so I had to sort of learn those skills kind of on the job.

[00:23:39] So are you are you Birmingham born and bred? Were you born in Birmingham?

[00:23:43] Staffordshire. I’ve my my quest through life has taken me about 25 miles.

[00:23:48] From.

[00:23:50] From from Staffordshire. I went to Birmingham Dental School because it was the only place that gave me an offer.

[00:23:57] Birmingham at the time my dentistry did.

[00:24:00] Oh, well, now you have asked a good question, and I had to actually do some research for this because I always was certain that I was 11. I was 11 when I decided I wanted to be a dentist. And I was absolutely certain I could remember where I sit in, in a science class who was sitting next to my mike Dean. But my auntie has always, always said, No, you are much younger than that. And so I thought, No, no, she’s making this up. And but then I went up to see one of my uncles in the Lake district and I asked him about this and he’s in his nineties and he said, No, no, you’re about six. So then I went back to my auntie and said, Come on, tell me this story. Then she said, Do you remember you’re in the car? And I said to you, What are you going to be when you’re older? How about being a doctor when you can look up, look after your Auntie Lillian when when she’s old? I said, and apparently I said to her, Now I’m not going to be a doctor.

[00:24:51] I’m going to be a dentist. And I was standing up in the back of a Fiat 127. So so no seatbelts in those days. And obviously so I couldn’t have been very tall. So I think I was about six. So I decided I wanted to be a dentist. I have absolutely no idea why. I never, never changed my mind. I remember when I went to Careers Day and I told the careers advisor that I wanted to be a dentist and her advice to me was, You don’t want to be a dentist. That’s a terrible job. Then when it came to A-levels in those days, you had to fill in, fill in a different form for a polytechnic. Picasso’s Picasso art form. So as you. Cassin Picasso, it’s all on one form now. And I refused to fill in the the whatever it was going to be, whether suggesting pharmacy, pharmacy or something like that. And so I refused to fill it in. I only wanted to be a dentist, but I don’t know why. And I’m just glad that chose chose a career that’s worked out for me.

[00:25:55] What did your parents do?

[00:25:58] My dad was was a draughtsman and my mom was she was well, her final job, she did lots of sort of secretarial jobs. Her final job there both passed away, unfortunately. But a final job was once she really loved and she was she was a medical secretary. That was that was the last job that she did. But my parents, if I was the first person to go to to uni in my family. So there was.

[00:26:25] Is there a, you know, like the how the that that part of the country was very industrial and you know, our stories in your in your family about the black country and everything everything that goes with that. And did you sort of see that change in the area?

[00:26:39] You’re such a Londoner, you’re such a London.

[00:26:45] Gossip bullshit.

[00:26:46] Stuff, which is no way stuff is just north of Birmingham.

[00:26:50] Oh, is it?

[00:26:51] So I was so romantic about this story. Like your granddad works in the mines and then, you.

[00:27:00] Know, my grandma.

[00:27:01] My granddad, we are going back now. I had a granddad, this is on my dad’s side and my granddad from the Isle of Skye, Isle of Lewis and my grandma from the Isle of Skye. They both left to find work to go to Glasgow. And then once they’d sort of become a couple they walked to Liverpool too to find a job. So my, my grandfather on my dad’s side, who I never met was an engineer by training.

[00:27:29] So Dad’s Scottish.

[00:27:31] My dad’s. My dad was born in. My dad was born in Liverpool. So but my grandparents are Scottish and my on my mom’s side they’re more sort of midlands based, more sort of Brummie Brummies but. Right. Proper Birmingham.

[00:27:45] Yeah. So if you, if you were an Indian they’d say you’re Scottish because you know you’re Scottish, you’re a Scottish guy.

[00:27:52] Like I was Scottish.

[00:27:59] I’ve got Scottish ancestors, so but I’ve got loads of Scottish relatives, loads of loads of aunties and uncles and cousins.

[00:28:09] What would you like? What would you like as a dental student? Were you really into it or.

[00:28:13] Oh, really?

[00:28:14] Yeah, yeah.

[00:28:15] Yeah. I really was. Yeah, I kind of liked it away. I mean, I must admit, it was pretty tough at dental school. We were lucky, actually, that we’d just been sort of a change in sort of management, if you like. Birmingham had always been sort of known as kind of the cotton school. I think the Cons department at one stage had about 30 members of staff. So when I started, we used to hear the sort of horror stories from the previous, the previous tutors, one that’s always stuck in my mind. And I sometimes remind the students when, when they’re being a little bit, a little bit soft, that one of the tutors apparently used to say to when he was checking a cavity or something like that, he’d stand over the with the with the patient and the student and he’d say to the patient, he’d look at the look in look at the in the cavity. And he’d say to the student, I wouldn’t trust you to cut my lawn.

[00:29:14] So.

[00:29:15] So fortunately, we missed we missed that sort of era. And we had really fantastic young lecturers at that time, Phil Lumley, basically God have ended antics. And Ian Chappell was a junior lecturer as as well. And obviously they were both my bosses, Phil and Phil and Ian and Trevor Burke came to to Birmingham as well via, via Manchester and Glasgow and he Trevor’s been really instrumental in my career and Damian Walmsley was, was head of sort of head of prosthetics or fixed removable prods. And so we were really lucky that we had all these young legends basically want to do things differently. And so the teaching we have interesting actually the there are a significant number of people in my year who have actually gone back into dental education and my four and a half years sorry, four years and one term were yeah, I must admit I really enjoyed it. I think I was one of those lucky students who kind of on the practical aspects, sort of picked it up straight away. You know, I’m quite a sort of, you know, used to like playing with Lego, fixing my bike stuff, stuff like that. So, so it’s quite lucky I sort of picked it up straightaway. And of course in those days is you’ll remember the course was very practical. And now going back to your other point, I think now there’s so much new stuff that you’ve got to learn with regard to, you know, I mean, there were no posterior composites. Molar endo was kind of in its infancy. And so the course now is so packed that the students are doing less practical work than they would have before. But with regard to talent and skills, I would say, you know, the future is most definitely so. These these young dentists are going to be awesome and and they’re going to take dentistry to the next to the next level. You know, I hope I can hang around for long enough to to just to see where it goes. Obviously, the digital revolution is finally has finally arrived. So yeah, I mean, that is really, really exciting stuff.

[00:31:33] I feel like the, the newer ones, they’ve got more AQ than, than we have sort of more emotional intelligence. At the same time though, maybe it’s just they admit to it more, they seem to suffer with more sort of mental health crises and issues. Is that your feeling?

[00:31:55] It. Maybe it’s it’s an excellent point. And obviously there’s loads of evidence to back that up. But I just wonder whether we all always had those issues. But it was just a case of.

[00:32:06] Talk about it.

[00:32:07] Get on with it, and suffer and suffer in silence. And that’s the way of the world. Maybe it is the fact that they’re they’re more sort of more sort of people of the world. They’ve got access to everything when it comes to sort of social media. The Internet, obviously, the Internet didn’t exist. So just maybe they’ve just got a better sort of perception about what their part in the world. And obviously they can be a little bit emotional at times and sort of older sort of dentists. That takes a little bit of getting used to, but I think they’re probably going to get a much better life work balance than maybe the dentists of yesteryear did when it was very much sort of, you know, five days a week, full days of NHS dentistry and then look sometimes look forward to retirement, which is, you know, you’ve got to enjoy the ride. I would always say, I would always advise and whatever you doing just enjoy your dentistry. And if you’re in a if you’re in a situation where you’re not enjoying it, do something to to change that.

[00:33:18] I mean, there’s a lot of people who aren’t enjoying it. There is.

[00:33:23] Yeah.

[00:33:24] Absolutely.

[00:33:24] And I mean, at the same time, there’s loads of people who adore it and love it and can’t stop talking about it. And, you know. So what do you reckon is the difference? Do you think the difference is staying engaged and trying to improve the whole time? And why is it some people are in such a bad state about and I think the GDC whatever has has a role to play but it’s always been like that. Even before the Dental Law Partnership came along, there were some dentists were really into it and others who hated their lives. What’s the difference in those two characters, do you think?

[00:34:01] Well, it is such a good question. And if you actually love the physical act of delivering. Doing a filling or something like that, if you if you really, really enjoy that, then nobody can take that away from you. You literally just you know, that’s a that’s a big chunk of your life on Earth that you’re actually enjoying. But when you’re working in a situation where maybe you’d really enjoy that feeling, you know, it’s going to take you a 45 minutes to do it. But you’re working in a clinical situation where you’ve got 15 minutes to do it, then you’ve immediately got that. I think the textbooks call it that moral, moral tension, haven’t you, where you know you know what’s best, but you know, you’re working in a system that’s not allowing you to to do that. And I think that’s probably at the heart of of mental health issues in dentistry, which, as you say, have been around literally forever. I mean, the good thing is now mental health is most definitely on the agenda in dentistry. You know, the regular report coming out, looking at the profession, looking at the causes. Remember the BDA did did a massive one, thousands of dentists in 2019, just just before the pandemic. And, you know, they listed the top ten stressors in dentistry, and most of them were systematic problems and regulation was one of them. There was I read I read a nice article by Martin Keller, I think it was in the BDA, actually. And he said, nowadays it’s like practising clinical dentistry is like being in a lift with a wasp. And I think it’s a good analogy. The only way that that analogy falls down is if you’re in a lift, you can get out of the next floor.

[00:35:52] If you’re if you’re a dentist, you’re in the lift for 30 to 40 years. So I think there is obviously the dental legal stuff is never is never going to go away. But nowadays that’s that’s a separate self sustaining industry. But I’ve had I’ve had second year dental students literally just started on Phantom Head say to me that they’re worried about graduating because they don’t want to get sued. So, so, so second year, Joe so this stuff, this stuff does starts does start early and it can do but need to be prepared. That’s the way of the world. It’s not going to go away and just do your best for every patient as long as as long as that’s the sort of philosophy. And if you are in a situation that’s compromising your ethics, your standards, then do something to change it. And I know obviously Prav does loads of work with dentists and with whole teams to create the right environment. In fact, I think I listen in preparation for this. I did some revision, I listened to one of you, did an excellent talking heads when it was just the two of you. And Prav made the point that he felt that at that time one of his favourite clients was a bloke who was just unhappy in his job and he just needed to change. No, change was not an option for this bloke and obviously he did perhaps training and sounded like it all. It all worked out well for him. Prav is that correct?

[00:37:21] It’s Lewis. But you’ve just got me thinking about another thing, which is, you know, what is the reason some of these guys, especially what I’m seeing and it’s not you know, I’m not speaking for all the younger dentists, but I have a lot of younger dentists who come to me and say, I just want to make X per month. That is that’s the overriding thing that they come to me for. But they’ve not been they’ve not done enough dentistry, if that makes sense. So when you look at them from an I’m not the one to judge them clinically, but you know, they’ve been out of dental school for 18 months, two years and they’re both their prime motivating factor is I want to make X per month. Right. And it doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about dentistry, whether we’re talking about a career in marketing or whatever it is, I think you need to earn your stripes first and get some experience under your belt before that. Becomes your sort of number one motivator. And I do say to them, look, my first bit of advice is get on these courses, right? And these courses happen to be courses that people that I respect that pay more respect probably yourself as well. Or is that that you just think that let let them get this solid, grounded, and then the money will come.

[00:38:41] But I do think that if finances that number one motivating factor from a very young age, I do think a lot of these dentists will start becoming unstuck later on because they siloed themselves into I am just going to be an Invisalign doctor. I am just going to press the button on this program and get this treatment plan done for me and I’ll finish it off with a little bit of edge bonding or whatever. Right. But it’s a bit like becoming a marketeer and running Facebook ads. But you don’t know the first thing about the problems of the people that they face that you’re marketing to. Right. So so how can you how can you market to somebody who needs a full arch of implants if you don’t know the problems that a loose denture wearer goes through and the fact that they can’t eat steak or the fact that they they cover their hands or they walking around with a tube of fixed it in their pocket all the time and so on and so forth. And I feel really strongly about this and I feel as somebody who helps practices grow, there’s a bit of a pressure on sort of them coming to me and saying, Well, I want to make loads more money. And my advice at the moment is get strikes first and the money will come.

[00:39:54] I couldn’t agree more. I mean, you’re giving absolutely spot on advice and I’d give exactly the same advice. I think in dentistry, if you put finances first, it’s doomed to failure because you’ll always be chasing something over the horizon, which is which never actually arrives. And you’ve got to obviously be constantly chasing repeat business over and over again. If you’re looking from a financial point of view, from a financial point of view, the best way to achieve that goal is is family dentistry. And look, I think TIFF talks about this, the lifetime patient. It might sound a little bit sort of old fashioned, but yes, the see the grandparents, the parents and the kids and sometimes even their kids. That’s from a business point of view that is the foundation of any successful practice. Also, when finance is at the fore, I’ll be careful. Our phrase this there is a danger that it affects your treatment, planning and and if you’re not looking at the whole patient and the whole patient’s needs and maybe just focusing maybe just on the anterior teeth, it is that old classic that if all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So everybody gets the same treatments. They all look pretty much the the same. And yeah, you get on a OCH, it’s not an NHS treadmill, but it’s a different treadmill. And so I think I think a balance between I think a balance between that where it’s lovely to do the aesthetic stuff, but of course it.

[00:41:30] Is.

[00:41:31] Patients demands. Now patients are so well educated that, you know, they know what, they know what they want and you’ve got to be able to deliver on that promise. So going back to learning your getting getting your stripes, getting your hours in, I think it is like any sort of it’s that 10000 hours, isn’t it? What if whatever whatever you do and if you’re going to become an expert in it, 10000 hours a mate of mine or shared an office with Charles Perry, he actually worked it out and he reckoned it was about ten years, ten years of of of sort of four, four and a half, five days of dentistry. That’s about 10000 hours of practical dentistry. In that time, you’ve probably you’re probably made most of your mistakes, not all of them. Unfortunately, you’ve learnt what you’re good at, you learnt what you’re not good at, you’ve learnt your patient communication skills. And it’s why in the again using that old phrase in the old days it usually was ten years was kind of a turning point where the where you maybe think, right, I’m going to buy a practice now or maybe I’m going to go on a, you know, I’m going to learn how to do implants.

[00:42:39] I’m going to be an end to dentist, that sort of ten year apprenticeship, for want of a better word. But I think that’s certainly come forwards now. Certainly young dentists seem to be a lot more business minded in a good way. You know, they seem to sort of grasp that it’s not something that’s ever taught at a dental school, but they certainly do seem to have a grasp of of what they want and the vision that they want. But again, I’ll mention this possibly when you ask me those questions, which I’ve prepared for at the end, is from a financial point of view, just just enjoy your dentistry. Just do do what feels right for the patient, what feels right for you. And the money will will will sort itself out. No, no problem at all. And use the team as well. You know, use your specialists, use your technicians and just become a whole little sort of industry. Yeah. Look, for me, looking after looking after families is the key and then the aesthetic restorative stuff. That’s, that’s the icing on the cake.

[00:43:42] Yeah. Not, not to mention Prav. Yeah. The best way of not making that money is to focus on making that money. But I wonder if people say that to you because they see a marketing guy before them and they feel like that’s I’m allowed to say this to, to, to the marketing guy. And so they come across as that guy, you know.

[00:44:03] Possibly there’s an element of that, right. And they probably see that I’ve worked with a lot of successful dentists who’ve who’ve done really well, both clinically and financially, but a lot of these dentists who have done really well as a stripes. Yeah, they’ve got the decade well and truly under their belt. Yeah. You know, and then they’ve done well however you define doing well financially right. We all have different I guess set points, call it whatever you want. Right. Well our definitions of success are and some of them are spending more time with your kids or whatever, and some of them are driving fast cars and going on luxury holidays, whatever that thing is. But, you know, people do come to me and they associate me with with those individuals who’ve done well, let’s say, for example. And then they come to me and say, hey, well, you’re the. That drives the patients through the door and then can give me advice on conversion and all the rest of it. So Prav bring me some money, right? And, and for me, whether I’m giving advice to somebody who comes to me for career advice as a as a, as a young marketeer or someone or somebody comes to me for career advice as a dentist. Yet I say, you’ve got to be able to do the shit that you can say you can do. Then we can market that, because if you end up marketing something that you know you can’t do, you’re only going to end up in trouble. And this comes down to my involvement with the IAS Academy has taught me a lot about how I guess you should operate as a dentist.

[00:45:39] Right. And case selectivity. Knowing your limits. Right. Knowing when to say no. Really, really important. Right. And so marketing can put you in trouble because it can deliver a patient that you have absolutely no chance of being able to treat because you don’t have the skill set of doing it right. But you decide, okay, I’ll be Mr. or Mrs. Brave and have a crack at that. So, you know, I’m a I’m a big believer in making sure that we market appropriately at a skill set and at a level that we can deliver because it will be short lived otherwise. And even with my clients, I want to build long term relationships. I don’t want to I don’t want to put someone in a position where they become unstuck. They’re up in front of the GDC, you know, and there’s I guess there’s a sense I feel like there’s a sense of responsibility on my behalf. It’s not just about an exchange of service for money, but I think I’m fortunate enough to be in a position where I can actually say, Look, if that’s what you want to do, there may be another agency out there that could help you do that. But this is my advice, and I think what weighs on me is having business partners like Tiff Qureshi, who’ve got a very, very high moral, moral, ethical, high ground for me to sort of say, well, okay, well, this is this is the route I think you should go down.

[00:47:05] Yeah. And Tiff’s always had that as me and just I mean, that’s such an excellent point that if you are going down that you’re almost always treating strangers. And I’m sure obviously you’re a medic by training as well. Never treat a stranger. Get to know the patients before before you jump in because you don’t know what they’re like. And and you made a really good point there that really sort of rang a bell rang a bell with me is asking saying to patients not to treat them. I would say some of the best clinical decisions you will ever make in your practising career are the patients you choose not to treat. And you know, you don’t have to be rude. You know, send them on the road. You need a you need a better dentist than me for for for this. And certainly if I think back, those had been some of the best decisions I’ve made. As you get older and more experienced, you see the warning signs, but obviously you can’t be expected to do that when you’re just starting out. So yeah, just earning your stripes exactly as you said it, doing that apprenticeship for a few years, just getting a feel for the and then decide what you want to do.

[00:48:21] Louis If that’s the best decision you’ve ever made, what’s the worst decision you’ve ever made in a clinical dentistry class?

[00:48:31] In clinical dentistry.

[00:48:33] With patients, whatever you said, some of the best decisions you’ve ever made is is actually having the courage to say no. I guess what what are some of the worst?

[00:48:43] What’s gone wrong? What’s gone wrong?

[00:48:45] Yeah.

[00:48:46] Well, perhaps question first of all would be those ones I’ve learnt from those learning patients where I’ve got into something, whether I don’t know whether it’s an endo or an aesthetic case or what or an extraction that I think I really wish I hadn’t started this. But but then you’re on, but then you’re on that, then you’re on that conveyor belt. To answer page question, you know, it’s a long list of nothing, nothing catastrophic pain. I’m sorry to see frozen.

[00:49:24] Or I’m just.

[00:49:25] Is just really good at sitting still. Nothing, nothing catastrophic, but a few a few learning experiences, which I think made me a better dentist. I’m more cautious.

[00:49:41] Yes. Which ones will happen?

[00:49:45] I knew you were going to make me be specific.

[00:49:48] Because.

[00:49:49] You’re not going to leave it like that.

[00:49:53] Far too vague.

[00:49:55] I’ll give you I’ll give you two. I’ll give you two of of many. Listening to a few of these podcasts previously I noticed quite a common theme is people’s worst day at work has been sort of Dental legal problems. And and as you know, sometimes this can be sort of a year of their lives with with a with a cloud over their careers. And for me, I would say it was probably it was probably the same. But I’m embarrassed to say that mine only lasted for 48 hours. And it was it was an end and end case which didn’t work and tried to it was one of those ones. It just on the x ray, it just looked absolutely perfect and it didn’t didn’t settle. So chats with patients said, I’d like to retreat this one. And she said, I’d rather just have it out. So we had the discussion and I took it out and then months down the line just got a letter, the clinical negligence letter, taken a taken a tooth out that didn’t need to be extracted. But I was just, you know, whether it’s luck or whether it’s judge judgement, did what you’re supposed to do, phoned up the one with the d-do they were brilliant. Just send us all the the x rays, send us, send us the radiographs and we’ll get back to you. So did that posted them off in those days and then it was I think it was Rupert Hoppen and Brewers at two days later he phoned me up.

[00:51:28] He said, is that Mr. Mackenzie said, We don’t usually do this but don’t worry about this, this will go away. He said about one in 5050 cases they get to actually make that call to say, don’t worry, this will disappear. Don’t give it another minute’s concern. Your notes are fine. You’ve done everything that you should have done. And sure enough, I got a letter again months down the line. We’ve decided not to pursue you on this, on this, on this occasion, but there’s no question about it. That experience. The wasp came into the room and the wasp never left. You know, it was. It was. It was in the corner. It never formed a hive or anything like that. But it did make me because that surprised me. It really surprised me because I had tried my best. Still, to this day, I’ve absolutely no idea why it failed. I’d actually saved the tooth to try and section it and work out why, where, where I’d gone wrong. And then you asked for two. So I suppose I’ll give you another one. Was again, just a mistake. I was I was finishing finishing a composite and sort of Class five composite adventurer and they hadn’t put the burr in into the handpiece. Burr fell out. The handpiece patient literally swallowed just at the, just at the wrong time and so yeah what can you do.

[00:52:51] So I again, this had a happy outcome as well. I said to the patient, we really need I don’t know where that’s got, where that’s gone. We really need to have a chest x ray. That was the was the that was the guidance. And so drove him up to the local, local hospital. He had a chest x ray. He had swallowed it. He hadn’t he hadn’t inhaled it. And the weird thing was that it was he was an elderly patient who’d retired. And based on that experience, he actually became a volunteer in the X-ray department, which he did for years and years and years. And I saw him for years afterwards. You know, every time I saw him, I just felt, you know, felt really, really bad about about making that making that error. But I certainly certainly learnt from it, but nothing too catastrophic. And I know I really feel for some colleagues who have got cases that have been hanging over them for years in some cases, and I had a very, very short experience of what that felt like. And it was, Oh, that’s great, my career is over. And it happened to me fairly, fairly early on as well. But everything, my note making just hopefully really, really improved by that. So so those are two that spring to mind. I’m sure I’ll think of some more.

[00:54:21] When you said there was a happy ending, I thought he was going to say fish the bear out and brought it back for you.

[00:54:38] I was just waiting for.

[00:54:39] I was waiting for the punch line.

[00:54:40] Louis I don’t know. I mean, I don’t mean to sound disappointed, Louis, but in a 30 year career, those don’t sound like really hard stories to me.

[00:54:52] Yeah, but they impacted. They impacted on that. They certainly had an impact on me.

[00:55:01] But have you never had a situation where the patient’s lost trust in you, you know, like that sort of situation or you took on a case that that went wrong in the wrong direction for a long period or even in my short. I mean, maybe you’re just a much better dentist to communicate to that. Yeah, but even my short five years at the the BR front, I did have a few couple of cases like that where, you know, like cosmetics is awful, right? Patients says it looks great, goes home, comes back because I don’t like them anymore. You know, you’re in a terrible situation just there on a matter of opinion, you know, does that never happen?

[00:55:44] Were fortunately not with regard with regard to that, because forcing I’ve done the course is when I started doing aesthetic dentistry. Fortunately, I’ve done some good courses and they the thing that I always bang into is, is make sure the patient knows what it’s going to look like at the end. So there are no surprises at the end because, I mean, there is nothing and I say this in lectures all the time, there is absolutely nothing worse than, I don’t know, some veneers on or something like that. And the patient, either immediately or after they’ve seen their family saying, saying, I don’t I don’t like them because there’s no plum. These are, you know, okay, if they’re too long, you can shorten them. But that’s all you can do. And then obviously redoing stuff like that is, is, is an absolute it’s an absolute nightmare doing redoing dentistry that you just did.

[00:56:44] Yeah.

[00:56:45] Really is is, is literally is your worst day at work isn’t it.

[00:56:50] Yeah.

[00:56:50] So I think it pay, I don’t think it is judgement. It is, it is just luck but I certainly and maybe, maybe it was, maybe it was that early on end of case that really made me choose, choose my battles and be able to deliver on, on whatever I, on whatever I promised. But I’m sorry to disappoint you.

[00:57:15] I can’t think of.

[00:57:17] Anything anything cut to catastrophic for you in my professional life.

[00:57:23] You mentioned Lewis. The conversation I had about the NHS and leaving the NHS and what people are saying about that and what worries people have about that. But now in your role in dental plan, that must be a daily occurrence. I know your role isn’t specifically to talk about that dentist. I mean, you’re more on the education side and so forth, but what stories do you hear or what concerns do people have and are they the same concerns every time? And then the solution’s a similar solution all the time, or is it different in each case? Tell me some stories of NHS to private.

[00:58:01] It is it is it.

[00:58:03] Is the similar it is similar all the time and it’s always and they’ve always been the same stories. I mean I’ve I say I’ve done a 1000, so I’ve been teaching for about 20 years. I’ve been doing hands on courses for getting on for 20 years as, as well. So I’ve spoken to thousands, thousands and thousands of dentists and that’s, you know, me, we’ve been on courses together, you know, and I know you’re as well. You like chatting to chatting to the dentist, you know, good. Good to chat to, good company, entertaining people. And so, yeah, I’ve got a whole list. In fact, I did a webinar last week on this exact subject. It is the same things that come up every single time people have transitioned from NHS to private all report. Same thing. Number one is always time, more time, more time with the patients, more time for your for your for your private life, for your for your life work balance. But it’s it’s never money. Money is always the absolute bottom of the list is it is clinical outcomes, it’s job satisfaction. It’s developing good relationships with your patients. It’s using good materials and equipment.

[00:59:17] It’s having the time to go on courses and upskill. It’s working with technicians who share the same philosophy that you do. It’s you know, I’ve spoken to dentists on courses, a hands on courses. And this is this was not an uncommon occurrence. I do I used to run a series of ten hands on courses on various different restorative subjects and be quite a common one. When I was just started to push the envelope with, with big composites and almost without exception sort of every month somebody, an NHS dentist, would come on the course and I’d, you know, and we’d do a, I don’t know, mode b build up on a pre molar, take about an hour or something like that. And a dentist would say, you know, you know, this is all well and good, but I can’t do this on the NHS and I used to quite commonly get into this discussion and I said If you don’t mind me asking, how many patients do you see per day? And I would say almost without fail, sort of definitely a few times a year the dentist would say eight zero 80 patients per day.

[01:00:32] Oh, my goodness.

[01:00:33] Wow. To which to which I’d say, well, no, no, you can’t. You know, what’s what’s your what’s your appointment time if you’ve got to do this if you’ve got to do this in 10 minutes. You might get the first one right, but you’re not going to get the fifth one right. You’re not going to get the 10th one right. And what I did want to see, I didn’t believe it, actually, but I actually went to went to the went to the practice. I once knew of a dentist who had 100 patients booked in every day. I didn’t believe it, but I actually saw the daybook. It was a pencil, a pencil day book. And there were there were 100, 100 patients booked in in that day.

[01:01:13] The interesting thing is, if you if you said clean up time between 100 patients.

[01:01:18] Is.

[01:01:19] Just just be really kind of say 5 minutes to 3 minutes clean up. That’s 300 minutes of clean up time, which is 5 hours of clean up time.

[01:01:33] It’s not terrible.

[01:01:34] And you would occasionally see dentists who would get themselves into this sort of. This treadmill of multiple surgeries.

[01:01:45] On the.

[01:01:47] On the go. Well, but then.

[01:01:49] What are the barriers? What are the barriers? I mean, why don’t people want to leave? I mean, there’s the obvious financial sort of, you know, with the the system is that you’re sort of assured a certain income per year. There’s that. And then and then there’s another one talking to people who are thinking about it, the people who are eminently more qualified than I was when I decided to leave the NHS, worried about their skill set and worried about whether they can pull it off or not. And I say, you know, it seems to me so obvious. I will just keep it simple. Refer. Simple as that.

[01:02:24] You’re absolutely right. Confidence is the number one. You know, they don’t feel they don’t feel like a private dentist. To which I always say.

[01:02:31] What is that private?

[01:02:32] Exactly.

[01:02:34] I’d say, went to dental school. You weren’t trying to be an NHS dentist. You were. You were trained to be you. You were trying to be a dentist and to do whatever that particular patient needs are still to this day, do a lot of hands on courses with foundation dentists. And so I really, really notice that they really, really feel going from the, I don’t know, safe environment of, of the dental school scene to maybe four patients a day or something like that. And then working to an environment where obviously you’ve got to speed up. But that sort of tension with regard to sort of clinical decision making they they a classic one would be they they know that a direct composite online is the best treatment for that particular tooth. But working in a system, I don’t know. Take the UDA system, for example, where you’d be pushed to do an indirect restoration and that tension, a chrome denture or something like that. So you know that a cobalt chrome denture is the best thing for the patient. But when you factor in the lab bill, you would know that you do too many of those. Your business is your business is going bankrupt and and where cases in the in the UK system as well. So I mean the system does need to the system does need to change and it needs to change rapidly. I mean only in the last couple of weeks we’ve seen the, the Parliament Sean Smallwood talking to the health, health and Social, Social Care Select Committee. Things have to change and they have to change. They have to change rapidly.

[01:04:15] But you know at then plan what was the USP of that organisation is is it that they, they’re good at helping people go from one to the other. Is it, is it that they good at managing the teams because there are there are those concerns aren’t they. You know, what will my team think? What will my patients think? Am I up to it in all of this? Does Denton hold the hand better than the next company? I mean, they were certainly one. They were the first, weren’t they?

[01:04:43] Yeah, 1986 den plan was set up was set up with with three goals. It was set up by two dentists in the mid eighties. Eighties was a was a nightmare time anyway record unemployment record inflation. Falklands War miner strike it was it was it was a nightmare time and it was a nightmare time in in dentistry as well. And so these two two dentists came up with this idea for a basically a new system, a capitation system that was something to do instead of NHS dentistry, which was, which was the only game in town, you know, in, even in the nineties. I remember at the time somebody said there there are around about 500 private dentists in the UK. Now there’s 26,000. So plan was set up with three goals and those goals have remained the same throughout right up until today and they’re just as relevant as they were before. The first thing was professional control, getting control of your own career, which is what we’re talking about. The second was to create an environment outside the NHS where you could do quality dentistry. And the final one, which is even more relevant now, was to align the patient’s wishes with the dentists philosophy, which is prevention. Prevention patients don’t want dentistry. And so if if a capitation system works really for me, it’s perfect. It’s the perfect practical situation in clinical dentistry because you’re getting paid to keep people healthy rather than getting paid to find things to do and do things.

[01:06:32] And so having that balance of private fee per item and loads of patients on a plan just gives you that sort of clinical freedom to to make the right decisions every time, because your clinical decisions are based on, on what the patient needs. And obviously, I’ve talked to thousands and thousands of dentists and it’s the reason that we’re really quite evangelical about them plan is it because it was the first and it. It changed my professional career because when we went private, we weren’t completely private with them. In those days, you couldn’t you couldn’t have a children’s only contract. So basically it was, it was, it was private and and we didn’t retain any NHS within the practice. So in those days it was a leap of faith because there was no blueprint, big practices hadn’t done this before. But of course now there’s, you know, there’s a, there’s a blueprint. And, you know, thousands of dentists have already made they made that move. But so if you do chat to them plan dentists and I’ve heard this time and time again is that it changed it changed their professional careers even further. It changed their lives. And that is why that we’re so passionate about them.

[01:07:53] What is what is your actual role there? I mean, I know you were in charge of the education side for a while, but now now your new role.

[01:08:01] Yeah, well, the head dental officer, it’s actually the job that the original head dental officer is Roger MATTHEWS, who was one of my mentors, who is an absolute legend so far of ahead of his time. It’s really is a it really is a multi factorial role. Difficult to describe it in in just a sentence. The education side is still a big part of it. And one of the things that I’ve been really lucky to do is be involved with a big project to create our state of the art online education, to go along with our life courses. Our live courses have been incredibly popular for.

[01:08:42] Just summarise summarise the size of that that unit. I mean, I remember someone telling me, well, maybe it was you. It was like they do something like 500 days of live courses a year or something.

[01:08:53] Yeah. Yeah, we have way over 500 or 500 courses. I mean from, from hands on courses. I mean dipesh you, you kindly helped us out. I think that still remains our biggest ever hands on course. I think we had something like 40 dentists in the room, but you got good value out of Depeche that day. But we do in practice training that’s super popular. We do all the compliance subjects. We have ski conferences, cycling conferences, hiking conferences, and we just actually we’ve just finished actually, we’ve done our first four national forums. These are our sort of flagship events. And so so far we’re up in Scotland, in Blaine, Cambridge, Chepstow, and then we’re in Belfast the week before last. And so basically this is a full day study day with a nice meal and a stopover as, as well. And we’ve had Simon Chard lecturing for us on digital, doing a doing an hour and a half session. And he has been absolutely superb the den plan audience because you know is quite a tough audience. I say it’s it’s you know for for lecturers it’s a good rite of passage to to lecture to them to the dental plan dentist because, you know, you’ve got a lot of mscs in the room. You’ve got a lot of experience.

[01:10:14] Simon is a talented speaker, talented, very, very talented speaker.

[01:10:18] He is very, very polished. And but it does go beyond way beyond the clinical excellence, which he most certainly has. But it’s the whole sort of the the marketing, the use of social media. It’s his feedback has been off the scale. It’s been absolutely superb. So so those those are flood control.

[01:10:41] Have you got if let’s say you want to come up with a new course in Panama. Whatever.

[01:10:51] Well, like.

[01:10:52] You know, if you come up with a new idea, who does it? Is it you? Is it. Are you the last person who has to say yes to things? Or is there this other person who has to.

[01:11:02] Through.

[01:11:02] The process? What’s the process of if a new idea comes up, how does it work?

[01:11:06] It would be really lovely if that was if that was the case. My boss, Catherine Rutland, who’s another? Another and dentist as as well. So she would be the first person I would. In fact, literally, this actually happens only last week. I’m putting together ideas for the programme for 2023. So I’ve literally sketched out this is for me, this is the ultimate programme of live events and online online training events. And then we literally just go through the process with regards to funding budgets, manpower and workouts, work out what what we’re going to do for the next year. So we try and work kind of a year ahead. We’ve got an events team. The events team are amazing and we do lots of charity events as well, but not sort of CPD involved as well. You know, marathons, conferences. Our parent company, Simply Health Sponsored, The Great North is sponsored all of the great runs for a few years. So yeah, it’s just sort of because for me and I’m sure you’ll say exactly the same thing with your courses pay and even with your courses as well. Prav is for me some of the best little nuggets of education don’t come when you’re sitting in front of the lecturer. They come, they come in the breaks they come when when you when you’re having lunch, when you’re on a ski lift or.

[01:12:35] Wherever, the gin and tonic, man, you know, people underestimate that. It’s not it’s not the gin and tonic. It’s the different sort of sort of the barriers of the classroom situation. And then the barriers and the real conversations do tend to happen outside of the classroom situation. And for me, you know, the other thing is the delegates learning from each other totally. It’s a key point. It’s not just from the teacher, it’s a key point. They’re all going through the same things.

[01:13:09] Certainly from a practice management point of view, and I was really lucky I got into them quite early. I think it was about 93, although we were mixed for probably 15 years. Yeah, probably about 15 years. I was lucky, I think. I went on the first ever Dem planned golf conference and just sat down. My golf’s never never been any good and it it never it never will be. But I remember sitting down with some of the original Bampton dentists and they were really sort of saying, you know, from a great tips, you know, categorise your patients and correctly to begin with, equipment, materials, loads of techniques, loads of courses. Again, you know, I’ll go on one course, I’ll get a tip to go on to go on another one. It’s much easier now because obviously they’re all advertised on on social media, but it was very much a sort of a word of mouth who are the good speakers, who are the good mentors? And I was just really, really lucky that in the early, early years of my career, I just bumped into some just really, really influential people who transformed my career.

[01:14:18] Were you always that funny guy on stage? Because you are.

[01:14:27] Obviously, this is a fantastic opportunity to go into a Goodfellas moment here and, you know.

[01:14:34] When you have. But you could be a funny guy.

[01:14:41] Entertaining that entertaining style you’ve got. I was not from the first time you lectured. Was it like that.

[01:14:49] Style over content. I think that is.

[01:14:53] It is.

[01:14:53] It is. I’ve got a message that I want to get across. When I first started lecturing, I watched it before it started. I’d watch some really good lecturers and and you’d notice the ones who kept people sort of captivated. Trevor would be a really good. Trevor would be an absolute classic example of that because no matter how good your how good your, your content is, if people are asleep. And I’ve had plenty of people fall asleep in my lectures, they are going to learn nothing. They, in fact, just digressing from my worst ever. It wasn’t even a heckle in a live lecture. There was it was I don’t know. There was an audience of about I don’t know, about 40 or 40 or something like that. So it was a small it was a small seminar and there was a bloke in the front row and and he came in and he fell asleep almost immediately.

[01:15:49] And.

[01:15:50] And so that was a bit I was still introducing myself. I was still.

[01:15:54] I don’t have a long I don’t have a long I don’t have a.

[01:15:58] Long this is me intro but but he fell asleep during that. So then without a word of a lie, I kept going. I kept going. And then after a while his phone went off. It got off, it stood up. The group was in two, it was in two halves. So there was there was a sort of an alleyway down the middle. He walked up the alleyway, he answered his phone. And I.

[01:16:22] Don’t know what.

[01:16:23] I don’t know what the conversation. Nobody said, no, I’m in a lecture.

[01:16:27] No crap. And he walked.

[01:16:33] Out and he never came back.

[01:16:36] Wow.

[01:16:39] So that’s so that was my worst. So that was my worst sort of experience. But I think public speaking, I went to I went to a lecture the other day from somebody, a similar sort of vein to Prav. And it was people’s worst fears. And I think I think the worst fear this bloke was talking about was I think it was death of a relative public speaking and then being buried alive. So so when it comes to public speaking, I don’t I don’t I don’t mind. I never I never have.

[01:17:14] I think if you pull it off, you put it off so well with with the with the I don’t want to call it comedy, but the sort of the humorous side of it. And I always think if you if you say something funny, I never I never try it by person, because what if what if no one gets it or no one laughs? So and I find people do laugh in my lectures, but at points where I wasn’t expecting it. So it’s like they’re laughing at.

[01:17:38] Me so.

[01:17:39] Wisely. But but you put it off like a master, like a king.

[01:17:43] Give us an example, Payman. Give us an example.

[01:17:46] But he just. He can’t help himself from the first moment. Yeah, he’s talking it’s he’ll say a self-deprecating joke or something, but the audience will just get behind him straight away, you know, like, like what you said. You say, let’s say you can say something about your hair being a bald guy or whatever I’d say. And the room would be a room would be silent and worried. Yeah, he’ll say, and the room will be bursting out laughing. Yeah. And it goes on and it’s not like it’s only a comedy show.

[01:18:18] I’m not.

[01:18:18] Saying that.

[01:18:19] I’m going to say that at all. No, not at all.

[01:18:22] I was just about to ask Louis to tell us his favourite joke.

[01:18:26] It’s just. It’s just. It’s just.

[01:18:28] The content. The content is, is, is punctuated with some entertainment bits here and used to talk about different people, you know, good old and new places. So the way he would do it, I don’t know, Louis just carries it off in a really sort of for me, effortless is the way I would. I would describe it.

[01:18:50] That’s extremely nice of you to say. And it’s it’s not something I mean there’s certainly that. Edutainment as my my predecessor before Catherine Henry Clover he was my boss at Dental and he was the he was the head dental officer after Roger he said edutainment you know, you get you get you get your get your content across but it’s got to be entertaining. Otherwise, why why is anybody going to when when is anybody going to sort of actually come to your next lecture? But it’s not something that I sort of sort of script in really sort of I don’t know, they sort of I’m kind of lucky. It kind of sort of comes to me. I mean, I went to a school, a pretty rough school in those days. You didn’t have you didn’t have social media, so you had to go to school to be bullied.

[01:19:40] So I think.

[01:19:48] You have to be either really tall, which I wasn’t, or you have to be you had to be a clown. And so I suppose I learnt those skills from school. I remember my dad was always an entertaining bloke, but perhaps just made me think my my favourite joke. It was anything that I come out with a things that that please me are things that are thought of on the spur of the moment and and dental wise again probably 2 to 2 boring too late but I’ve been lucky enough probably because I’m I don’t mind public speaking I think I’ve been best man 11 I think it’s 11 times.

[01:20:31] Ten or 11.

[01:20:32] Times. And for me, my, my best adlib happened in a best man speech. And it was it was quite an awkward environment because the vicar had been drunk during the during the ceremony and it hadn’t gone disastrously wrong. But everybody, you know, it was it was one of those things, if you put it on telly, you wouldn’t think it was you wouldn’t think it was believable. So I was just getting nervous because I always do get a little bit nervous before certainly before speaking. And I thought, what am I going to say? I’ve got to kind of refer to it, but how can I refer to it? The vicar wasn’t in the room, but fortunately, but how do I refer to it without sort of embarrassing him and embarrassing everybody else? So I just I thought.

[01:21:19] Had.

[01:21:20] And so literally just it just came to me. I said, I don’t know about you, ladies and gentlemen, we’ve had a wonderful wedding today, a fantastic service. And I don’t know about you, but in church today, I really felt the presence of the Holy Spirit.

[01:21:36] And and for me, that is just.

[01:21:41] I enjoyed the fact that I managed to think of something under those sort of those circumstances and, and, and pull it off.

[01:21:51] I’ll tell you my favourite joke. What did you call a man with no shin?

[01:21:56] No shin.

[01:21:57] Notion.

[01:21:59] No idea.

[01:22:00] Tony.

[01:22:07] Wow. That’s my number.

[01:22:09] One. That’s my number one.

[01:22:11] Dad joke.

[01:22:13] Highbrow Oxford.

[01:22:15] Educated medic.

[01:22:20] Another one. When you go to Footlights on.

[01:22:22] A similar sort of play, we go. Yeah.

[01:22:27] This one always, always makes me laugh. Is mango’s into a fish and chip shop and says Fish and chips twice, please. And the bloke says, So I heard you the first time.

[01:22:45] Louis. Out of your different things you do general or done general practise teaching. Have you done some research as well?

[01:22:54] A sort of ad hoc research, I would call it. I started I started teaching a Birmingham dental school in 2003. And so we had a fantastic faculty. But as soon as I went on clinic, I realised that the students were asking me questions. I just didn’t know the answers to, you know, how does how does bonding resume work? You know, and you get different colour composites just using those, using those as examples. So I really had to sort of go back to school and and then I was I was equally lucky. At that time, Janus Davis approached me and asked me to write write a paper on post era composites. And so I spent three months right in a write in a long draft of, of, of this paper on Post Composites, which is my sermon on Post Composites. This is how you do it. And then a sense the I think probably had to print it out and and take it to. To Adrian Shortall, who is the head of head of comms. He’s my sort of main sort of mentor. And I gave it to Trevor as well. And they were very, very polite with me and said, Yeah, come. Come back, we’ll have a read through this. Come back. Come back in a week. And and we’ll give you some advice. And and I went back into to Adrian’s office and he said, yeah, you know, it’s it’s it’s fine, but but this is this is going in a peer reviewed publication. Everything that you’ve written is your opinion, and you haven’t backed up any of it with evidence. So he said, to help you out, I’ve printed you out a few things to read and I can still see it to this day.

[01:24:48] There was a stack of papers and abstracts. There were over 100 papers on post. I mean, Adrian always knew the key references and still does. And so for me, I think basically that was I don’t know whether they were throwing down the gauntlet. I think most normal people would have walked away and said, Right, I’ll, I’ll give up on my academic career. But I read all the papers. I realised what I’d written was just purely an opinion piece. I rewrote it. It took me three, three months to write the first draft, six months to write it properly, and then that was the first paper I ever published. In fact, in preparation for this, I actually looked it up of of now I’ve got 30 peer reviewed papers and four textbook chapters and those are all those are all written on subjects. Quite selfishly, that interests me. You know, posterior composites, anterior composites, clinical photography caries, bonding amalgam, indirect restorations. So for me, the learning has been my research, my postgraduate education. I’ve got well, I say, in fact, I’ve tripped myself up there. I used to have no postgraduate qualifications when I put my pen down and I made a promise to myself in finals. When I put my pen down and that final exam, I promised myself that I would never do another exam, and I haven’t. But in 2022, a colleague of mine, Steve Bonzo, who’s a who’s a brilliant bloke, material scientist, he proposed me and Ian Chappell seconded me for a, for a PhD from Royal College in, in Glasgow. So, so, so I have got.

[01:26:42] An honorary one.

[01:26:44] I’ve got. Yeah. But by accident not by exam. That’s why so, so yeah. I just didn’t want to do any more exams. What about.

[01:26:58] Lewis? Your relationship with manufacturers is is awesome too. I mean, you seem to know everyone in that side, you know, the trade side as well. You know, for instance, how do you how do you keep a clear head if unless Davis are paying you or or sponsoring you to to write about composites, not to sort of get their one as the main one or, you know, how do you keep a good reputation amongst lots of different manufacturers? Because you really do have a great reputation out there. And how is it that others sort of sometimes fall over on that front? I mean, what’s what’s there one called clear fill?

[01:27:39] Phil Yeah, clear from my aesthetic, which is.

[01:27:43] It’s an interesting.

[01:27:44] Which is an amazing comedy. It’s, I mean, so it’s a really good point. But I must admit, without sounding too pious, I do try and sort of keep true to myself. I only talk about things that are used in practice, and I only talk about things that I know work because if I don’t, if I talk about a product that I haven’t got faith in and then somebody buys that project, product, uses that product, and then they don’t get the outcomes with it. Again, nobody’s going to listen to me again. And, you know, I’ve been lucky. I’ve never been good enough to work properly with with Enlightened.

[01:28:24] But I think you did lecture at the minimalist event. But I can’t call that work.

[01:28:34] Talking paid work. Did you get paid? I’m still.

[01:28:39] Waiting. I played.

[01:28:40] A gin and tonics that.

[01:28:42] I needed. He certainly did.

[01:28:44] But he’s got to believe in it first, right?

[01:28:52] I mean, the nice thing is that the companies that I work with, I’m doing quite a bit with opted in at the moment. I love most almost all of the opted products, but in a lot of work with with Coeur. I was really, really lucky that my my kind of if you like sort of lecturing career took off when sort of bulk composites came in. So I did. I’ve done a lot of work with Dentsply Sirona over the years. And if if somebody gives me a product that I don’t like because I’m lucky that I’m on a number of key opinion leader groups. And so there’s a group of us do get sent off before it goes to market to test it out. And I love doing that. And it doesn’t take long, does it, for an experienced dentist to know, is it better than what I’ve got before? Is it worse or is it insane? And then I’m just I’m just totally I’m just totally honest. I would never, ever say anything bad in public or any anywhere else about about a dental product. Because, as you know, there’s millions gone in to the investment.

[01:29:54] And I have pulled out of lectures. It’s I remember when I started lecturing one of my colleagues who’d been doing it for a while, and our lecturer said, I said, How long does it take to write a lecture? Because this is taking me hours and hours. And he said basically the industry standard for an hour lecture, you’re looking at about 50 hours of preparation and and development. And to be honest, I’ve never got it down much below that that 50 that 50 hours. So I can only ever remember happening once where I’ve delivered one lecture once. And this was on a product that I started using. And really I’m a real early adopter. I like trying out stuff straight away. But then the patients were coming back and it wasn’t really working out as I hoped. So I actually had to sort of hat in hand, go back to the manufacturer and say, I’m afraid I’m going to have to pull out of this lecture lecture series because I don’t feel that so. And again, if you’ve ever seen me do a lecture, I get like way, way, way too excited about dental materials.

[01:31:02] And I quit and.

[01:31:03] I can get excited about matrix bands wedges. That’s probably one of the worst bonding lessons because if I really, really like them, because these these materials are designed to solve problems. Literally, the first time I used enamel was on. I remember the world of aesthetic Congress.

[01:31:26] Yeah, yeah.

[01:31:29] That’s what I was one of the mob down.

[01:31:32] Buddy, buddy, buddy, Andy. Son. What was his son’s name?

[01:31:35] Robert. Robert.

[01:31:36] Robert. That’s it, Bob. So that was a real turning point for me. I can’t remember what year it was, but Buddy Moffatt was doing 2 hours of lectures and.

[01:31:48] Yeah, that was the year we started with Cosmo then because we, we brought him over because of that now. Right. That would have been the 2008 I want to say.

[01:31:58] This, this, this all this all fits fits in nicely then. So so I don’t know you obviously you were in the room. There were about eight or 900 dentists in that room. And Buddy Mock was doing this presentation on composites, anterior composites, posterior composites. And I’ve never seen anybody do it before or since he had cases up on the screen and he basically said, What should we do? Do you want to do a posterior? Do you want to do an anterior? And basically his lecture could go off in any direction.

[01:32:30] Yeah.

[01:32:31] So now this was in the nineties, so this was in the era where porcelain was king. You couldn’t go on any other courses. Porcelain furniture causes the world aesthetic. Congress was basically a porcelain veneer course. And so I sat there watching Buddy Buddy Mapper, and it was showing case after case after case of these amazing composites used in using cosmetic products and how to build up composite veneers, taking crowns off, replacing them with composites. And it was absolutely groundbreaking. But then the thing that got stuck in my head, then he said, Oh, and here’s the ten year record. Going back to what you were talking about, there is your 15 year recall and thought, Wow, this stuff works. But the thing that the thing that really, really stuck in my mind is the lecture was in two parts and there was a break in between. And during the break, everyone went outside and everyone’s chatted. And the you could just hear these people just say, absolute crap. Worst lecture I’ve ever seen. Just, you know. And so when we went back in, there was still hundreds and hundreds of people there, but there were probably about 300 less people. They’d all gone off to a porcelain lecture from somebody else. And one of the first things Buddy said when he got back up on the stage wheel, he said, I won’t try and do his accent. People will say that you can’t do these things with composite as he does it.

[01:34:04] Combined composite.

[01:34:07] People will say that you can’t do these things with composite. And he said They’re right, they can’t. That just literally just stuck in my head that, you know, of course you can do it, but you’ve just got to dedicate yourself to the materials, the bonding, the know, the tooth anatomy. And so that was a real pivotal moment for me because they were doing stuff like you just, you know, in the States that you just wouldn’t believe and so much so that basically then I started using re now I did the hands on course with these with Robert is Bob is his son and the minute the minute you should have polished it. I thought, this is different. This is something that’s better than I’ve ever used before. And so I’ve used enamel on my hands on courses ever since. Because from a polishing point of view, as you know, and as dips, delegates, it’s one of those things that the delegates go away from the course with a nice feeling that they’ve done something that they.

[01:35:11] Yeah, they’ve seen something new.

[01:35:13] They never did before. Which is, which is what I tried to do as much as possible.

[01:35:18] Crazily, we’ve been speaking for an hour and 40 minutes now.

[01:35:21] Oh, my God. It feels like we haven’t scratched the surface.

[01:35:24] Maybe we have. Haven’t even said, who is your first boss? Where did you go from there? So we’ve. We’ve reached our limit already. Can I have to do it?

[01:35:32] Round two? I’ve got more questions, guys. We follow slogans.

[01:35:39] Don’t ask it, ask. Well, we caught another guy waiting, but there we go. We’ll have to do part two.

[01:35:46] We’ll have to do part two, man. There’s a whole bunch about public speaking that I wanted to ask you were saying you were comfortable and then you mentioned you get nervous sometimes. And then does that ever go away? And there’s so much buzzing around in my head. Right. So we’ll have to come back for round two.

[01:36:03] But sorry. So I hugged him. So let’s finish. Let’s go with the final questions, too. Let’s go with the phone. Let’s start with the fancy dinner party. One fancy dinner party, three guests, dead or alive. Who would you pick true to?

[01:36:19] Alive. Quentin Tarantino. Massive, massive movie fan. Come back. I’d be happy to talk about movies for for 2 hours.

[01:36:29] I’m not a massive fan. Massive, massive. Quentin Tarantino fan.

[01:36:36] Alex Higgins, the the ultimate the ultimate snooker player who still probably has got one of the best ever sporting quotes in history. And then the final one, I couldn’t decide either be Ricky Gervais or Frankie Boyle, because it would be an evening of absolutely zero political correctness.

[01:36:58] And.

[01:37:00] Talking about films, talking about snooker, talking about the, talking about the world. And then and then a game of snooker and getting drunk.

[01:37:07] After that.

[01:37:09] Whilst that sporting quote Lewis.

[01:37:12] Well, it’s been I read his autobiography years ago, and this quote has been has been given to lots of other sports people. George Best included. But I think the actual truth is it was Alex Higgins who said it the first he was asked in an interview quite late on in his career, you know, it made millions. He’d lost millions. And he was he was basically penniless. He was having to be crowdfunded. And he went on an interview. I don’t know. It might have been Parkinson not as good as U2, obviously, but he said in this interview. Over the years. All my millions. When I look back, I spent half my money on booze, drugs and women. The rest are just wasted.

[01:37:59] Squandered it.

[01:38:03] So I thought it’s a great a great sport. But he was a legend. He was an absolute legend.

[01:38:09] Yeah. Yeah.

[01:38:11] And the final question, Lewis, imagine it was your last day on the planet and you had your loved ones around you. And you had to leave them with three pieces of wisdom. What would they be?

[01:38:26] Well, I thought about this in advance as well. None of them. We’ve talked only about dental and teeth tonight. But, you know, that’s only half the equation. You know, we spend a lot of time at work, but it’s all about the rest of your life. Dentistry gives you the opportunity to have the experiences that you want. So I would say my first advice would be whatever experience is, whether it is travel, whether it is learning something, whether it’s a new opportunity in business or in practice or in any field of life. Don’t wait, do it. Just get as many experiences as as you can and just enjoy, enjoy every day. The second one is a practical one. This was advice that my dad gave me. He didn’t actually put a number to it, but he said, But, but I’ll sort of extend them the best bit of advice my dad ever gave me, which was be debt free by 4000 percent. Debt free by 40. No mortgage, no loans, no car loans. And then I’ll extend that live within your means. You know, I’ve got quite a few friends who’ve got ten watches and, you know, they haven’t even got long arms and, you know, multiple, multiple Ferraris. So, yeah, just because the minute you mean coming back exactly to what I’ve said at the start, the minute you’re not chasing finances, it’s all gravy. You you just your job is basically funding.

[01:40:01] Enjoy your job. But it’s funding the what you do in the rest of your life. All the other things you want to do, your family stuff and your relationship stuff. So if you can take that financial pressure off as soon as possible then and obviously in dentistry it is possible to do that fairly rapidly. And then the final thing would be just just enjoy yourself. I’ve got no sort of particular sort of sort of religious faith. You know, I’m just going to make sure that I enjoy sort of every day, every opportunity, enjoy every day. And if if you’re not doing something to change direction, that that would be the that would be my advice to, you know, I’ve given to my kids. Obviously, they’re just coming to that stage where they’ll actually listen to me again. Now, though, there was a protracted period of time when they fought and they knew everything already. And and I just didn’t understand. But I think they finally realised now that I probably have got something to, to offer them. But yeah. So that would be my advice sort of experience as much as you can out of life, get rid of the, whether it’s debt, whether it’s any other things that are bringing you down and just enjoy every day and, and do do what you want to do. Whatever, whatever is your passion, whatever drives you do that.

[01:41:28] I’ve messaged, I’ve messaged the next speaker so we can go to your final, final prayer, which is.

[01:41:35] Good.

[01:41:37] The final, final.

[01:41:38] How would you like to be remembered?

[01:41:40] Oh, of course.

[01:41:41] Of course. Louis If so.

[01:41:49] How would you like to be remembered if. If the following phrase was. Was said about you? Yeah. Lewis was. Finish the sentence. How would you. How would you spell loss?

[01:42:13] I. Go on.

[01:42:15] It’s it’s something that’s never really I’ve never really thought about. I’ll have to think about it if you do ever drag me back. But it’s not something that worries me at all. When I’m gone. Once I’m gone, I’m gone. I just, you know, just try and make the most of.

[01:42:33] Of my.

[01:42:35] My time on earth and good friends, good family and working in an absolutely fantastic profession.

[01:42:44] I’ve got one more question for you, Louis. Imagine you had 30 days left. No. Imagine you had a week left. Do whatever the hell you want. You know you’ve got a week and you’ve got all your health and no financial constraints. What would you do in that week?

[01:43:00] It’s not long enough, I’m afraid. I mean, it would be something crazy, you know? Keith Moon Sort of level heroic dose.

[01:43:15] That’s not long enough.

[01:43:18] I mean, for me, the I’m not frightened of Crikey, this is getting a bit deep. I’m not frightened of of death at all. But a couple of, I suppose, melodramatic to call them near-death experiences. But it doesn’t it’s not something that frightens me at all. It would be I think it would be what I sort of miss out on and seeing the kids grow up. And, you know, Tarantino said he’s going to direct ten films and he’s on nine at the moment. You know, you know, he’d have to get a I’d probably go I’d go and visit him and just ask for a screenplay on his. He’s currently undirected film. I’d probably give him a few tips, actually, and then I’d be happy to happy to pop off. But yeah, not planning on going anywhere too soon, but you never know. I mean, look at I mean, I’m 54 a few incidents that have happened recently in the public eye. You know more Shane Warne, he was one of my heroes. I’m a massive cricket fan this week. Ray Liotta, you know, he’s going to he’s going to live forever because the Goodfellas back to Goodfellas pie. But but yeah it doesn’t do them any good does it. So, so yeah. Just, just got to make the most of it because you never know when that, when that number is coming up.

[01:44:43] It’s been a pleasure, buddy. We’ll have to see.

[01:44:46] 100%. Part two.

[01:44:47] Yeah, that flew by.

[01:44:49] I certainly looked at the time. It was like, wait a minute. We’ve been talking for 2 hours.

[01:44:56] I know. I know. We’ve been talking for a while because my message is probably a couple of times it’s getting cold.

[01:45:05] Thank you so much, buddy.

[01:45:08] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav. Solanki.

[01:45:24] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

[01:45:38] If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it, too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks.

[01:45:49] And don’t forget our six star rating.

If you’ve ever had the good luck of hearing one of Louis Mackenzie’s lectures, you’ll know you’re in for a treat: He’s one of the most engaging, entertaining and witty speakers on the circuit.

Louis sits down with Prav and Payman to talk about what it takes to spot and nurture exceptional talent. They also discuss the secrets behind treatment longevity and Louis’ role at Denplan, sharing plenty of groan-inducing dad jokes along the way!

Enjoy!    

 

In This Episode

02.29 – Being an inspiration

06.04 – Talent spotting and training

12.25 – Specialising Vs generalism

14.37 – Treatment longevity

22.03 – The new generation

23.57 – Why dentistry and background

28.09 – Dental school

33.18 – Moral tension and motivation

48.21 – Bad decisions and black box thinking

57.23 – Leaving the NHS

01.04.15 – Denplan

01.14.18 – On stage

01.22.45 – Research and opinion leadership

01.36.03 – Fantasy dinner party

01.38.11 – Last days and legacy

 

About Louis Mackenzie

Louis Mackenzie is a GDP who practices in Selly, Birmingham.

He is a clinical tutor at the University of Birmingham’s School of Dentistry, where he lectures on conservative dentistry and oral pathology.

Louis is also a prolific lecturer and educator and often conducts training on behalf of dental insurers Denplan.

[00:00:00] But I must admit, without sounding too pious, I do try and sort of keep true to myself. I only talk about things that I use in practice, and I only talk about things that I know work. Because if I don’t, if I talk about a product that I haven’t got faith in and then somebody buys that product, uses that product, and then they don’t get the outcomes with it. Again, nobody’s going to listen to me again. And, you know, I’ve been lucky. You know, I’ve never been good enough to work properly with with Enlightened.

[00:00:34] But this is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:00:59] It gives me great pleasure to welcome Lewis Mackenzie onto the podcast. Louis is a long time friend and mentor of mine, educator, general dentist, now ahead of head dental officer Dan Plant, Clinical Lecturer at Birmingham and at King’s and General General good guy on the lecture circuit, someone who probably is the most entertaining lecturer out there. Every time I’ve seen you lecture Louis, the crowd’s been in stitches. And in my story, most notably, the person who introduced Palmer to me. You didn’t. You weren’t quite the person who introduced the poem. But as soon as I met the Palmer, you called me and we knew each other, I think from the Manchester MSC, we were supporting that and you know, the best lectures on our many smile maker, of course, I think, you know, Lewis certainly. And I would agree, a once in a generation talent found his start in Birmingham Dental School, where Lewis was putting on hands on days for the students. And he always mentions you, Lewis, as his key inspiration. Well, lovely to have you, buddy.

[00:02:13] Well, thank you very much. It’s a very nice sir. That’s an excellent introduction. And pretty hard to.

[00:02:17] Pretty hard to live up to. All right. Well.

[00:02:20] All I can say is we’ve all got a similar haircut. So we’ve got something in common, haven’t we?

[00:02:29] Lewis, we’ll get back. We’ll get to the back story in all of that. Yeah, but just just on that Depeche front and I was thinking about this, the number of others you must have inspired. I mean, I know a few of them. You know, Millie Morrison, live scorer who introduced to me people like a few I know a few of a few of your graduates, but you must be responsible for so much good dentistry coming out there. Do you feel the weight of that when you have a new class?

[00:03:01] Not not really. But those are those names that those names that you mentioned are sort of extraordinary talents. I would say of all the things I’ve done over the years, one sort of skill that have got is being able to recognise this sort of unique you I think you said it sort of once in a generation talent. Depeche was definitely the first. And I remember I met him during the final year in 2009, and I run a special study module, run it for nine years. And Depeche was the first ever year and. He came on the he came on the course, and the first exercise I ever got him to do was just some occlusal composites and just to sort of set the set the bar. And when I looked at these composites, I thought. Shit. I’ve got to improve my teaching here. This. This bloke. This bloke is an absolute genius. And. And as you say, Millie. And we’d live again. They’ve just got this unique talent, and I’m not sure you can teach it. My. My role really was them was just to put the materials in their hands and just just just let them go with it. But but, yeah, they don’t come along to too often. Another one that comes to mind is Richard Lee. He just just emigrated to New Zealand, actually. But again, when you when you when you’ve I think now I’ve done over 1000 hands on courses. And so so you really get you really get a feel for somebody who’s just just way, way out of the ordinary. But Depeche was the first for definite and he definitely made me realise I need to up my game on a teaching point.

[00:04:49] And at the time you were a general dentist, you used to visit the dental school for hands on sexual for what was that was what it was.

[00:04:58] Yeah. I was a part time lecturer. I started, I’d been in practice for about ten years and then I’d always had that sort of little itch about doing a bit of teaching. I’ve done a couple of courses myself and sort of really enjoyed them. And yeah, just started doing a Thursday afternoon on clinic, did clinic for many years, probably about eight or ten years. But then I found a real passion for Phantom Head teaching. So I like it because it’s a level, level playing field, everybody starting with the same cavity and you get a really good opportunity to sort of rank the students and identify those who have got weaknesses. And so this special study module that I put on and ran for nine years, Depeche, as I mentioned, was that was the first year. And yeah, just, just really, really enjoyed that sort of aspect of it. But yeah, sort of clinical lecture is the title nowadays. I don’t do any undergrad teaching. It’s just purely postgrad working on the working on the master’s at Birmingham and the Maths and a couple of master’s courses at King’s. But I do quite a lot of, as you know, hands on courses around the country all the time. Anyway.

[00:06:04] What is it that makes somebody stick out, Lewis? Is it is it generally how inquisitive they are? Is it does it just come down to you, look at the work and think, crap, that looks amazing. How did that happen? What is it that is there a like if you could bottle that up and put it into a formula, what would it be for these super successful delegate guts that you’ve had?

[00:06:27] I think it’s when they do something that hasn’t been taught, they’ve just got that eye for it. They can just see something, explain something, but then take it to the next level. So one, one of my mentors, Adrian Shorter, we might chat about him later on. He, he said to me, don’t, don’t be upset when your students are better than you are. Take, take, take pleasure and pride in it. The thing is, with people like Depp’s Millie, Liv, Richard, they were always already better than me before they started. So. But I think it is that just that unique sort of X factor, whatever it is. And if you could bottle it then, then it’d be worth a fortune. But I don’t think you can. I think we can all. I mean, you’ve only got to look on Instagram and Facebook now to see the you know, the beautiful, beautiful quality of dentistry that is literally within anybody’s grasp. But then you’ll see the others who just take it up to the sort of the next level. I think one of the first contemporary couple of contemporaries that I saw of my sort of era were Jason Smythson and Tiff Qureshi, where I just thought, Wow, that’s a bit special. And then I mean, the nice thing about the people we’ve talked about as well is that they’ve gone on to become really great teachers as well, because that for me is an extra skill. You know, there’s plenty of people doing extraordinary dentistry nowadays, which is brilliant, but to be able to communicate that to us mere mortals, I mean, I go to to the enlightened course. I go to Dipesh lectures now and I’ve got my notebook out because he’s constantly pushing, pushing the boundaries when it comes to teaching and practice, because he’s just got that eye for aesthetics, that eye for colour, which, which, which I haven’t got.

[00:08:10] It’s interesting what makes a good dentist and then what makes a good teacher? Let’s agree firstly, two different things. You know, there’s many good dentists who aren’t great teachers and but I think with I think you gave Dipesh the advice that he shouldn’t go on any composite hands on courses so so that all the ideas would be original his own. He wouldn’t feel like he was taking an idea from someone else or something like that.

[00:08:41] That definitely wasn’t.

[00:08:41] Me. Sure that you don’t like my advice is going as many course.

[00:08:49] So yeah. Absolutely. There might be. There might be. There might be crap courses, but.

[00:08:55] You will always.

[00:08:56] You’ll always pick something up off them. And and of course he did. Chris Of course, there’s another legend. He did. Chris all year long course. I mean, he was only in fact, that was that was actually a really nice sort of bit of feedback that I got that Christopher has always had. I don’t know what the rules are nowadays, but it used to be you had to be graduated, I think, for at least three years before you could apply to go on Chris’s course. But then he made an exception unless they’d done the special study module at Birmingham Dental School in their final year. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So. So Dipesh and Emily got on their lips, done it as well. And of course, Millie now is one of Chris Christopher’s associates. So he knew what he’s talking about.

[00:09:41] And the teacher herself, not in composite, but more Invisalign. But but it’s interesting, you know, because we were doing a little series called My Mini Tip and we had dentists and I took it for granted. Every dentist has got one or two tips and they probably do and maybe camera shy at that moment or whatever. But I guess the difference between a teacher and a technician is a teacher has more tips that came from them. You know, that that things they do slightly differently to the rest of us need teaching.

[00:10:16] Doesn’t that’s true and but I think we all fall down the same holes anyway, don’t we?

[00:10:23] Yeah, that’s true.

[00:10:25] And that’s how we learn by by sort of reflecting. And I think in the let me use the term old days, we’ve probably the first of several times this evening, usually it was sort of ten years or so before you did any sort of postgraduate qualifications. Now, obviously, dentists are doing it a lot earlier and, you know, certificates, diplomas, even mscs on our MSC course, we’ve had some literally sort of first year, first year graduates. I just wonder whether actually doing these courses earlier on actually reduces the risk of you sort of falling falling into the regular sort of pitfalls. Or again, the old fashioned mantra is you need to make a few mistakes and then do the course and then learn basically based on your experience. So I don’t know what it is, but certainly there’s as you know, there’s a trend for courses a lot earlier nowadays.

[00:11:23] Yeah, I think in the US it’s slightly different, you know. When you talk to the academics out there, they haven’t got that mantra of become a generalist first. You know, they. Well, some do. By the way, I don’t think it’s the right or wrong. You can’t say one is right and one is wrong. But but you’re right that the sort of the general thing that people have been saying here is you learn a lot of things first and then go and specialise into one one area that you like to see, try a lot of things. But I remember when when I did my elective in the US, the advice wasn’t that it was, it was, you know, as quick as possible, try and get into something. And and I’ve given that advice to a lot of people as well. Louis, you know, because people asked me, Hey, what should I do? My answer is, pick one thing and just run with it. You know, get really, really good at something. You know, if you want to if you want to do something, pick pick one, pick one and go. But, you know, you’ve seen so many students come and go. Would you say that specialising these days is a good idea? Or would you say that general practice where you’ve thrived if creches thrived, crystals or ideas? Which way? Which way would you advise someone to go?

[00:12:41] Often down to the individual person. But don’t forget, whatever you choose, you’re going to be doing it for the next 30 to 40 years. So you’ve got to make the right decision. I wouldn’t close certainly early in your career. I wouldn’t close any doors because once it doesn’t take long in dentistry to sort of do skill, not necessarily skill, but lose confidence. And then you’re kind of you’re going down that one little route. And of course, obviously no perio. You can just do that all day long. But certainly when it comes to sort of aesthetic restorative, is it something that’s going to sustain a sustain for for 30 or 40 years? One interesting thing I’ve noticed, talking to a few young dentists and even a few lecturers recently is is just focusing on front teeth. And which is a bit of a worrying, worrying situation when we’ve got, what is it, a year’s missed missed appointments due.

[00:13:38] To.

[00:13:41] Due to the pandemic. And obviously 70% of all problems occur on molars, which they’re not as they’re not as instagrammable. But that’s where most of the most of the trouble is. So yeah, it’s I mean, you must see it a lot on your courses and of course it’s lovely dentistry to do, but is it sort of sustainable for that length of time? I don’t know. Certainly just don’t know whether obviously every restoration is going to fail and are these almost sort of aesthetic cosmetic specialists. Their whole career is going to be about replacement of existing restorations or management of of marginal stain and stuff like that. So it’s down to the individual. But certainly I would say early in your career, don’t, don’t narrow it down too early. That that would be my advice.

[00:14:36] Not.

[00:14:37] You know what? What you’ve just been saying there, Lewis, in terms of how long these restorations, every restorations go into eventually fail, etc., etc.. Right. There’s two bits of, I guess, information I’ve received from from. So TIFF has always pushed the you know, you don’t really know how good a dentist you are until you’ve seen how long you work lasts and you’ve got that long term follow up. And he always talks about his ten, his 15 year follow ups and he knows how long he’s dentistry lasts. And funnily enough, I had the opportunity to interview a guy called Daniel Boozer. I think his name is he’s an implant guy over at the ADA. According to everyone who I spoke to, he’s he’s one of the gods of implant dentistry. Anyway, cut a long story short, when I was interviewing him, I asked him about what advice he’d give to new students who are getting into wanting to get into implant dentistry and how would they know how good they are? And he said exactly the same thing as TIFF, that it’s about this long term follow up that he’s got cases. 35 years ago we placed an implant and they’re still stuck there in somebody’s head. And he felt that that was the true measure of somebody who was really good. What do you think are the concerns with all of this? A lot of front teeth, dentistry, composite veneers and things like that. Now, obviously, a lot of the courses are teaching that. And then the longevity of that in terms of, I guess how long these are going to last. How is it? We’ll see. Easiest way to describe it. Is it a huge problem waiting to unfold and happen when all of these, you know, composite veneers sort of mature in 5 to 6 years time and they need redoing with either more composite or porcelain. And then something you just mentioned, which I hadn’t given any thought to, is that are these dentists reskilling by just focusing on that?

[00:16:37] Really good questions just to sort of start at the beginning of that. You made a really good point about the longevity. I’ve worked in only one practice, the same practice for 30, 31 years. Wow. So so you know what works, but equally, you know what doesn’t work.

[00:16:54] Yeah.

[00:16:55] We’re in the kind of the infancy with composite veneers at the moment. Obviously, the materials have come along massively. Again, advertising payments wonders there. When I started using enamel, really, that was the first time composite veneers actually became a thing for me because of the Polish and. Composite versus versus porcelain. We could do a whole whole hour just on that. Composites got its disadvantages with regard to sort of technique, sensitivity with regard to surface lustre. That’s that’s where enamel works because obviously it’s a microfilm that keeps it keeps it shine. But the way that aesthetic restorations usually fail, where they’re direct or indirect is usually marginal stain. They don’t usually they don’t usually drop off certain materials. They will composite materials. They will lose their surface lustre. So it will be interesting to see exactly, say Prav a few years down the line. Payman to remember exactly the same thing happened in the nineties with the with with porcelain veneers. Well, that was very much that was very much the the thing the thing to do. All the courses were based were based around that. And then if you choose the wrong patient, if, if you’re not bonding to enamel and people, people came unstuck and I think probably moved away from that. But you know, either restoration, if it’s done well, it is going to last for years. But again, you also make a very good point that doing dentistry for the second time is is is a challenge because you’ve got to you’ve got to take it off.

[00:18:32] And, you know, when you’re cutting, whether it’s ceramic, whether it’s composite, are you in material? Are you in dentine? Are you in enamel bonding resin? So yeah, it’s a real it’s a real challenge. So but I would say just to add to that, the foundation of skill with not necessarily young dentists is some amazing, stunning older dentists as well with composite is because the foundation of skill I don’t think really we know yet they might just literally just need polishing. I know I’ve got I’ve got re enamel cases where where the composite veneers still again as you say in my latest anterior composite lecture, I’ve got a re enamel veneer at ten years. Tiny bit of marginal stain, still shiny, absolutely never been republished at all. So I think now because they’ve got the skills, you’ve got the the bonding techniques, you’ve got the material technology, they’re going to last longer. And of course, as every generation goes, they’re just going to get better and better and better at them. So maybe it will be the treatment of choice. I know Dipesh is sort of now he’s sort of half and half isn’t. He loves he loves composite, obviously, but I’ve seen him lecturing more and more on ceramics.

[00:19:49] Now.

[00:19:50] Do you know when you talk about restorations lasting? So the purpose of which let’s say somebody has a composite veneer is less functional and protective and more cosmetic when you refer to them lasting. Do you mean just staying in touch or do you mean lasting in a in a cosmetic way?

[00:20:09] Yeah. I mean, they’re not going to fall off. You know, you might get a little bit of chipping, but of course, that’s that’s easy to repair. But yeah, it’s really a patient factor. Is the patient you’re happy with them? And and I think that I think that’s the main thing and that would that would probably drive the replacement. Yeah. They’re not, they’re not going to drop off if they’re bonded to enamel I think Trevor Burks who did this massive study millions of restorations that have been done on the NCE and and labial only veneers came out tops. They last longer than at any other restoration in dentistry, so they’re not going to fall off if they’re bonded to enamel. That’s the best bond in dentistry. So they’re going to last. But yeah, so it’s going to be cosmetic. It’s going to be cosmetic failure before before anything else.

[00:20:53] Which which year did you qualify this?

[00:20:56] 1990 graduated with a with a marvellous four four, four years in one term.

[00:21:01] Course Payman not not missed five years.

[00:21:05] Yeah. The good old course. And so I was, I was going to say you’re not old enough. Right. But when did like your composite come.

[00:21:15] Well like your has been around it thinks is the since they on the first composite that was out. I’m trying to think I’ve actually got a picture of Trevor Burt with with one of the original curing lights. It was probably I would say probably the seventies don’t know for certain.

[00:21:33] We have Wilson on the on the podcast and he was talking about when they were developing it with Eisai and it was.

[00:21:39] Yeah.

[00:21:40] It was one one shade only. Right.

[00:21:43] Yeah.

[00:21:43] Yeah. So yeah. And then there was a clues in of course the first composites you have to mix yourself and there was no polymerisation shrinkage issues because you had so much air in them that the material just didn’t cause any problems. But yes, so light curing really sort of probably sort of seventies, it sort of kicked off.

[00:22:03] But you know, people like to say that the current day dentist, I mean, even outside of COVID, that, you know, the newer, younger generation don’t have the skills that that let’s say our generation had because they didn’t they don’t drill enough teeth. Do you have another side to that story that says they’re they’re a lot better than us because of whatever other you know, whatever other thing they do have that we didn’t have. You know, they get taught patient management or, you know, what are they being taught while we were drilling teeth?

[00:22:33] Well, I think it goes further back than that. They’re just really, really clever.

[00:22:39] You know, I thought, yeah, I.

[00:22:42] Want to know when I it was a B, it was a B and to CS to get into dentistry in 1986, I smashed that with the two B’s and two.

[00:22:53] Sees. It was.

[00:22:56] In those days you buy three, you get one free with.

[00:22:59] General study.

[00:23:02] So yeah, I mean they’re superintelligent. You’re absolutely right about the undergraduate experience. You know, they’re going to do a lot less than they did with regard to everything, you know, particularly amalgam skills, you know, some dental schools, they’ll almost do non extractions again depending on where depending.

[00:23:20] On the why is that because enough patients to have their teeth extracted.

[00:23:25] Just I mean we work Birmingham’s fluoridated so even back then my oral surgery experience was was very limited and so I had to sort of learn those skills kind of on the job.

[00:23:39] So are you are you Birmingham born and bred? Were you born in Birmingham?

[00:23:43] Staffordshire. I’ve my my quest through life has taken me about 25 miles.

[00:23:48] From.

[00:23:50] From from Staffordshire. I went to Birmingham Dental School because it was the only place that gave me an offer.

[00:23:57] Birmingham at the time my dentistry did.

[00:24:00] Oh, well, now you have asked a good question, and I had to actually do some research for this because I always was certain that I was 11. I was 11 when I decided I wanted to be a dentist. And I was absolutely certain I could remember where I sit in, in a science class who was sitting next to my mike Dean. But my auntie has always, always said, No, you are much younger than that. And so I thought, No, no, she’s making this up. And but then I went up to see one of my uncles in the Lake district and I asked him about this and he’s in his nineties and he said, No, no, you’re about six. So then I went back to my auntie and said, Come on, tell me this story. Then she said, Do you remember you’re in the car? And I said to you, What are you going to be when you’re older? How about being a doctor when you can look up, look after your Auntie Lillian when when she’s old? I said, and apparently I said to her, Now I’m not going to be a doctor.

[00:24:51] I’m going to be a dentist. And I was standing up in the back of a Fiat 127. So so no seatbelts in those days. And obviously so I couldn’t have been very tall. So I think I was about six. So I decided I wanted to be a dentist. I have absolutely no idea why. I never, never changed my mind. I remember when I went to Careers Day and I told the careers advisor that I wanted to be a dentist and her advice to me was, You don’t want to be a dentist. That’s a terrible job. Then when it came to A-levels in those days, you had to fill in, fill in a different form for a polytechnic. Picasso’s Picasso art form. So as you. Cassin Picasso, it’s all on one form now. And I refused to fill in the the whatever it was going to be, whether suggesting pharmacy, pharmacy or something like that. And so I refused to fill it in. I only wanted to be a dentist, but I don’t know why. And I’m just glad that chose chose a career that’s worked out for me.

[00:25:55] What did your parents do?

[00:25:58] My dad was was a draughtsman and my mom was she was well, her final job, she did lots of sort of secretarial jobs. Her final job there both passed away, unfortunately. But a final job was once she really loved and she was she was a medical secretary. That was that was the last job that she did. But my parents, if I was the first person to go to to uni in my family. So there was.

[00:26:25] Is there a, you know, like the how the that that part of the country was very industrial and you know, our stories in your in your family about the black country and everything everything that goes with that. And did you sort of see that change in the area?

[00:26:39] You’re such a Londoner, you’re such a London.

[00:26:45] Gossip bullshit.

[00:26:46] Stuff, which is no way stuff is just north of Birmingham.

[00:26:50] Oh, is it?

[00:26:51] So I was so romantic about this story. Like your granddad works in the mines and then, you.

[00:27:00] Know, my grandma.

[00:27:01] My granddad, we are going back now. I had a granddad, this is on my dad’s side and my granddad from the Isle of Skye, Isle of Lewis and my grandma from the Isle of Skye. They both left to find work to go to Glasgow. And then once they’d sort of become a couple they walked to Liverpool too to find a job. So my, my grandfather on my dad’s side, who I never met was an engineer by training.

[00:27:29] So Dad’s Scottish.

[00:27:31] My dad’s. My dad was born in. My dad was born in Liverpool. So but my grandparents are Scottish and my on my mom’s side they’re more sort of midlands based, more sort of Brummie Brummies but. Right. Proper Birmingham.

[00:27:45] Yeah. So if you, if you were an Indian they’d say you’re Scottish because you know you’re Scottish, you’re a Scottish guy.

[00:27:52] Like I was Scottish.

[00:27:59] I’ve got Scottish ancestors, so but I’ve got loads of Scottish relatives, loads of loads of aunties and uncles and cousins.

[00:28:09] What would you like? What would you like as a dental student? Were you really into it or.

[00:28:13] Oh, really?

[00:28:14] Yeah, yeah.

[00:28:15] Yeah. I really was. Yeah, I kind of liked it away. I mean, I must admit, it was pretty tough at dental school. We were lucky, actually, that we’d just been sort of a change in sort of management, if you like. Birmingham had always been sort of known as kind of the cotton school. I think the Cons department at one stage had about 30 members of staff. So when I started, we used to hear the sort of horror stories from the previous, the previous tutors, one that’s always stuck in my mind. And I sometimes remind the students when, when they’re being a little bit, a little bit soft, that one of the tutors apparently used to say to when he was checking a cavity or something like that, he’d stand over the with the with the patient and the student and he’d say to the patient, he’d look at the look in look at the in the cavity. And he’d say to the student, I wouldn’t trust you to cut my lawn.

[00:29:14] So.

[00:29:15] So fortunately, we missed we missed that sort of era. And we had really fantastic young lecturers at that time, Phil Lumley, basically God have ended antics. And Ian Chappell was a junior lecturer as as well. And obviously they were both my bosses, Phil and Phil and Ian and Trevor Burke came to to Birmingham as well via, via Manchester and Glasgow and he Trevor’s been really instrumental in my career and Damian Walmsley was, was head of sort of head of prosthetics or fixed removable prods. And so we were really lucky that we had all these young legends basically want to do things differently. And so the teaching we have interesting actually the there are a significant number of people in my year who have actually gone back into dental education and my four and a half years sorry, four years and one term were yeah, I must admit I really enjoyed it. I think I was one of those lucky students who kind of on the practical aspects, sort of picked it up straight away. You know, I’m quite a sort of, you know, used to like playing with Lego, fixing my bike stuff, stuff like that. So, so it’s quite lucky I sort of picked it up straightaway. And of course in those days is you’ll remember the course was very practical. And now going back to your other point, I think now there’s so much new stuff that you’ve got to learn with regard to, you know, I mean, there were no posterior composites. Molar endo was kind of in its infancy. And so the course now is so packed that the students are doing less practical work than they would have before. But with regard to talent and skills, I would say, you know, the future is most definitely so. These these young dentists are going to be awesome and and they’re going to take dentistry to the next to the next level. You know, I hope I can hang around for long enough to to just to see where it goes. Obviously, the digital revolution is finally has finally arrived. So yeah, I mean, that is really, really exciting stuff.

[00:31:33] I feel like the, the newer ones, they’ve got more AQ than, than we have sort of more emotional intelligence. At the same time though, maybe it’s just they admit to it more, they seem to suffer with more sort of mental health crises and issues. Is that your feeling?

[00:31:55] It. Maybe it’s it’s an excellent point. And obviously there’s loads of evidence to back that up. But I just wonder whether we all always had those issues. But it was just a case of.

[00:32:06] Talk about it.

[00:32:07] Get on with it, and suffer and suffer in silence. And that’s the way of the world. Maybe it is the fact that they’re they’re more sort of more sort of people of the world. They’ve got access to everything when it comes to sort of social media. The Internet, obviously, the Internet didn’t exist. So just maybe they’ve just got a better sort of perception about what their part in the world. And obviously they can be a little bit emotional at times and sort of older sort of dentists. That takes a little bit of getting used to, but I think they’re probably going to get a much better life work balance than maybe the dentists of yesteryear did when it was very much sort of, you know, five days a week, full days of NHS dentistry and then look sometimes look forward to retirement, which is, you know, you’ve got to enjoy the ride. I would always say, I would always advise and whatever you doing just enjoy your dentistry. And if you’re in a if you’re in a situation where you’re not enjoying it, do something to to change that.

[00:33:18] I mean, there’s a lot of people who aren’t enjoying it. There is.

[00:33:23] Yeah.

[00:33:24] Absolutely.

[00:33:24] And I mean, at the same time, there’s loads of people who adore it and love it and can’t stop talking about it. And, you know. So what do you reckon is the difference? Do you think the difference is staying engaged and trying to improve the whole time? And why is it some people are in such a bad state about and I think the GDC whatever has has a role to play but it’s always been like that. Even before the Dental Law Partnership came along, there were some dentists were really into it and others who hated their lives. What’s the difference in those two characters, do you think?

[00:34:01] Well, it is such a good question. And if you actually love the physical act of delivering. Doing a filling or something like that, if you if you really, really enjoy that, then nobody can take that away from you. You literally just you know, that’s a that’s a big chunk of your life on Earth that you’re actually enjoying. But when you’re working in a situation where maybe you’d really enjoy that feeling, you know, it’s going to take you a 45 minutes to do it. But you’re working in a clinical situation where you’ve got 15 minutes to do it, then you’ve immediately got that. I think the textbooks call it that moral, moral tension, haven’t you, where you know you know what’s best, but you know, you’re working in a system that’s not allowing you to to do that. And I think that’s probably at the heart of of mental health issues in dentistry, which, as you say, have been around literally forever. I mean, the good thing is now mental health is most definitely on the agenda in dentistry. You know, the regular report coming out, looking at the profession, looking at the causes. Remember the BDA did did a massive one, thousands of dentists in 2019, just just before the pandemic. And, you know, they listed the top ten stressors in dentistry, and most of them were systematic problems and regulation was one of them. There was I read I read a nice article by Martin Keller, I think it was in the BDA, actually. And he said, nowadays it’s like practising clinical dentistry is like being in a lift with a wasp. And I think it’s a good analogy. The only way that that analogy falls down is if you’re in a lift, you can get out of the next floor.

[00:35:52] If you’re if you’re a dentist, you’re in the lift for 30 to 40 years. So I think there is obviously the dental legal stuff is never is never going to go away. But nowadays that’s that’s a separate self sustaining industry. But I’ve had I’ve had second year dental students literally just started on Phantom Head say to me that they’re worried about graduating because they don’t want to get sued. So, so, so second year, Joe so this stuff, this stuff does starts does start early and it can do but need to be prepared. That’s the way of the world. It’s not going to go away and just do your best for every patient as long as as long as that’s the sort of philosophy. And if you are in a situation that’s compromising your ethics, your standards, then do something to change it. And I know obviously Prav does loads of work with dentists and with whole teams to create the right environment. In fact, I think I listen in preparation for this. I did some revision, I listened to one of you, did an excellent talking heads when it was just the two of you. And Prav made the point that he felt that at that time one of his favourite clients was a bloke who was just unhappy in his job and he just needed to change. No, change was not an option for this bloke and obviously he did perhaps training and sounded like it all. It all worked out well for him. Prav is that correct?

[00:37:21] It’s Lewis. But you’ve just got me thinking about another thing, which is, you know, what is the reason some of these guys, especially what I’m seeing and it’s not you know, I’m not speaking for all the younger dentists, but I have a lot of younger dentists who come to me and say, I just want to make X per month. That is that’s the overriding thing that they come to me for. But they’ve not been they’ve not done enough dentistry, if that makes sense. So when you look at them from an I’m not the one to judge them clinically, but you know, they’ve been out of dental school for 18 months, two years and they’re both their prime motivating factor is I want to make X per month. Right. And it doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about dentistry, whether we’re talking about a career in marketing or whatever it is, I think you need to earn your stripes first and get some experience under your belt before that. Becomes your sort of number one motivator. And I do say to them, look, my first bit of advice is get on these courses, right? And these courses happen to be courses that people that I respect that pay more respect probably yourself as well. Or is that that you just think that let let them get this solid, grounded, and then the money will come.

[00:38:41] But I do think that if finances that number one motivating factor from a very young age, I do think a lot of these dentists will start becoming unstuck later on because they siloed themselves into I am just going to be an Invisalign doctor. I am just going to press the button on this program and get this treatment plan done for me and I’ll finish it off with a little bit of edge bonding or whatever. Right. But it’s a bit like becoming a marketeer and running Facebook ads. But you don’t know the first thing about the problems of the people that they face that you’re marketing to. Right. So so how can you how can you market to somebody who needs a full arch of implants if you don’t know the problems that a loose denture wearer goes through and the fact that they can’t eat steak or the fact that they they cover their hands or they walking around with a tube of fixed it in their pocket all the time and so on and so forth. And I feel really strongly about this and I feel as somebody who helps practices grow, there’s a bit of a pressure on sort of them coming to me and saying, Well, I want to make loads more money. And my advice at the moment is get strikes first and the money will come.

[00:39:54] I couldn’t agree more. I mean, you’re giving absolutely spot on advice and I’d give exactly the same advice. I think in dentistry, if you put finances first, it’s doomed to failure because you’ll always be chasing something over the horizon, which is which never actually arrives. And you’ve got to obviously be constantly chasing repeat business over and over again. If you’re looking from a financial point of view, from a financial point of view, the best way to achieve that goal is is family dentistry. And look, I think TIFF talks about this, the lifetime patient. It might sound a little bit sort of old fashioned, but yes, the see the grandparents, the parents and the kids and sometimes even their kids. That’s from a business point of view that is the foundation of any successful practice. Also, when finance is at the fore, I’ll be careful. Our phrase this there is a danger that it affects your treatment, planning and and if you’re not looking at the whole patient and the whole patient’s needs and maybe just focusing maybe just on the anterior teeth, it is that old classic that if all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So everybody gets the same treatments. They all look pretty much the the same. And yeah, you get on a OCH, it’s not an NHS treadmill, but it’s a different treadmill. And so I think I think a balance between I think a balance between that where it’s lovely to do the aesthetic stuff, but of course it.

[00:41:30] Is.

[00:41:31] Patients demands. Now patients are so well educated that, you know, they know what, they know what they want and you’ve got to be able to deliver on that promise. So going back to learning your getting getting your stripes, getting your hours in, I think it is like any sort of it’s that 10000 hours, isn’t it? What if whatever whatever you do and if you’re going to become an expert in it, 10000 hours a mate of mine or shared an office with Charles Perry, he actually worked it out and he reckoned it was about ten years, ten years of of of sort of four, four and a half, five days of dentistry. That’s about 10000 hours of practical dentistry. In that time, you’ve probably you’re probably made most of your mistakes, not all of them. Unfortunately, you’ve learnt what you’re good at, you learnt what you’re not good at, you’ve learnt your patient communication skills. And it’s why in the again using that old phrase in the old days it usually was ten years was kind of a turning point where the where you maybe think, right, I’m going to buy a practice now or maybe I’m going to go on a, you know, I’m going to learn how to do implants.

[00:42:39] I’m going to be an end to dentist, that sort of ten year apprenticeship, for want of a better word. But I think that’s certainly come forwards now. Certainly young dentists seem to be a lot more business minded in a good way. You know, they seem to sort of grasp that it’s not something that’s ever taught at a dental school, but they certainly do seem to have a grasp of of what they want and the vision that they want. But again, I’ll mention this possibly when you ask me those questions, which I’ve prepared for at the end, is from a financial point of view, just just enjoy your dentistry. Just do do what feels right for the patient, what feels right for you. And the money will will will sort itself out. No, no problem at all. And use the team as well. You know, use your specialists, use your technicians and just become a whole little sort of industry. Yeah. Look, for me, looking after looking after families is the key and then the aesthetic restorative stuff. That’s, that’s the icing on the cake.

[00:43:42] Yeah. Not, not to mention Prav. Yeah. The best way of not making that money is to focus on making that money. But I wonder if people say that to you because they see a marketing guy before them and they feel like that’s I’m allowed to say this to, to, to the marketing guy. And so they come across as that guy, you know.

[00:44:03] Possibly there’s an element of that, right. And they probably see that I’ve worked with a lot of successful dentists who’ve who’ve done really well, both clinically and financially, but a lot of these dentists who have done really well as a stripes. Yeah, they’ve got the decade well and truly under their belt. Yeah. You know, and then they’ve done well however you define doing well financially right. We all have different I guess set points, call it whatever you want. Right. Well our definitions of success are and some of them are spending more time with your kids or whatever, and some of them are driving fast cars and going on luxury holidays, whatever that thing is. But, you know, people do come to me and they associate me with with those individuals who’ve done well, let’s say, for example. And then they come to me and say, hey, well, you’re the. That drives the patients through the door and then can give me advice on conversion and all the rest of it. So Prav bring me some money, right? And, and for me, whether I’m giving advice to somebody who comes to me for career advice as a as a, as a young marketeer or someone or somebody comes to me for career advice as a dentist. Yet I say, you’ve got to be able to do the shit that you can say you can do. Then we can market that, because if you end up marketing something that you know you can’t do, you’re only going to end up in trouble. And this comes down to my involvement with the IAS Academy has taught me a lot about how I guess you should operate as a dentist.

[00:45:39] Right. And case selectivity. Knowing your limits. Right. Knowing when to say no. Really, really important. Right. And so marketing can put you in trouble because it can deliver a patient that you have absolutely no chance of being able to treat because you don’t have the skill set of doing it right. But you decide, okay, I’ll be Mr. or Mrs. Brave and have a crack at that. So, you know, I’m a I’m a big believer in making sure that we market appropriately at a skill set and at a level that we can deliver because it will be short lived otherwise. And even with my clients, I want to build long term relationships. I don’t want to I don’t want to put someone in a position where they become unstuck. They’re up in front of the GDC, you know, and there’s I guess there’s a sense I feel like there’s a sense of responsibility on my behalf. It’s not just about an exchange of service for money, but I think I’m fortunate enough to be in a position where I can actually say, Look, if that’s what you want to do, there may be another agency out there that could help you do that. But this is my advice, and I think what weighs on me is having business partners like Tiff Qureshi, who’ve got a very, very high moral, moral, ethical, high ground for me to sort of say, well, okay, well, this is this is the route I think you should go down.

[00:47:05] Yeah. And Tiff’s always had that as me and just I mean, that’s such an excellent point that if you are going down that you’re almost always treating strangers. And I’m sure obviously you’re a medic by training as well. Never treat a stranger. Get to know the patients before before you jump in because you don’t know what they’re like. And and you made a really good point there that really sort of rang a bell rang a bell with me is asking saying to patients not to treat them. I would say some of the best clinical decisions you will ever make in your practising career are the patients you choose not to treat. And you know, you don’t have to be rude. You know, send them on the road. You need a you need a better dentist than me for for for this. And certainly if I think back, those had been some of the best decisions I’ve made. As you get older and more experienced, you see the warning signs, but obviously you can’t be expected to do that when you’re just starting out. So yeah, just earning your stripes exactly as you said it, doing that apprenticeship for a few years, just getting a feel for the and then decide what you want to do.

[00:48:21] Louis If that’s the best decision you’ve ever made, what’s the worst decision you’ve ever made in a clinical dentistry class?

[00:48:31] In clinical dentistry.

[00:48:33] With patients, whatever you said, some of the best decisions you’ve ever made is is actually having the courage to say no. I guess what what are some of the worst?

[00:48:43] What’s gone wrong? What’s gone wrong?

[00:48:45] Yeah.

[00:48:46] Well, perhaps question first of all would be those ones I’ve learnt from those learning patients where I’ve got into something, whether I don’t know whether it’s an endo or an aesthetic case or what or an extraction that I think I really wish I hadn’t started this. But but then you’re on, but then you’re on that, then you’re on that conveyor belt. To answer page question, you know, it’s a long list of nothing, nothing catastrophic pain. I’m sorry to see frozen.

[00:49:24] Or I’m just.

[00:49:25] Is just really good at sitting still. Nothing, nothing catastrophic, but a few a few learning experiences, which I think made me a better dentist. I’m more cautious.

[00:49:41] Yes. Which ones will happen?

[00:49:45] I knew you were going to make me be specific.

[00:49:48] Because.

[00:49:49] You’re not going to leave it like that.

[00:49:53] Far too vague.

[00:49:55] I’ll give you I’ll give you two. I’ll give you two of of many. Listening to a few of these podcasts previously I noticed quite a common theme is people’s worst day at work has been sort of Dental legal problems. And and as you know, sometimes this can be sort of a year of their lives with with a with a cloud over their careers. And for me, I would say it was probably it was probably the same. But I’m embarrassed to say that mine only lasted for 48 hours. And it was it was an end and end case which didn’t work and tried to it was one of those ones. It just on the x ray, it just looked absolutely perfect and it didn’t didn’t settle. So chats with patients said, I’d like to retreat this one. And she said, I’d rather just have it out. So we had the discussion and I took it out and then months down the line just got a letter, the clinical negligence letter, taken a taken a tooth out that didn’t need to be extracted. But I was just, you know, whether it’s luck or whether it’s judge judgement, did what you’re supposed to do, phoned up the one with the d-do they were brilliant. Just send us all the the x rays, send us, send us the radiographs and we’ll get back to you. So did that posted them off in those days and then it was I think it was Rupert Hoppen and Brewers at two days later he phoned me up.

[00:51:28] He said, is that Mr. Mackenzie said, We don’t usually do this but don’t worry about this, this will go away. He said about one in 5050 cases they get to actually make that call to say, don’t worry, this will disappear. Don’t give it another minute’s concern. Your notes are fine. You’ve done everything that you should have done. And sure enough, I got a letter again months down the line. We’ve decided not to pursue you on this, on this, on this occasion, but there’s no question about it. That experience. The wasp came into the room and the wasp never left. You know, it was. It was. It was in the corner. It never formed a hive or anything like that. But it did make me because that surprised me. It really surprised me because I had tried my best. Still, to this day, I’ve absolutely no idea why it failed. I’d actually saved the tooth to try and section it and work out why, where, where I’d gone wrong. And then you asked for two. So I suppose I’ll give you another one. Was again, just a mistake. I was I was finishing finishing a composite and sort of Class five composite adventurer and they hadn’t put the burr in into the handpiece. Burr fell out. The handpiece patient literally swallowed just at the, just at the wrong time and so yeah what can you do.

[00:52:51] So I again, this had a happy outcome as well. I said to the patient, we really need I don’t know where that’s got, where that’s gone. We really need to have a chest x ray. That was the was the that was the guidance. And so drove him up to the local, local hospital. He had a chest x ray. He had swallowed it. He hadn’t he hadn’t inhaled it. And the weird thing was that it was he was an elderly patient who’d retired. And based on that experience, he actually became a volunteer in the X-ray department, which he did for years and years and years. And I saw him for years afterwards. You know, every time I saw him, I just felt, you know, felt really, really bad about about making that making that error. But I certainly certainly learnt from it, but nothing too catastrophic. And I know I really feel for some colleagues who have got cases that have been hanging over them for years in some cases, and I had a very, very short experience of what that felt like. And it was, Oh, that’s great, my career is over. And it happened to me fairly, fairly early on as well. But everything, my note making just hopefully really, really improved by that. So so those are two that spring to mind. I’m sure I’ll think of some more.

[00:54:21] When you said there was a happy ending, I thought he was going to say fish the bear out and brought it back for you.

[00:54:38] I was just waiting for.

[00:54:39] I was waiting for the punch line.

[00:54:40] Louis I don’t know. I mean, I don’t mean to sound disappointed, Louis, but in a 30 year career, those don’t sound like really hard stories to me.

[00:54:52] Yeah, but they impacted. They impacted on that. They certainly had an impact on me.

[00:55:01] But have you never had a situation where the patient’s lost trust in you, you know, like that sort of situation or you took on a case that that went wrong in the wrong direction for a long period or even in my short. I mean, maybe you’re just a much better dentist to communicate to that. Yeah, but even my short five years at the the BR front, I did have a few couple of cases like that where, you know, like cosmetics is awful, right? Patients says it looks great, goes home, comes back because I don’t like them anymore. You know, you’re in a terrible situation just there on a matter of opinion, you know, does that never happen?

[00:55:44] Were fortunately not with regard with regard to that, because forcing I’ve done the course is when I started doing aesthetic dentistry. Fortunately, I’ve done some good courses and they the thing that I always bang into is, is make sure the patient knows what it’s going to look like at the end. So there are no surprises at the end because, I mean, there is nothing and I say this in lectures all the time, there is absolutely nothing worse than, I don’t know, some veneers on or something like that. And the patient, either immediately or after they’ve seen their family saying, saying, I don’t I don’t like them because there’s no plum. These are, you know, okay, if they’re too long, you can shorten them. But that’s all you can do. And then obviously redoing stuff like that is, is, is an absolute it’s an absolute nightmare doing redoing dentistry that you just did.

[00:56:44] Yeah.

[00:56:45] Really is is, is literally is your worst day at work isn’t it.

[00:56:50] Yeah.

[00:56:50] So I think it pay, I don’t think it is judgement. It is, it is just luck but I certainly and maybe, maybe it was, maybe it was that early on end of case that really made me choose, choose my battles and be able to deliver on, on whatever I, on whatever I promised. But I’m sorry to disappoint you.

[00:57:15] I can’t think of.

[00:57:17] Anything anything cut to catastrophic for you in my professional life.

[00:57:23] You mentioned Lewis. The conversation I had about the NHS and leaving the NHS and what people are saying about that and what worries people have about that. But now in your role in dental plan, that must be a daily occurrence. I know your role isn’t specifically to talk about that dentist. I mean, you’re more on the education side and so forth, but what stories do you hear or what concerns do people have and are they the same concerns every time? And then the solution’s a similar solution all the time, or is it different in each case? Tell me some stories of NHS to private.

[00:58:01] It is it is it.

[00:58:03] Is the similar it is similar all the time and it’s always and they’ve always been the same stories. I mean I’ve I say I’ve done a 1000, so I’ve been teaching for about 20 years. I’ve been doing hands on courses for getting on for 20 years as, as well. So I’ve spoken to thousands, thousands and thousands of dentists and that’s, you know, me, we’ve been on courses together, you know, and I know you’re as well. You like chatting to chatting to the dentist, you know, good. Good to chat to, good company, entertaining people. And so, yeah, I’ve got a whole list. In fact, I did a webinar last week on this exact subject. It is the same things that come up every single time people have transitioned from NHS to private all report. Same thing. Number one is always time, more time, more time with the patients, more time for your for your for your private life, for your for your life work balance. But it’s it’s never money. Money is always the absolute bottom of the list is it is clinical outcomes, it’s job satisfaction. It’s developing good relationships with your patients. It’s using good materials and equipment.

[00:59:17] It’s having the time to go on courses and upskill. It’s working with technicians who share the same philosophy that you do. It’s you know, I’ve spoken to dentists on courses, a hands on courses. And this is this was not an uncommon occurrence. I do I used to run a series of ten hands on courses on various different restorative subjects and be quite a common one. When I was just started to push the envelope with, with big composites and almost without exception sort of every month somebody, an NHS dentist, would come on the course and I’d, you know, and we’d do a, I don’t know, mode b build up on a pre molar, take about an hour or something like that. And a dentist would say, you know, you know, this is all well and good, but I can’t do this on the NHS and I used to quite commonly get into this discussion and I said If you don’t mind me asking, how many patients do you see per day? And I would say almost without fail, sort of definitely a few times a year the dentist would say eight zero 80 patients per day.

[01:00:32] Oh, my goodness.

[01:00:33] Wow. To which to which I’d say, well, no, no, you can’t. You know, what’s what’s your what’s your appointment time if you’ve got to do this if you’ve got to do this in 10 minutes. You might get the first one right, but you’re not going to get the fifth one right. You’re not going to get the 10th one right. And what I did want to see, I didn’t believe it, actually, but I actually went to went to the went to the practice. I once knew of a dentist who had 100 patients booked in every day. I didn’t believe it, but I actually saw the daybook. It was a pencil, a pencil day book. And there were there were 100, 100 patients booked in in that day.

[01:01:13] The interesting thing is, if you if you said clean up time between 100 patients.

[01:01:18] Is.

[01:01:19] Just just be really kind of say 5 minutes to 3 minutes clean up. That’s 300 minutes of clean up time, which is 5 hours of clean up time.

[01:01:33] It’s not terrible.

[01:01:34] And you would occasionally see dentists who would get themselves into this sort of. This treadmill of multiple surgeries.

[01:01:45] On the.

[01:01:47] On the go. Well, but then.

[01:01:49] What are the barriers? What are the barriers? I mean, why don’t people want to leave? I mean, there’s the obvious financial sort of, you know, with the the system is that you’re sort of assured a certain income per year. There’s that. And then and then there’s another one talking to people who are thinking about it, the people who are eminently more qualified than I was when I decided to leave the NHS, worried about their skill set and worried about whether they can pull it off or not. And I say, you know, it seems to me so obvious. I will just keep it simple. Refer. Simple as that.

[01:02:24] You’re absolutely right. Confidence is the number one. You know, they don’t feel they don’t feel like a private dentist. To which I always say.

[01:02:31] What is that private?

[01:02:32] Exactly.

[01:02:34] I’d say, went to dental school. You weren’t trying to be an NHS dentist. You were. You were trained to be you. You were trying to be a dentist and to do whatever that particular patient needs are still to this day, do a lot of hands on courses with foundation dentists. And so I really, really notice that they really, really feel going from the, I don’t know, safe environment of, of the dental school scene to maybe four patients a day or something like that. And then working to an environment where obviously you’ve got to speed up. But that sort of tension with regard to sort of clinical decision making they they a classic one would be they they know that a direct composite online is the best treatment for that particular tooth. But working in a system, I don’t know. Take the UDA system, for example, where you’d be pushed to do an indirect restoration and that tension, a chrome denture or something like that. So you know that a cobalt chrome denture is the best thing for the patient. But when you factor in the lab bill, you would know that you do too many of those. Your business is your business is going bankrupt and and where cases in the in the UK system as well. So I mean the system does need to the system does need to change and it needs to change rapidly. I mean only in the last couple of weeks we’ve seen the, the Parliament Sean Smallwood talking to the health, health and Social, Social Care Select Committee. Things have to change and they have to change. They have to change rapidly.

[01:04:15] But you know at then plan what was the USP of that organisation is is it that they, they’re good at helping people go from one to the other. Is it, is it that they good at managing the teams because there are there are those concerns aren’t they. You know, what will my team think? What will my patients think? Am I up to it in all of this? Does Denton hold the hand better than the next company? I mean, they were certainly one. They were the first, weren’t they?

[01:04:43] Yeah, 1986 den plan was set up was set up with with three goals. It was set up by two dentists in the mid eighties. Eighties was a was a nightmare time anyway record unemployment record inflation. Falklands War miner strike it was it was it was a nightmare time and it was a nightmare time in in dentistry as well. And so these two two dentists came up with this idea for a basically a new system, a capitation system that was something to do instead of NHS dentistry, which was, which was the only game in town, you know, in, even in the nineties. I remember at the time somebody said there there are around about 500 private dentists in the UK. Now there’s 26,000. So plan was set up with three goals and those goals have remained the same throughout right up until today and they’re just as relevant as they were before. The first thing was professional control, getting control of your own career, which is what we’re talking about. The second was to create an environment outside the NHS where you could do quality dentistry. And the final one, which is even more relevant now, was to align the patient’s wishes with the dentists philosophy, which is prevention. Prevention patients don’t want dentistry. And so if if a capitation system works really for me, it’s perfect. It’s the perfect practical situation in clinical dentistry because you’re getting paid to keep people healthy rather than getting paid to find things to do and do things.

[01:06:32] And so having that balance of private fee per item and loads of patients on a plan just gives you that sort of clinical freedom to to make the right decisions every time, because your clinical decisions are based on, on what the patient needs. And obviously, I’ve talked to thousands and thousands of dentists and it’s the reason that we’re really quite evangelical about them plan is it because it was the first and it. It changed my professional career because when we went private, we weren’t completely private with them. In those days, you couldn’t you couldn’t have a children’s only contract. So basically it was, it was, it was private and and we didn’t retain any NHS within the practice. So in those days it was a leap of faith because there was no blueprint, big practices hadn’t done this before. But of course now there’s, you know, there’s a, there’s a blueprint. And, you know, thousands of dentists have already made they made that move. But so if you do chat to them plan dentists and I’ve heard this time and time again is that it changed it changed their professional careers even further. It changed their lives. And that is why that we’re so passionate about them.

[01:07:53] What is what is your actual role there? I mean, I know you were in charge of the education side for a while, but now now your new role.

[01:08:01] Yeah, well, the head dental officer, it’s actually the job that the original head dental officer is Roger MATTHEWS, who was one of my mentors, who is an absolute legend so far of ahead of his time. It’s really is a it really is a multi factorial role. Difficult to describe it in in just a sentence. The education side is still a big part of it. And one of the things that I’ve been really lucky to do is be involved with a big project to create our state of the art online education, to go along with our life courses. Our live courses have been incredibly popular for.

[01:08:42] Just summarise summarise the size of that that unit. I mean, I remember someone telling me, well, maybe it was you. It was like they do something like 500 days of live courses a year or something.

[01:08:53] Yeah. Yeah, we have way over 500 or 500 courses. I mean from, from hands on courses. I mean dipesh you, you kindly helped us out. I think that still remains our biggest ever hands on course. I think we had something like 40 dentists in the room, but you got good value out of Depeche that day. But we do in practice training that’s super popular. We do all the compliance subjects. We have ski conferences, cycling conferences, hiking conferences, and we just actually we’ve just finished actually, we’ve done our first four national forums. These are our sort of flagship events. And so so far we’re up in Scotland, in Blaine, Cambridge, Chepstow, and then we’re in Belfast the week before last. And so basically this is a full day study day with a nice meal and a stopover as, as well. And we’ve had Simon Chard lecturing for us on digital, doing a doing an hour and a half session. And he has been absolutely superb the den plan audience because you know is quite a tough audience. I say it’s it’s you know for for lecturers it’s a good rite of passage to to lecture to them to the dental plan dentist because, you know, you’ve got a lot of mscs in the room. You’ve got a lot of experience.

[01:10:14] Simon is a talented speaker, talented, very, very talented speaker.

[01:10:18] He is very, very polished. And but it does go beyond way beyond the clinical excellence, which he most certainly has. But it’s the whole sort of the the marketing, the use of social media. It’s his feedback has been off the scale. It’s been absolutely superb. So so those those are flood control.

[01:10:41] Have you got if let’s say you want to come up with a new course in Panama. Whatever.

[01:10:51] Well, like.

[01:10:52] You know, if you come up with a new idea, who does it? Is it you? Is it. Are you the last person who has to say yes to things? Or is there this other person who has to.

[01:11:02] Through.

[01:11:02] The process? What’s the process of if a new idea comes up, how does it work?

[01:11:06] It would be really lovely if that was if that was the case. My boss, Catherine Rutland, who’s another? Another and dentist as as well. So she would be the first person I would. In fact, literally, this actually happens only last week. I’m putting together ideas for the programme for 2023. So I’ve literally sketched out this is for me, this is the ultimate programme of live events and online online training events. And then we literally just go through the process with regards to funding budgets, manpower and workouts, work out what what we’re going to do for the next year. So we try and work kind of a year ahead. We’ve got an events team. The events team are amazing and we do lots of charity events as well, but not sort of CPD involved as well. You know, marathons, conferences. Our parent company, Simply Health Sponsored, The Great North is sponsored all of the great runs for a few years. So yeah, it’s just sort of because for me and I’m sure you’ll say exactly the same thing with your courses pay and even with your courses as well. Prav is for me some of the best little nuggets of education don’t come when you’re sitting in front of the lecturer. They come, they come in the breaks they come when when you when you’re having lunch, when you’re on a ski lift or.

[01:12:35] Wherever, the gin and tonic, man, you know, people underestimate that. It’s not it’s not the gin and tonic. It’s the different sort of sort of the barriers of the classroom situation. And then the barriers and the real conversations do tend to happen outside of the classroom situation. And for me, you know, the other thing is the delegates learning from each other totally. It’s a key point. It’s not just from the teacher, it’s a key point. They’re all going through the same things.

[01:13:09] Certainly from a practice management point of view, and I was really lucky I got into them quite early. I think it was about 93, although we were mixed for probably 15 years. Yeah, probably about 15 years. I was lucky, I think. I went on the first ever Dem planned golf conference and just sat down. My golf’s never never been any good and it it never it never will be. But I remember sitting down with some of the original Bampton dentists and they were really sort of saying, you know, from a great tips, you know, categorise your patients and correctly to begin with, equipment, materials, loads of techniques, loads of courses. Again, you know, I’ll go on one course, I’ll get a tip to go on to go on another one. It’s much easier now because obviously they’re all advertised on on social media, but it was very much a sort of a word of mouth who are the good speakers, who are the good mentors? And I was just really, really lucky that in the early, early years of my career, I just bumped into some just really, really influential people who transformed my career.

[01:14:18] Were you always that funny guy on stage? Because you are.

[01:14:27] Obviously, this is a fantastic opportunity to go into a Goodfellas moment here and, you know.

[01:14:34] When you have. But you could be a funny guy.

[01:14:41] Entertaining that entertaining style you’ve got. I was not from the first time you lectured. Was it like that.

[01:14:49] Style over content. I think that is.

[01:14:53] It is.

[01:14:53] It is. I’ve got a message that I want to get across. When I first started lecturing, I watched it before it started. I’d watch some really good lecturers and and you’d notice the ones who kept people sort of captivated. Trevor would be a really good. Trevor would be an absolute classic example of that because no matter how good your how good your, your content is, if people are asleep. And I’ve had plenty of people fall asleep in my lectures, they are going to learn nothing. They, in fact, just digressing from my worst ever. It wasn’t even a heckle in a live lecture. There was it was I don’t know. There was an audience of about I don’t know, about 40 or 40 or something like that. So it was a small it was a small seminar and there was a bloke in the front row and and he came in and he fell asleep almost immediately.

[01:15:49] And.

[01:15:50] And so that was a bit I was still introducing myself. I was still.

[01:15:54] I don’t have a long I don’t have a long I don’t have a.

[01:15:58] Long this is me intro but but he fell asleep during that. So then without a word of a lie, I kept going. I kept going. And then after a while his phone went off. It got off, it stood up. The group was in two, it was in two halves. So there was there was a sort of an alleyway down the middle. He walked up the alleyway, he answered his phone. And I.

[01:16:22] Don’t know what.

[01:16:23] I don’t know what the conversation. Nobody said, no, I’m in a lecture.

[01:16:27] No crap. And he walked.

[01:16:33] Out and he never came back.

[01:16:36] Wow.

[01:16:39] So that’s so that was my worst. So that was my worst sort of experience. But I think public speaking, I went to I went to a lecture the other day from somebody, a similar sort of vein to Prav. And it was people’s worst fears. And I think I think the worst fear this bloke was talking about was I think it was death of a relative public speaking and then being buried alive. So so when it comes to public speaking, I don’t I don’t I don’t mind. I never I never have.

[01:17:14] I think if you pull it off, you put it off so well with with the with the I don’t want to call it comedy, but the sort of the humorous side of it. And I always think if you if you say something funny, I never I never try it by person, because what if what if no one gets it or no one laughs? So and I find people do laugh in my lectures, but at points where I wasn’t expecting it. So it’s like they’re laughing at.

[01:17:38] Me so.

[01:17:39] Wisely. But but you put it off like a master, like a king.

[01:17:43] Give us an example, Payman. Give us an example.

[01:17:46] But he just. He can’t help himself from the first moment. Yeah, he’s talking it’s he’ll say a self-deprecating joke or something, but the audience will just get behind him straight away, you know, like, like what you said. You say, let’s say you can say something about your hair being a bald guy or whatever I’d say. And the room would be a room would be silent and worried. Yeah, he’ll say, and the room will be bursting out laughing. Yeah. And it goes on and it’s not like it’s only a comedy show.

[01:18:18] I’m not.

[01:18:18] Saying that.

[01:18:19] I’m going to say that at all. No, not at all.

[01:18:22] I was just about to ask Louis to tell us his favourite joke.

[01:18:26] It’s just. It’s just. It’s just.

[01:18:28] The content. The content is, is, is punctuated with some entertainment bits here and used to talk about different people, you know, good old and new places. So the way he would do it, I don’t know, Louis just carries it off in a really sort of for me, effortless is the way I would. I would describe it.

[01:18:50] That’s extremely nice of you to say. And it’s it’s not something I mean there’s certainly that. Edutainment as my my predecessor before Catherine Henry Clover he was my boss at Dental and he was the he was the head dental officer after Roger he said edutainment you know, you get you get you get your get your content across but it’s got to be entertaining. Otherwise, why why is anybody going to when when is anybody going to sort of actually come to your next lecture? But it’s not something that I sort of sort of script in really sort of I don’t know, they sort of I’m kind of lucky. It kind of sort of comes to me. I mean, I went to a school, a pretty rough school in those days. You didn’t have you didn’t have social media, so you had to go to school to be bullied.

[01:19:40] So I think.

[01:19:48] You have to be either really tall, which I wasn’t, or you have to be you had to be a clown. And so I suppose I learnt those skills from school. I remember my dad was always an entertaining bloke, but perhaps just made me think my my favourite joke. It was anything that I come out with a things that that please me are things that are thought of on the spur of the moment and and dental wise again probably 2 to 2 boring too late but I’ve been lucky enough probably because I’m I don’t mind public speaking I think I’ve been best man 11 I think it’s 11 times.

[01:20:31] Ten or 11.

[01:20:32] Times. And for me, my, my best adlib happened in a best man speech. And it was it was quite an awkward environment because the vicar had been drunk during the during the ceremony and it hadn’t gone disastrously wrong. But everybody, you know, it was it was one of those things, if you put it on telly, you wouldn’t think it was you wouldn’t think it was believable. So I was just getting nervous because I always do get a little bit nervous before certainly before speaking. And I thought, what am I going to say? I’ve got to kind of refer to it, but how can I refer to it? The vicar wasn’t in the room, but fortunately, but how do I refer to it without sort of embarrassing him and embarrassing everybody else? So I just I thought.

[01:21:19] Had.

[01:21:20] And so literally just it just came to me. I said, I don’t know about you, ladies and gentlemen, we’ve had a wonderful wedding today, a fantastic service. And I don’t know about you, but in church today, I really felt the presence of the Holy Spirit.

[01:21:36] And and for me, that is just.

[01:21:41] I enjoyed the fact that I managed to think of something under those sort of those circumstances and, and, and pull it off.

[01:21:51] I’ll tell you my favourite joke. What did you call a man with no shin?

[01:21:56] No shin.

[01:21:57] Notion.

[01:21:59] No idea.

[01:22:00] Tony.

[01:22:07] Wow. That’s my number.

[01:22:09] One. That’s my number one.

[01:22:11] Dad joke.

[01:22:13] Highbrow Oxford.

[01:22:15] Educated medic.

[01:22:20] Another one. When you go to Footlights on.

[01:22:22] A similar sort of play, we go. Yeah.

[01:22:27] This one always, always makes me laugh. Is mango’s into a fish and chip shop and says Fish and chips twice, please. And the bloke says, So I heard you the first time.

[01:22:45] Louis. Out of your different things you do general or done general practise teaching. Have you done some research as well?

[01:22:54] A sort of ad hoc research, I would call it. I started I started teaching a Birmingham dental school in 2003. And so we had a fantastic faculty. But as soon as I went on clinic, I realised that the students were asking me questions. I just didn’t know the answers to, you know, how does how does bonding resume work? You know, and you get different colour composites just using those, using those as examples. So I really had to sort of go back to school and and then I was I was equally lucky. At that time, Janus Davis approached me and asked me to write write a paper on post era composites. And so I spent three months right in a write in a long draft of, of, of this paper on Post Composites, which is my sermon on Post Composites. This is how you do it. And then a sense the I think probably had to print it out and and take it to. To Adrian Shortall, who is the head of head of comms. He’s my sort of main sort of mentor. And I gave it to Trevor as well. And they were very, very polite with me and said, Yeah, come. Come back, we’ll have a read through this. Come back. Come back in a week. And and we’ll give you some advice. And and I went back into to Adrian’s office and he said, yeah, you know, it’s it’s it’s fine, but but this is this is going in a peer reviewed publication. Everything that you’ve written is your opinion, and you haven’t backed up any of it with evidence. So he said, to help you out, I’ve printed you out a few things to read and I can still see it to this day.

[01:24:48] There was a stack of papers and abstracts. There were over 100 papers on post. I mean, Adrian always knew the key references and still does. And so for me, I think basically that was I don’t know whether they were throwing down the gauntlet. I think most normal people would have walked away and said, Right, I’ll, I’ll give up on my academic career. But I read all the papers. I realised what I’d written was just purely an opinion piece. I rewrote it. It took me three, three months to write the first draft, six months to write it properly, and then that was the first paper I ever published. In fact, in preparation for this, I actually looked it up of of now I’ve got 30 peer reviewed papers and four textbook chapters and those are all those are all written on subjects. Quite selfishly, that interests me. You know, posterior composites, anterior composites, clinical photography caries, bonding amalgam, indirect restorations. So for me, the learning has been my research, my postgraduate education. I’ve got well, I say, in fact, I’ve tripped myself up there. I used to have no postgraduate qualifications when I put my pen down and I made a promise to myself in finals. When I put my pen down and that final exam, I promised myself that I would never do another exam, and I haven’t. But in 2022, a colleague of mine, Steve Bonzo, who’s a who’s a brilliant bloke, material scientist, he proposed me and Ian Chappell seconded me for a, for a PhD from Royal College in, in Glasgow. So, so, so I have got.

[01:26:42] An honorary one.

[01:26:44] I’ve got. Yeah. But by accident not by exam. That’s why so, so yeah. I just didn’t want to do any more exams. What about.

[01:26:58] Lewis? Your relationship with manufacturers is is awesome too. I mean, you seem to know everyone in that side, you know, the trade side as well. You know, for instance, how do you how do you keep a clear head if unless Davis are paying you or or sponsoring you to to write about composites, not to sort of get their one as the main one or, you know, how do you keep a good reputation amongst lots of different manufacturers? Because you really do have a great reputation out there. And how is it that others sort of sometimes fall over on that front? I mean, what’s what’s there one called clear fill?

[01:27:39] Phil Yeah, clear from my aesthetic, which is.

[01:27:43] It’s an interesting.

[01:27:44] Which is an amazing comedy. It’s, I mean, so it’s a really good point. But I must admit, without sounding too pious, I do try and sort of keep true to myself. I only talk about things that are used in practice, and I only talk about things that I know work because if I don’t, if I talk about a product that I haven’t got faith in and then somebody buys that project, product, uses that product, and then they don’t get the outcomes with it. Again, nobody’s going to listen to me again. And, you know, I’ve been lucky. I’ve never been good enough to work properly with with Enlightened.

[01:28:24] But I think you did lecture at the minimalist event. But I can’t call that work.

[01:28:34] Talking paid work. Did you get paid? I’m still.

[01:28:39] Waiting. I played.

[01:28:40] A gin and tonics that.

[01:28:42] I needed. He certainly did.

[01:28:44] But he’s got to believe in it first, right?

[01:28:52] I mean, the nice thing is that the companies that I work with, I’m doing quite a bit with opted in at the moment. I love most almost all of the opted products, but in a lot of work with with Coeur. I was really, really lucky that my my kind of if you like sort of lecturing career took off when sort of bulk composites came in. So I did. I’ve done a lot of work with Dentsply Sirona over the years. And if if somebody gives me a product that I don’t like because I’m lucky that I’m on a number of key opinion leader groups. And so there’s a group of us do get sent off before it goes to market to test it out. And I love doing that. And it doesn’t take long, does it, for an experienced dentist to know, is it better than what I’ve got before? Is it worse or is it insane? And then I’m just I’m just totally I’m just totally honest. I would never, ever say anything bad in public or any anywhere else about about a dental product. Because, as you know, there’s millions gone in to the investment.

[01:29:54] And I have pulled out of lectures. It’s I remember when I started lecturing one of my colleagues who’d been doing it for a while, and our lecturer said, I said, How long does it take to write a lecture? Because this is taking me hours and hours. And he said basically the industry standard for an hour lecture, you’re looking at about 50 hours of preparation and and development. And to be honest, I’ve never got it down much below that that 50 that 50 hours. So I can only ever remember happening once where I’ve delivered one lecture once. And this was on a product that I started using. And really I’m a real early adopter. I like trying out stuff straight away. But then the patients were coming back and it wasn’t really working out as I hoped. So I actually had to sort of hat in hand, go back to the manufacturer and say, I’m afraid I’m going to have to pull out of this lecture lecture series because I don’t feel that so. And again, if you’ve ever seen me do a lecture, I get like way, way, way too excited about dental materials.

[01:31:02] And I quit and.

[01:31:03] I can get excited about matrix bands wedges. That’s probably one of the worst bonding lessons because if I really, really like them, because these these materials are designed to solve problems. Literally, the first time I used enamel was on. I remember the world of aesthetic Congress.

[01:31:26] Yeah, yeah.

[01:31:29] That’s what I was one of the mob down.

[01:31:32] Buddy, buddy, buddy, Andy. Son. What was his son’s name?

[01:31:35] Robert. Robert.

[01:31:36] Robert. That’s it, Bob. So that was a real turning point for me. I can’t remember what year it was, but Buddy Moffatt was doing 2 hours of lectures and.

[01:31:48] Yeah, that was the year we started with Cosmo then because we, we brought him over because of that now. Right. That would have been the 2008 I want to say.

[01:31:58] This, this, this all this all fits fits in nicely then. So so I don’t know you obviously you were in the room. There were about eight or 900 dentists in that room. And Buddy Mock was doing this presentation on composites, anterior composites, posterior composites. And I’ve never seen anybody do it before or since he had cases up on the screen and he basically said, What should we do? Do you want to do a posterior? Do you want to do an anterior? And basically his lecture could go off in any direction.

[01:32:30] Yeah.

[01:32:31] So now this was in the nineties, so this was in the era where porcelain was king. You couldn’t go on any other courses. Porcelain furniture causes the world aesthetic. Congress was basically a porcelain veneer course. And so I sat there watching Buddy Buddy Mapper, and it was showing case after case after case of these amazing composites used in using cosmetic products and how to build up composite veneers, taking crowns off, replacing them with composites. And it was absolutely groundbreaking. But then the thing that got stuck in my head, then he said, Oh, and here’s the ten year record. Going back to what you were talking about, there is your 15 year recall and thought, Wow, this stuff works. But the thing that the thing that really, really stuck in my mind is the lecture was in two parts and there was a break in between. And during the break, everyone went outside and everyone’s chatted. And the you could just hear these people just say, absolute crap. Worst lecture I’ve ever seen. Just, you know. And so when we went back in, there was still hundreds and hundreds of people there, but there were probably about 300 less people. They’d all gone off to a porcelain lecture from somebody else. And one of the first things Buddy said when he got back up on the stage wheel, he said, I won’t try and do his accent. People will say that you can’t do these things with composite as he does it.

[01:34:04] Combined composite.

[01:34:07] People will say that you can’t do these things with composite. And he said They’re right, they can’t. That just literally just stuck in my head that, you know, of course you can do it, but you’ve just got to dedicate yourself to the materials, the bonding, the know, the tooth anatomy. And so that was a real pivotal moment for me because they were doing stuff like you just, you know, in the States that you just wouldn’t believe and so much so that basically then I started using re now I did the hands on course with these with Robert is Bob is his son and the minute the minute you should have polished it. I thought, this is different. This is something that’s better than I’ve ever used before. And so I’ve used enamel on my hands on courses ever since. Because from a polishing point of view, as you know, and as dips, delegates, it’s one of those things that the delegates go away from the course with a nice feeling that they’ve done something that they.

[01:35:11] Yeah, they’ve seen something new.

[01:35:13] They never did before. Which is, which is what I tried to do as much as possible.

[01:35:18] Crazily, we’ve been speaking for an hour and 40 minutes now.

[01:35:21] Oh, my God. It feels like we haven’t scratched the surface.

[01:35:24] Maybe we have. Haven’t even said, who is your first boss? Where did you go from there? So we’ve. We’ve reached our limit already. Can I have to do it?

[01:35:32] Round two? I’ve got more questions, guys. We follow slogans.

[01:35:39] Don’t ask it, ask. Well, we caught another guy waiting, but there we go. We’ll have to do part two.

[01:35:46] We’ll have to do part two, man. There’s a whole bunch about public speaking that I wanted to ask you were saying you were comfortable and then you mentioned you get nervous sometimes. And then does that ever go away? And there’s so much buzzing around in my head. Right. So we’ll have to come back for round two.

[01:36:03] But sorry. So I hugged him. So let’s finish. Let’s go with the final questions, too. Let’s go with the phone. Let’s start with the fancy dinner party. One fancy dinner party, three guests, dead or alive. Who would you pick true to?

[01:36:19] Alive. Quentin Tarantino. Massive, massive movie fan. Come back. I’d be happy to talk about movies for for 2 hours.

[01:36:29] I’m not a massive fan. Massive, massive. Quentin Tarantino fan.

[01:36:36] Alex Higgins, the the ultimate the ultimate snooker player who still probably has got one of the best ever sporting quotes in history. And then the final one, I couldn’t decide either be Ricky Gervais or Frankie Boyle, because it would be an evening of absolutely zero political correctness.

[01:36:58] And.

[01:37:00] Talking about films, talking about snooker, talking about the, talking about the world. And then and then a game of snooker and getting drunk.

[01:37:07] After that.

[01:37:09] Whilst that sporting quote Lewis.

[01:37:12] Well, it’s been I read his autobiography years ago, and this quote has been has been given to lots of other sports people. George Best included. But I think the actual truth is it was Alex Higgins who said it the first he was asked in an interview quite late on in his career, you know, it made millions. He’d lost millions. And he was he was basically penniless. He was having to be crowdfunded. And he went on an interview. I don’t know. It might have been Parkinson not as good as U2, obviously, but he said in this interview. Over the years. All my millions. When I look back, I spent half my money on booze, drugs and women. The rest are just wasted.

[01:37:59] Squandered it.

[01:38:03] So I thought it’s a great a great sport. But he was a legend. He was an absolute legend.

[01:38:09] Yeah. Yeah.

[01:38:11] And the final question, Lewis, imagine it was your last day on the planet and you had your loved ones around you. And you had to leave them with three pieces of wisdom. What would they be?

[01:38:26] Well, I thought about this in advance as well. None of them. We’ve talked only about dental and teeth tonight. But, you know, that’s only half the equation. You know, we spend a lot of time at work, but it’s all about the rest of your life. Dentistry gives you the opportunity to have the experiences that you want. So I would say my first advice would be whatever experience is, whether it is travel, whether it is learning something, whether it’s a new opportunity in business or in practice or in any field of life. Don’t wait, do it. Just get as many experiences as as you can and just enjoy, enjoy every day. The second one is a practical one. This was advice that my dad gave me. He didn’t actually put a number to it, but he said, But, but I’ll sort of extend them the best bit of advice my dad ever gave me, which was be debt free by 4000 percent. Debt free by 40. No mortgage, no loans, no car loans. And then I’ll extend that live within your means. You know, I’ve got quite a few friends who’ve got ten watches and, you know, they haven’t even got long arms and, you know, multiple, multiple Ferraris. So, yeah, just because the minute you mean coming back exactly to what I’ve said at the start, the minute you’re not chasing finances, it’s all gravy. You you just your job is basically funding.

[01:40:01] Enjoy your job. But it’s funding the what you do in the rest of your life. All the other things you want to do, your family stuff and your relationship stuff. So if you can take that financial pressure off as soon as possible then and obviously in dentistry it is possible to do that fairly rapidly. And then the final thing would be just just enjoy yourself. I’ve got no sort of particular sort of sort of religious faith. You know, I’m just going to make sure that I enjoy sort of every day, every opportunity, enjoy every day. And if if you’re not doing something to change direction, that that would be the that would be my advice to, you know, I’ve given to my kids. Obviously, they’re just coming to that stage where they’ll actually listen to me again. Now, though, there was a protracted period of time when they fought and they knew everything already. And and I just didn’t understand. But I think they finally realised now that I probably have got something to, to offer them. But yeah. So that would be my advice sort of experience as much as you can out of life, get rid of the, whether it’s debt, whether it’s any other things that are bringing you down and just enjoy every day and, and do do what you want to do. Whatever, whatever is your passion, whatever drives you do that.

[01:41:28] I’ve messaged, I’ve messaged the next speaker so we can go to your final, final prayer, which is.

[01:41:35] Good.

[01:41:37] The final, final.

[01:41:38] How would you like to be remembered?

[01:41:40] Oh, of course.

[01:41:41] Of course. Louis If so.

[01:41:49] How would you like to be remembered if. If the following phrase was. Was said about you? Yeah. Lewis was. Finish the sentence. How would you. How would you spell loss?

[01:42:13] I. Go on.

[01:42:15] It’s it’s something that’s never really I’ve never really thought about. I’ll have to think about it if you do ever drag me back. But it’s not something that worries me at all. When I’m gone. Once I’m gone, I’m gone. I just, you know, just try and make the most of.

[01:42:33] Of my.

[01:42:35] My time on earth and good friends, good family and working in an absolutely fantastic profession.

[01:42:44] I’ve got one more question for you, Louis. Imagine you had 30 days left. No. Imagine you had a week left. Do whatever the hell you want. You know you’ve got a week and you’ve got all your health and no financial constraints. What would you do in that week?

[01:43:00] It’s not long enough, I’m afraid. I mean, it would be something crazy, you know? Keith Moon Sort of level heroic dose.

[01:43:15] That’s not long enough.

[01:43:18] I mean, for me, the I’m not frightened of Crikey, this is getting a bit deep. I’m not frightened of of death at all. But a couple of, I suppose, melodramatic to call them near-death experiences. But it doesn’t it’s not something that frightens me at all. It would be I think it would be what I sort of miss out on and seeing the kids grow up. And, you know, Tarantino said he’s going to direct ten films and he’s on nine at the moment. You know, you know, he’d have to get a I’d probably go I’d go and visit him and just ask for a screenplay on his. He’s currently undirected film. I’d probably give him a few tips, actually, and then I’d be happy to happy to pop off. But yeah, not planning on going anywhere too soon, but you never know. I mean, look at I mean, I’m 54 a few incidents that have happened recently in the public eye. You know more Shane Warne, he was one of my heroes. I’m a massive cricket fan this week. Ray Liotta, you know, he’s going to he’s going to live forever because the Goodfellas back to Goodfellas pie. But but yeah it doesn’t do them any good does it. So, so yeah. Just, just got to make the most of it because you never know when that, when that number is coming up.

[01:44:43] It’s been a pleasure, buddy. We’ll have to see.

[01:44:46] 100%. Part two.

[01:44:47] Yeah, that flew by.

[01:44:49] I certainly looked at the time. It was like, wait a minute. We’ve been talking for 2 hours.

[01:44:56] I know. I know. We’ve been talking for a while because my message is probably a couple of times it’s getting cold.

[01:45:05] Thank you so much, buddy.

[01:45:08] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav. Solanki.

[01:45:24] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

[01:45:38] If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it, too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks.

[01:45:49] And don’t forget our six star rating.

You wouldn’t know from it his calm demeanour, but Rajiv Ruwala is a busy guy.

Things have always been that way for Rajiv, who purchased his first practice with his sister Aneeka before starting his VT year and quickly grew the ailing three-chair practice into a successful seven-surgery clinic.

He’s since opened a second practice under the 2 Green Dental brand and is poised to open a third, just weeks after the arrival of his first child.

Rajiv talks about the ups and downs of his journey so far, reflecting on what defines success, building organisational culture, and much more.

Enjoy! 

 

In This Episode

01.44 – Current practice and ownership

07.39 – Structure, management and culture

18.33 – Mindset and communication

26.44 – Why Rajiv loves clinical work

30.07 – Growth and marketing

37.00 – Brand positioning

40.44 – Plans and project management

45.38 – 2 Green Dental

52.06 – Keeping going

01.00.19 – Associates and the comfort zone

01.08.31 – Defining success

01.10.10 – Blackbox thinking

01.22.09 – Cultivating culture

01.31.39 – Last days and legacy

01.38.52 – Fantasy dinner party

 

About Rajiv Ruwala

Rajiv qualified from King’s College London in 2008 and joined his sister Aneeka in purchasing and running Croydon-based 2 Green Dental.

He earned a Postgraduate Certification for Dental Education from the University of Bedfordshire, acted as a clinical demonstrator at King’s College Dental Institute, and is now a foundation tutor with the London Deanery.

Rajiv is a prolific lecturer for the British Dental Association’s Squadron strategy on professional development and patient communication and has also addressed audiences on behalf of Invisalign and SmileFast.

[00:00:00] What tends to confuse people or tend to confuse patients where you end up just listing a whole load of options and hope that they’ve got the knowledge of a BDS, which took us five years, by the way, minimum, so that you’re trying to explain it to them in 15 minutes and then they just get confused. And the typical answer they give is, I’ll have to think about it. Can I let you know? And the moment you hear that you’ve lost that patient, they do not understand what you’ve talked about. So I think I think the biggest take home, I said, is just give them an honest opinion. And obviously the second thing is, which is probably more important, is listening to them, is asking them a question and the art of shutting the hell up and letting them talk. I think it’s it’s a lost art and it’s the easiest thing to do. Be quiet and let them talk and they will tell you what they’re looking for.

[00:00:57] This is Dental Leaders. The podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry.

[00:01:06] Is a principle at clean dental.

[00:01:09] Your house Payman, Langroudi and Prav Salon Kick.

[00:01:25] Been up giving your opinions on a lot of different forums. Reggie, welcome to the show, Rudy.

[00:01:32] Thank you. I don’t know whether those opinions are welcome or not, but I gather people like what I say sometimes. Sometimes they don’t.

[00:01:44] But if you worked at lots of different practises, or have you been at this one for most of your career?

[00:01:50] Actually, I’ve only ever really worked at two practises where I did my feet training, which was an amazing practise, actually. Still is an amazing practise with an amazing trainer.

[00:02:01] Who is.

[00:02:03] His name is Shani Kalsi. Lancaster House in Croydon and Centre Practise. And he is the most kind, patient, helpful man in dentistry. The loveliest guy you could ever imagine. Great guy. And the practise I work at, which is mine, believe it or not, I actually owned the practise before I did VTE, so I don’t know if you guys knew that. Know how that came about? Long story. Well, I mean, I was at university and I just hated the politics in the hospital. You could even as a student, you could feel it. And I knew I never really wanted to have a hospital job or do anything. And I’ve always wanted to work for myself. And I own the practise with my sister Mika. And I think Amica felt the same way. She’s a couple years older and she had just finished her vet and my father passed away when I was in my second year sorry, first year of university. So luckily we had a bit of inheritance money and when we were in the final year, my sister was in a second year, my mom said, There’s this guy in some random place selling a dental practise. Why don’t you just go and have a look just for experience, to see what this is like. We both turned up. We looked at each other effectively and were like, Well, there’s no way we can make this worse. It was kind of in the right place, the right time sort of situation. It was a really old, shambolic NHS dental practise and we thought, Well, why not? We’ll give it a go.

[00:03:39] Was it in your house where you lived?

[00:03:40] It’s built. Yes. I grew up in Dulwich in south east London. So the practise is in an area called Crayford, which is about half an hour drive. So it was local ish. I mean, that’s a definite commutable and it was in an area where it was improving, gentrifying. The practise, as I said, was tiny. It was an effectively it was a one chair practise open three days a week. And it was very old school, very old school. I mean, you wouldn’t find bite wing holders in there when we first went. So it was it was, you know, we turned up knowing that we can improve this.

[00:04:24] So you knew during your VTE you knew that straight afterwards you were going to go into practise ownership. Yeah. Did that have an element of sort of trepidation to it?

[00:04:33] Well, you say that straight after, but you know what it was? It was quite nice. I said, my my vet trainer was absolutely amazing when I first told him. He was obviously taken aback a bit, but then he helped me so much. He gave me lots of advice, you know, and I think actually I helped him out as well because because I wanted to learn how to do these things. Whilst also the vet, I actually took on a lot of those roles as a vet. So as a vet I was doing stock ordering, I was helping train nurses because I needed to. And sometimes, you know, you jump in the deep end. The learning curve is great, but it’s it’s it’s helpful.

[00:05:16] Would you do it again like that? Or do you think in retrospect, on upon reflection, do you think you would do it the ordinary way, sort of do it, have a team.

[00:05:24] People if somebody asked me if they should do it, I’ll tell them not to do it. I would do it again. Yeah. I mean, it’s but I’m like that. I will quite happily take big risk if I feel that’s the right thing to do, I will do it.

[00:05:43] So a three chair nurse practise with no right wing holders.

[00:05:49] Yeah, well it was actually one chair with three rooms. One of the rooms didn’t have a chair and one of the rooms was completely dead. Like it was prehistoric, I think.

[00:05:58] Take us through take us through the sort of evolution of that and how long it takes and what moves you made and what were the key sort.

[00:06:06] Of.

[00:06:06] Cornerstones of going from that situation to this? I guess it’s quite a high end, fully private, is it?

[00:06:14] Now it’s actually has a little bit of NHS. Oh very, very little. We haven’t changed our contracts since we bought it and only we only had seven and half thousand days to start off with. But now it’s a seven surgery practise running from eight, 730 in the morning to eight at night every week to every day, pretty much seven days a week, not Sunday, but and Saturday we run half a day. But it’s a it’s a pretty big outfit. And then we’ve got another one practise that’s six surgery, doing the same thing in Mitcham and then a new practise, which is also seven surgery. Yeah, a seven surgery squad, which which is a little bit of a gamble for us, but we’ll see how it goes.

[00:07:00] So a lot of it has been sort of building works extensions, that sort of thing, surely, right?

[00:07:06] Well, yeah, we took over in 2008. This would be our fourth. The current project would be our fifth project building project. So it’s either building or extension or. Yeah. So we’ve, we’ve had five building projects effectively. I’ve always had a builder on, on, on the go doing something. Wow. Yeah. It’s been, I think about it. I should probably get myself a builder and hold on to the projects.

[00:07:39] The both courier practises doing 12 hour shifts. Six days. Yes. Yes. Just out of curiosity, how would you make that work in terms of staffing and management and all the rest of it? What’s your organisational structure and team structure across that?

[00:07:58] Yeah, sure. Well, it’s you know, I don’t think anyone can work for 12 hours.

[00:08:02] No, no, no, of course. Yeah.

[00:08:04] So we actually run a purely shift based system. So effectively there’s two shifts. We have a whole new set of staff working in the morning and then completely different set of staff working in the afternoon. So there’s a the staff turn up at seven in the morning and they leave at 130 or 145, 2:00, and then the second set of staff come in at 130 and leave at eight 830. So effectively everyone has a half day every day and they do the staff do a seven hour shift. The dental, the clinical dental is 6 hours. But I find that if you work 6 hours, the efficiency is is far greater than a standard day or even a 12 hour day, which I’ve heard some people do, which is absolutely insane. You know, if I look at myself after about 7 hours, the quality of my work, it doesn’t drop. It just takes a lot longer to get there. Yeah, a hell of a lot longer.

[00:09:03] Out of curiosity, Rajiv, do you have like a huddle or some kind of team meeting?

[00:09:08] I mean, these are always things that we have to work on. Cultures are really difficult. Yeah, we were 9 to 5. It was a lot easier because we’d all have lunch together. Sure. So culture is always. Is always a little harder when you’re running. The bigger, the bigger the operation, the harder the the harder it is. We don’t do anything like a huddle or anything like that. What we’re trying to do is having more of a team meetings and not in the traditional sense. So Fridays we tried to get together and we tried to keep the Friday afternoon shift a bit lighter, and then we try and spend that afternoon doing more administrative, you know, talking to each other tasks. You know, in my head I call it a Friday reset, but the culture is always the most difficult thing. The bigger you get, the harder it is. And that’s just impossible. It’s just a numbers game that.

[00:10:03] And I’m just curious about this because obviously I’ve not run practises like this and don’t know of any that do. So I’m really, really curious in terms of like just the day to day now. Like for example, our PM is our firefighter, right? And she’ll be putting fires out left, right and centre or whatever or dealing with like, you know, whatever, whatever the issues are of the day. Right. So do you have like two shifts to PMS as well or what’s the like the structure of the of that, the higher level management?

[00:10:34] So we have, we don’t actually have a PM. I know that’s crazy, but we don’t we have, we have a team, an administrative team. So what I try to do is I’d rather outsource administrative work to existing members or staff. So, you know, I think one of the crying shames of our profession is that especially in the nursing sector and the reception team is that there’s actually very little progression. Once once you are a nurse, you know, I think I think a lot of nurses get bored after two or three years and there’s very little for them to carry on doing. So I try to give them more things to do. So one of our nurses ended up doing h.r. One of our nurses has ended up becoming a patient coordinator. One of our administrative team now basically does payroll and banking and all the finance teams. So one of our old receptionists and I like to promote that. So I try and give people tasks and then get them to build that into a career and move forward. So we don’t actually have a specific practise manager. And personally, I’ve always found it a bit dangerous to have one practise manager. You know, if, if they leave, all the knowledge goes with them quite, quite honestly, and they may leave for any sort of reason.

[00:12:02] So you sort of say like the so called, you’ve almost like separated out the management tasks into separate chunks and then give that to several different team members to handle. So it’s not there’s not one particular person who’s overall responsible.

[00:12:17] Well, I mean, as we get bigger and bigger and our projections are for the end of next year to be almost on 200 members of staff. Wow. Which is a hell of a lot of people. Wow. You can’t run on on on a simple practise manager system. You have to have an administrative team. Sure. So, I mean, we’ve got in my head, I’ve planned for an HR team, a payroll team, a sick team, a team to just be in charge of learning and teaching and practise progression that way. I’ve I’ve even got a person who’s just purely there to fix things chairs, breakdowns, maintenance, painting, get the door lock fixed or whatever it may be. But when I think as you get bigger, you have to start evolving that part. And I think that’s actually a very interesting business concept in that people don’t realise that you can’t stick to the same system as you get bigger and bigger. It’s something I’ve had to learn very, very quickly.

[00:13:19] And then so Rajeev, what part do you play in that in terms of your day to day? Like as that organisation grows to like 200 members of staff? Like where, where do you sit in that in terms of like your typical day or your typical week, who you’d be interacting with, what you’d be doing?

[00:13:38] It’s interesting because I still love clinical dentistry. The more I do it, I still absolutely love it, but the more I feel that I have to give it up at some point. But I’m holding on. I’m still doing three and one half days a week, so I absolutely love it. I think we’ve already touched upon it. Culture is probably the most important thing when you’re in the position I am, so I jointly run it with my sister and luckily we’re very, very different people. So I tend to hold the more role of forward thinking for planning. So I try and do anything, practise development, deciding where the practise goes in the future. Obviously with her blessing and she helps me with that and we discuss things together, whereas my sister is very much a hands on nitty gritty, she tends to make sure that the administration is done. She’s she’s a bit of more of a taskmaster and she’ll keep an eye on everything effectively. Yeah, it’s, it’s luckily we’re so different that it works that way. So I think as you I think as things progress, you, you end up being the person steering the ship, but you can’t be the person pulling the oars.

[00:14:57] But what happens regarding something like recruitment? Do you yourself get involved at all now?

[00:15:03] I mean, at the level of recruitment we’re doing at the moment, I only do the clinical side.

[00:15:09] Dentists and hygienists.

[00:15:10] Scientists and hygienists, whereas the receptionists and the nursing team is done by one. As I said, one of our existing staff members, in fact, two of them, the two people interview, they both have a veto. If they don’t like someone, then that’s that’s fine. And we actually don’t we don’t look to hire someone. We look to see whether they’ll fit into the team. We’re not really looking for specific qualities, if that makes sense. We make we’re trying to make them fit into a team rather than whether they’re qualified X, Y and Z. They’ve got this skill or that skill. Our thoughts are that we can teach skills. We can’t teach attitude and we can’t teach you can’t teach personality whether they fit in your team. I mean, I’ve seen so many lovely dentists who have got amazingly good skills, but I don’t think they’ll fit in our organisation just because of their personality. And that’s not to mean that they’re a bad personality, it’s just not our fit.

[00:16:09] And so, Rajiv, what is your culture like if you if you had to just sort of whip up in a few sentences or whatever to describe when you become a member of your team, what what is it that they become and what does that mean for me? I was Strohm and asked me to do a piece for them the other day about what their culture is.

[00:16:31] Right.

[00:16:32] And I didn’t know until I’d interviewed all of like a big chunk of their team. And it was very, very clear then that their culture revolved around family values, helping team members outside of work, progressing from within and promoting from within. And so I got a real sense of values, but I only learnt that after interviewing all their team members, right? So how would you describe your culture and your values in your organisation?

[00:17:02] So our culture I would I would say is it has to be quite relaxed, it’s quite natural, it’s quite free flowing. But more importantly than that, the key thing for us is that everyone needs to progress. You can’t stand still, you have to get better and better and improve. And we were having a little chat about this earlier. We were saying that if a staff member joins us, whether they’re a nurse or a trainee nurse, I don’t mind if they leave after a year. I really don’t. As long as they left better than when they joined us and as long as they leave for an opportunity. I actually hate it when people leave and I think they’re taking a step down. I want them to take a step up and I’ll happily do that. I mean, I’ve got two hygienists who were previous nurses for us. One of them is training to become a dentist. So she doesn’t work for us anymore. But she she wants to come back. I’ve had patients who are going on to study the industry and I’d love them to come back and join us at some point. As I said, we want our reception team to progress and do an administrative role or whichever role they’d like to do. But the key thing is they’ve got to leave better than they started. They cannot go back. And actually, I find it really frustrating when people stay still. That’s that’s the biggest bugbear for us.

[00:18:33] How would I demonstrate that I’m that dentist that. Forward thinking that progressive not standing still, is it through a track record of my post-graduate education, what my personal development plan looks like moving forward? What’s the thing that you’d look for me as maybe an associate working for you?

[00:18:52] So education is obviously very important in clinical skills, but I think clinical skills is actually, I hate to say, overvalued. That’s probably the wrong word, but I think more correctly, I think the other part is undervalued. And when I say undervalued and the other part, what I mean is that being able to progress in your own personal life is really important. Being able to progress in terms of being able to communicate with patients, dare I say it, financially progress. I’ve seen so many good dentists, not progress financially, but improve their clinical skills and and get deeply frustrated and not understanding why they’re going on all the best courses yet they don’t end up converting that into a career payment. I’m sure you’ve seen it with many people doing the Mini Smile makeover. Yeah, they come on the course. You see them four years down the line and say, how is that cost for you? And they’ll say, Actually, I’ve never done a case that.

[00:20:00] We’re trying to figure it out and say, why? Why is it one guy ends up being Matty Parsons booked up eight months ahead with composite veneers and then another guy just doesn’t even do one?

[00:20:13] Well, this is the thing I find really frustrating, because if you have a dentist who has got no skill at all, but they’re able to talk to patients and get them to do the work, they’ll very quickly progress. Even if they were born handed, they’ll eventually become a decent dentist and they’ll build a career because they can talk to people, whereas you can have somebody with the skills of mode, Monica and Jason Smithson all combined and multiply by five. But if they can’t speak to anyone and they can’t explain anything to patients, they’ll end up nowhere. And that now I feel it is really upsetting. You know, if someone like that joined our practise. Well, firstly, if they did, I would show them how to do how to do the other thing and actually speak to patients. But because I think that’s really undervalued. Massively undervalued.

[00:21:05] Do you think that’s teachable?

[00:21:07] Oh, yeah, 100% teachable. Well, you know, no one was born with that way. Some people are more naturally gifted, but I would say I’m probably the least likeable person in the world, naturally. And I’ve had to work on getting my patients to understand where I’m coming from. So if if I can do it, I think other people can. And I have to say that, you know, this is I didn’t learn it. I didn’t make up a system. I learnt it from an amazing guy called Asif Syed, who not many people have heard of, or if they have heard of him, they’ve never really met him because he kind of is one of these people who has quite a lot of influence in the dental world but hides in the background. And he taught me, you know, his version of how to talk to patients. And actually I think he’s actually trained over 400 dentists. But as I said, he kind of is a personality that likes to hide in the background, is more of a have you have you guys see non knockers or anyone see narcosis is more like the Kelly cartel. You know, they like to be in the background while working efficiency efficiently.

[00:22:29] Taff was that guy for seven, eight years and then suddenly one day he came out of his shell. What would you say that a couple of takeaways that you’ve learnt from acid.

[00:22:41] In terms of talking to patients, I would say very simply, tell the patient what you think is best and I mean that in a in a very blunt way. I think a lot of dentists get bogged down in options. They don’t like to give an opinion of what they think is right. You know, if a patient tells you, you know, they’re really upset that they’ve broken a tooth and, you know, it’s hurting and they can’t eat on it and they’re getting food stuck and it looks crap. You know, it’s quite easy to say, well, you know, you need root canal and a crown and it would be nice to have a white one because I actually I think it will fit what you want, and that’s the one I’d go for. There are other things we can give you gold crowns, amalgams, etc. but that’s the one I would recommend based on what you told me. And I think if you just say that to patients, most of them, as long as you come across likeable and trustworthy, they’ll say, Actually, yeah, I’ll do that. Hmm. I think what tends to confuse people or tend to confuse patients where you end up just listing a whole load of options and hope that they’ve got the knowledge of a yes, which took us five years, by the way, minimum. So and that you’re trying to explain it to them in 15 minutes and then they just get confused. And the typical answer they give is, I’ll have to think about it. Can I let you know? And the moment you hear that you’ve lost that patient, they do not understand what you’ve talked about. So I think I think the the biggest take home, I said, is just give them an honest opinion. And obviously the second thing is, which is probably more important, is listening to them, is asking them a question and the art of shutting the hell up and letting them talk. I think it’s it’s a lost art and it’s the easiest thing to do. Be quiet and let them talk and they will tell you what they’re looking for. It’s so true.

[00:24:38] So true. Although what do you think is the reason that people don’t naturally do that?

[00:24:47] I mean, I think we’re a product of the system. Partly the system doesn’t help. It really doesn’t. I mean, I think every dentist at some point has gone through an industry, whether it be for 5 minutes or 50 years. And obviously that’s a time pressure where, you know, the NHS doesn’t really value you talking values are you doing or it doesn’t even value you listening even less than you talking, which is which is even worse. So the system doesn’t help. Secondly, I don’t think that there’s enough emphasis on that part of it in university teaching. For the life of me, I have no idea why I spent a year learning histology. Just no idea. I’d rather they spent a year telling to teaching us how how to communicate with patients. It’s just. I don’t know. I think the focus is is very academic and less practical. And I think that’s also down to universities picking on academia as well, rather than being able to pick on soft skills. But I mean, there’s a vast, vast reason. But one thing I have noticed is that coming out of university is the most successful dentists are not the dentists who are very successful at university. They were the people who had to scrap effectively to get through. Those people have done incredibly well, whereas the academics haven’t done badly, but they haven’t excelled.

[00:26:27] You know, I find there’s the odd person who. Who’s good at both things.

[00:26:33] The unicorn. Yeah. Yeah. There are a few unicorns. Yeah, but that’s. You know, there’s always an outlier somewhere. Yeah.

[00:26:44] So what if you said you love clinical? I do. What is it about clinical that you love? Is it that getting to the bottom of what the patient is after and.

[00:26:55] Not finding that I’m quite unlikeable? I don’t actually care that much. I actually like the technical work. I mean, I do love it when you change a patient and you can visibly see them change. I love the technical work. I actually enjoy it. I love the problem solving and you know, I love my patients. I genuinely do. There’s some patients who I’ve had from day one who are NHS, who I treat for free now, you know, on a private basis because I just love them and some of them I’ve seen, I’ve got deeper relationships with them than they have with their own family sometimes. And one of my patients said to me, I see you more as my family than some of my family, especially around the cove. Around Cove, the time when I had some patients who had a only son, she’s by herself is in Australia and I see her twice a year, once, once a year even. But that’s, you know, she hasn’t seen a son for three years and I love seeing those patients. It’s really hard to give up. But I think the further along you go in the journey, I’m going to have to give up at some point. I just don’t know when.

[00:28:18] What about clinically? What kind of work do you like the most?

[00:28:24] I like the variety. I genuinely like the variety. I consider myself a true gdb. I’m quite happy with a hand scaler doing Perrier. Equally, I’d rather do surgical Perrier. I love doing a bit of Indo. I like doing some orthodontics. I like doing some straightening. I like. I love putting implants in. I like, I like doing whitening. I genuinely like it. Or I think I’d get bored doing one thing. I like seeing a patient and being able to deliver everything. Obviously there are some cases where I can’t and I have to refer out, but I would consider myself a true GP in that I genuinely like everything. The only thing I don’t really like to do myself is is paediatric dentistry. It’s just I’ve never liked it. It’s never been my forte. I’ve always felt like I can’t deliver high quality care with children, but that’s just me. But everything else I love doing.

[00:29:21] I’m in the in the practise.

[00:29:23] You’re sort of.

[00:29:25] Clinical lead, is that.

[00:29:27] Right? Yeah, I would say so. I mean, we’ve got some really strong dentists and I mean, some really.

[00:29:34] Strong you have specialists as well.

[00:29:36] We don’t at the moment, but with our new venture, I think we’re going to look that way to.

[00:29:42] 15 chairs that all.

[00:29:43] Generalists. All generalists. Yeah.

[00:29:47] And maybe private.

[00:29:49] Yeah. Well, between the 14 chairs, we’ll have 7000 users. So effectively, we’re all private. Yeah, we’re all generalists. And we. We we have waiting lists that are, you know, an arm, you know, six months down the line at the moment. So it’s a very, very busy place.

[00:30:07] So what’s the secret, bud? What’s the secret? You’ve you’ve grown this thing so quickly. Is it the very basics of treating people well? Word of mouth?

[00:30:16] Yeah.

[00:30:18] Do you have a marketing machine behind it?

[00:30:20] No, I. I don’t understand marketing. It’s. Perhaps you can have to help me at some point. I genuinely don’t understand it. My wife actually, believe it or not, as a degree in marketing, and she she doesn’t.

[00:30:33] Understand it either.

[00:30:36] Dentistry. But she works for a massive company. She works for Diageo, which is huge as a one under a company. But I personally, you know, I’ve I don’t I don’t understand. Definitely not external marketing anyway. I’m quite happy to ask patients to write a Google review and things like that. My sister’s way better than I am. She’s far more personable than I am. But yeah, no, this is it’s always been word of mouth for us. I know it’s still old fashioned, I suppose, but we’ve always managed to, you know, we see one patient, we get two back, and it’s always been that way. I don’t know why I actually.

[00:31:14] In some ways do you system either systemise the wow moments or do you just you’re just nice people.

[00:31:23] I would personally. I’d love to be able to systemise it. I just I don’t know what it is, in all honesty. It would be nice to know, because then I can box it and repeat it. Yeah.

[00:31:34] Do you know what? You’re doing? Something right? Right. You see one patient, you get two back, right? And this takes me back to yesterday evening. I was out for dinner and I spoke to Payman about this great customer service is so frickin rare that when it happens.

[00:31:55] You want tell everyone you.

[00:31:56] Fucking rave about it. Right. So true. So I went out for dinner yesterday to a place I’ve never been before. Right. And. My usual thing is, first of all, I never, ever order anything off the menu. I’m just twisted like that, right? So I always want a bit of extra chilli garlic. The first thing I do want to walk into an Indian restaurant. Do you do masala chai knowing very well it’s not on the frickin menu? Of course they don’t do it right. And the guy goes, We don’t do it. I’m going to ask the chef to put a couple of pots on for you that’ll keep you going. So it’s like, Boom, he’s got me once. Second thing is, I don’t know if you’ve got young kids ready, but when you take them to a restaurant, right, you want to feed them and get them out of the way first so you can enjoy your meal. Right. And for us, when we feed the girls, we get them plain rice and we ask them to put loads of veg in and not too much spice. Right. So that fills them up. But the guy goes to me, Yeah, I’ll do that. I’ll throw some egg fried rice together, I’ll put loads of virgin. And we didn’t ask for this because and I’ll bring that first so your girls can get sorted. Yeah, he’s just like, shit. Wow. Then I was like, Can I have my tandoori roti rodley? Just just just thin. Really, really butterly and thin. Yeah, it goes thin and crispy. I’m like, bang on, mate, boom. That’s the next thing that comes a little bit later as he’s bringing the starters out. Bring some extra starters out, right, some alley tricky and some Raj Kutcher. And he goes, Try this, try this. This one’s on me, buddy. This one’s on me. Just try it. I want your feedback on this dish at this point. May I’m getting quite emotional. Right? I’m overwhelmed with the surge.

[00:33:33] Yeah.

[00:33:35] Seriously, seriously, buddy, I’ve got a.

[00:33:37] Tear in my to Buddy.

[00:33:38] Yeah. And then and then, you.

[00:33:41] Know, I always speak to my eldest daughter about what great services. She’s smiling at me, beaming and giving me that look like this guy’s got his shit together. Yeah. And then comes along and goes. Just before you leave. Just before you leave. I’ve got Indian afternoon tea. I’m launching that soon. Yeah. And then says to me I’m right in my mobile number on a card for you. You take that away. Yeah. What the actual fuck. Yeah. Like amazing customer service as I’m walking out. There’s a couple stood there studying the menu here. Bloke says to me, food any good, mate? I said to him, Fucking amazing, mate. And the service even better. Get in there. Yeah. Give him a fist pump, smile it and look at it and he walks in. So word of mouth translated instantly at that point. Then I proceeded to write a Facebook and Instagram post about it. Right. Because that was because I was so blown away. Reggie. You’re probably doing that every day. You don’t fill 14 surgeries by accident, mate.

[00:34:47] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe you say that. I’m not sure I am, but I honestly. I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m not sure I am. I think I like to use the Tibbs analogy since we’re talking about Indian restaurants. Yeah. You know, Tibbs doesn’t have amazing customer service, though. That’s the thing. But yet on a Friday night, well, pretty much every night they’ve got a queue of, you know, 200 metres down the road.

[00:35:14] Because lamb chops.

[00:35:16] For the lamb chops because that product is just absolutely amazing. So as I said, I don’t really understand marketing, but I understand what a good product is, and I really do. And I think for what we offer, our value of the care for the price and for what we do is that I think is unbelievable. So I think of it more that way. Yes. Obviously, you get amazing customer service on top of that and it accelerates even more. So, you know, as I said, I don’t really understand marketing, but my wife has kind of taught me a few things and she taught me about the the five P’s of of of marketing, of which the most important thing is product. And if you can get your product right, I think that that’s the most important thing. Yeah, customer service makes a massive difference and you’re absolutely right. And it’s definitely something we need to improve on. And I believe that. But I think our strength lies in the fact that we can deliver great industry efficiently, well, in a really beautiful environment, at a cost that I think and this what makes me feel comfortable when I do a crown, I get I deliver that. I look at my patient and I genuinely believe they’ve got a bargain. I genuinely believe they’ve got a bargain. I think, God, I’ve I’ve you’ve got a bargain here. And I think if I can do that and obviously it has to be profitable and it is. Yeah, but if we can do that efficiently and beautifully, then I think that’s for us that’s really important and that’s what our practise is about. We want to give people great dentistry at a bargain and make money at the same time.

[00:37:00] So is that is that the positioning of it? One of the other piece. So are you not the most expensive practise? No.

[00:37:07] Not not by not by a long way. We we’re not we’re not the cheapest. We’re not the most expensive. We’re you know, if we were a supermarket, we’d be we’d probably be somewhere between Sainsbury’s and Waitrose. You know, we’re not like a Whole Foods, we’re not an Iceland. We’re kind of that’s our position and that’s a position we’re very comfortable with.

[00:37:33] And all three clinics of the same positioning. Is that is that.

[00:37:36] Yes. On new clinic, we’re trolley probably. We’re trying to position it slightly higher. But as I said, the way we try to deliver it is we might be priced like a Waitrose. But, you know, we’re we’re we we try and give a product that’s even better.

[00:38:00] Do you know? Do you know that, Rajiv, that value piece that you’re talking about there? Like some people say, hey, you know, what’s the magic formula to sales in dentistry or whatever? Right. I really believe truly it’s about value in what you do, because if you think you’re providing exceptional value, you ain’t got to try to sell because it’s coming from the horror. You’ve the passion that you’re showing now is that it’s a bloody bargain what you’re giving, right?

[00:38:27] I genuinely believe it. I genuinely believe it’s an absolute bargain.

[00:38:31] So you don’t get a struggle.

[00:38:32] But you say you know nothing about marketing. Marketing is is communicating your value.

[00:38:37] Yeah.

[00:38:38] Yeah, that’s it. That is marketing. Communicating your value.

[00:38:42] Yeah you say that, but I’ve never done anything on marketing. I don’t understand.

[00:38:47] I’m doing it right.

[00:38:48] You’re doing it.

[00:38:49] Coming out of your mouth.

[00:38:53] So I might be saying things that I don’t know, but it works. It works for.

[00:38:58] Us. Do not fill 14 chairs by accident.

[00:39:02] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:39:04] Have you done anything like influencer work? Have you treated a particular patient who went and told 100 other people like nothing? It still seems amazing in that time frame.

[00:39:15] I’ve had patients that I’ve told 100 people, I haven’t paid them for it and I’ve never.

[00:39:19] Been paying for them. But but you know, what I’m saying is inflexion points.

[00:39:23] Yeah. There are a few patients who who who generate more leads than others. To be fair, I found that’s more with businesses. Yeah, there’s a couple of local businesses where I think I treat everyone.

[00:39:36] Because people talk in the business that the talking shop the good news and the bad news, by the way. Yeah, of course. Quickly.

[00:39:42] Yeah, well, our new practise is next to one of these businesses, so as soon as we got the lease, I popped in next door and said, Oh, by the way, we’re opening next door. And that’s actually helped us a lot.

[00:39:54] But have you have you have you gone to other businesses and introduced yourself?

[00:39:58] No, not not, not not.

[00:40:00] Not.

[00:40:01] Consciously. Not consciously. I have spoken to other people and owners, but very, very you know, I’ll see them in the street and I’ll say hello and have a little chat, but I won’t specifically go anywhere to speak to anyone. But yeah, I found it’s happened with businesses. It feels like I’ve treat every teacher in South London at the moment for some reason, which is quite nice. When you’ve got two young children, you get to hear the ins and outs of every school is quite nice. Yeah. So it seems to me, you know, there have been spheres of influences rather than specific individuals.

[00:40:44] What you would you explained to me of of Mike what your plans were for the new place. And as you said it to me, I thought I thought to myself, what a confident guy, man. You know, like it takes a degree of I want you to outline.

[00:41:02] It for delusional.

[00:41:06] I want you to outline it for whoever listens to this so that they can get a feel for what you explain to me. But now that I’ve got the context of of what you did before, it seems to me mean if it really is like this, that, you know, you just this successful thing happened and you don’t know how it happened. You know, it’s it’s it’s an interesting sort of situation. Situation, but I’m feeling like either either like you lucked out big time or you’re just being really humble because, you know, like, go on. Let’s start. Let’s start with what are your plans? What are your plans?

[00:41:44] So, I mean, at the moment we’ve got I’ve already mentioned it seven surgery practise in Crayford Green Dental and we’re opening another squat just down the road and it’s a two or three minute walk down the road. And the idea of that was to effectively double our size. So that’s another seven surgeries. And within that, we’ve I’ve we’ve built the seven surgeries. We’ve built a lecture theatre, we’ve been the dedicated admin area. We’ve got a photography studio built in there that we kind of lucked out because we managed to get a lease during the middle of COVID where everything was nosediving in prices. So we managed to get that ridiculously cheap rate for 20 years. Was it before it was, believe it or not, a hairdresser? I have no idea how a hairdresser occupied a three and a half thousand square foot place, but.

[00:42:40] Three and a half thousand square.

[00:42:41] Feet. Yeah, it’s a pretty big.

[00:42:43] The size of enlightened the three floors of enlightened.

[00:42:46] Yeah, it’s a big place. It’s a big place all on one floor. So when we were looking at it the all on one floor. Yeah. All on one floor or ground floor. Bloody hell. Yeah. The frontage of this place is huge and it’s next to a Nando’s and opposite a pure gyms. That’s right on the high street.

[00:43:07] How far are you with it now?

[00:43:10] We’re probably going to be opening in the next two months. Two and a half months.

[00:43:13] Oh, wow. You you’re in the middle of it. You’re like you’re you’re doing stuff right now. Today, builders.

[00:43:19] I told you, the builders are always on on speed dial. Always on speed dial.

[00:43:26] Do you enjoy project managing. Oh, I love it.

[00:43:29] Property stuff. Yeah. I don’t like I mean, I don’t want to be in the rental game ever. I became an accidental landlord when I got married and I had a flat that and I hate that I hate being an accidental landlords are just I’ve given that to somebody else to manage now but I like it on the business level. I don’t know why I like making I just, you know, the way I see it is I spend 50% of my time at work and 50% of my time at home. So I should feel comfortable in both places. And I see one as the extension of the other, you know, and I would, you know, you invest into a business and you get money back from it. You don’t do that at home, but you do that for comfort. And I feel that they should feel the same. I like to feel comfortable in both.

[00:44:21] Yeah, I agree with that.

[00:44:22] And I want my patients to I don’t know if it’s a very Indian thing where you feel like you welcome someone into your house. I feel the same way at work. I feel like I want to welcome them in freaky.

[00:44:34] Tells us he knows nothing about marketing, right?

[00:44:37] Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don’t know. Is that marketing or is that.

[00:44:44] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:44:45] Yeah, yeah.

[00:44:45] Yeah. I mean, I think I think like Lexus. Lexus tell all their employees that whenever you speak to anyone, imagine they’re in your house for the first time and you treat them like that. So if you’re spreading that message that this is what we are with your team and all that and and, you know, running. How many people are you now? Like 100?

[00:45:07] Yeah. About that.

[00:45:08] You’re running a hundred people.

[00:45:10] On.

[00:45:10] Message and on on culture, having the keeping the culture. It’s not easy, man.

[00:45:16] It’s not. No, it really isn’t. I think that’s the biggest learning curve I’ve had is trying to keep. And we’ve been hiring a lot recently. So trying to hire people and make them understand or get them to understand what we value and what we expect. That is definitely been the hardest part for us.

[00:45:38] So take us take us through the steps on this new one, the squat. Is it also going to be called to green?

[00:45:45] It’s called to green dental as well, but boutique to dental boutique. So it’s it’s just a slightly elevated version.

[00:45:53] Of Giorgio Armani of the Emporio. Armani. No, not.

[00:45:56] The whitening brand.

[00:45:58] No.

[00:45:59] I got a little jitter in.

[00:46:01] Your face then. Yes, definitely not.

[00:46:06] So go on. You now near the end of it? Yeah. Yes. But for someone. For someone who’s never done a squat before, go through it. Go through some of the processes. You know, like I want to really about decision making is a big one, right? To decide to do a squat. It’s a big thing to decide, isn’t it? The risks are high.

[00:46:25] You say the risks are high? I don’t know if they are. I really don’t. I think if people are going to open a squat, now is the time and the place, because the price of buying at the moment is is too high. Yeah, I think that’s I personally I think that’s a higher risk. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I was talking to a colleague yesterday. I won’t mention who they are, but I think they’ve regretted borrowing the amount that they’ve borrowed because they can’t not make ends meet, but they can’t forge themselves the lifestyle initially just because of what they’ve bought. It’s really it’s really difficult, the pricing. So and I don’t see ours as a risk because of the proximity and the brand that we have. You know, that’s like saying McDonald’s opening a new chain down the road is a risk. It’s not that if you understand the product, you go in, you’re going to buy a Big Mac, you know you’re going to get a Big Mac. I don’t see that as a risk. And I think because we’ve we’re opening a squat within the geographical location or the influence of our existing practise. I don’t see that as a risk. I just think of it as a adding another seven surgeries to the to the existing practise just happens to be a bit further down the road. So I don’t know, I personally, I don’t think.

[00:47:47] You made the decision to go ahead thinking it’s not such a big risk. I like that. Then find the property.

[00:47:53] So we found the property which actually kind of fell in our laps. It was literally the first thing I looked at. As I said, we kind of decided to do this in the middle of the COVID period. There was an abundance of property at that point where lots of businesses had gone under. It was in the right geographical location. The price, the rent for it was very, very low.

[00:48:14] Had we already had the COVID bump in dentistry, like where we’d come back and we were busy as hell that one was. It was at the time.

[00:48:21] No, it’s just it was actually we started looking whilst I was sitting at home doing nothing.

[00:48:26] But when you scared like what if patients weren’t going to come back to practises or or you you were cool with it.

[00:48:31] No, no, I didn’t think that at all.

[00:48:33] You were right. I was wrong. I was thinking no one’s going to come. They’re going to think they’re going to get infected by viruses in the air. If you remember.

[00:48:40] I remember you were shitting yourself, mate.

[00:48:43] I think we both were, to be honest. I don’t know. I just never thought of it that way. You know, even with the house prices, my wife was like, the prices are going to drop. And I said to her, I don’t think they are. I think they’re going to rock it up because people are going to move away from London and go into suburbs. And I think I mean, I was proven right, which was a bit crazy because in the middle of COVID, we sold our house and we’ve just put another one. So we I went against my own advice and bought an A in a when the price of going up but that’s another story. But yeah, I didn’t see it as a risk. So we got the practise. You know, we’ve spent effectively a third of what we would have bought if we had to buy it outright straight away with, with a patient base luckily is that we’ve got the patient base already, so we didn’t have to buy that. So for me this is a no brainer. I think we can we’ve got waiting lists of people who are trying to access treatment. So this for me is an extension. The biggest thing is, is staffing. And in getting more people, getting people to buy into what we’re doing, getting the right people to be able to deliver that sort of work where, you know, we see as good quality, highly valued with patients who already value us and more importantly, that they can progress into something.

[00:50:08] Is it easier to hire when you’re offering shift work like because you probably meet certain people’s, I guess, patterns because obviously there might be somebody who wants to do the schoolrooms in the morning or whatever and they want to stop. Does that make it easier to hire or.

[00:50:26] I’m not sure. I think it’s a bit of both. You know, when we first moved our existing staff to shift system, we were met with some heavy opposition. Now we’ve started most of them. In fact, I think virtually all of them have said, I don’t think I could go back to the other system. I think people value having that extra time every day, whether it be in the morning, whether it be in the afternoon. It doesn’t matter so much whether they’ve had kids or not. I think makes it does it make a difference either? Because what we found is that the ones who do have kids either drop them to school or pick them up rather than both. There’s a there’s a variation. Some people have obviously some preferences. Some people are naturally one, either morning people or night night people. I’m a night person. I think Payman yours are the same. You tend to message each other at two in the morning. Yeah. Whereas I think probably you’re probably just about to get up at two the morning. Yeah.

[00:51:33] So yeah, yeah I’m on the opposite. So I went through a phase of being a night person and me and Payman had a lot of evening calls and then and then Payman started eating this one meal a day. I don’t know if he’s still on it now, whether he’s telling me lies, but he messages me at 11 p.m. at night, which tells me he’s probably eating at that time now. But yeah, I’m definitely morning and trying to be unusually in bed for ten.

[00:52:01] Usually what I get from you like talking to you now, this sort of.

[00:52:06] Calm.

[00:52:08] Person who if I if I didn’t if I didn’t know the story, I’d say, this cat, this cat. He’s just he he doesn’t like things to change very much. But looking at the story like you are continuously pushing.

[00:52:24] Yeah, I’m not changing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:52:28] It’s strange. It’s almost like that sort of.

[00:52:29] Calm top.

[00:52:31] Of the water and. And underneath it, like. Like a swan or something like the bottom, the paddling away. But, you know, the just the fact that you’ve done this thing up to now is super impressive, number one. But but, you know someone who just wants to keep on doing things. Yeah. And now 14 years later, you’re like, oh, well, let’s do a new squat and the double up again. Yeah. Would you have plans to keep going? Like, are you thinking possibly 100 practises? What are you thinking? What’s yours? Are you staying regional or do you think you’ll go national with it or are you thinking about all this?

[00:53:12] I would like to expand. I mean, if if it if it keeps going and we keep being successful, why not? I don’t see why not. I’ve never had plans to be a mini corporate or anything like that. I just like to do what the business wants to do. So if it feels natural to expand and it’s the right time and the right place, we’ll expand. If there’s appetite for it, we’ll expand. We’d like to deliver. If patients keep asking, When can I get in? How can I make this appointment? Are you going to be closer to me? You know, then yeah, we’ll expand and you know, as long as we can keep the quality and the people happy, there’s no there’s no reason why we can’t. It’s never really been about that. It’s never been a significant part of the thinking. Yeah, expansion is important and I do want to expand and you know, but more for as I said, I’d like to do what the business is trying to do. I think a lot of people try and make the business work for them, whereas I like to I like to work for the business. If the business is saying to me that more people want to access this service, then yeah, we’ll expand.

[00:54:22] Yeah. But where I’m going, where I’m going is I mean, we’re going into kind of a different era now. But, you know, just a few months back, right, there was loads of cash available for businesses. And you could have done it like a Series A and say, hey, look, look at my track record. I want to put one of these in every city. Yes, you could you could get together with some sharp talking Eton boy or some lawyer or somebody who put the thing together for you. And it would be a credible story. Yeah, but the headaches would go through the roof, of course. But you seem like you’re kind of up for headaches.

[00:55:07] You know, I think I think I take very calculated risks. I don’t like to take crazy risks, even though they may feel crazy or to the outside like they’re crazy.

[00:55:17] Not just about the risk, the headaches, you know, like that one guy would say, look, if I’ve got seven shares, I’m doing well, I’m going on three holidays.

[00:55:25] I’m good.

[00:55:27] Another guy says, Well, why not make it 14 or 21? Another guy?

[00:55:32] I have an answer that for that. So you say that’s a headache? I would say that is a headache as well. But you can plan for that headache. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can you can line up the paracetamol before it happens. What I would say is that yes, if we’re going to expand, I would like to get the system in place before we expand. And then yeah. Rather than expand and then try and deal with the problems as and when they come. So that’s what I mean by calculated risk. If, if I, if we’re planning to expand, which we will. That’s why I want to build up that the administrative part now with three surgeries effectively most people who run three surgeries do not have they have a PM in each surgery, three people, whereas I want to build it into a 20 person, behemoth, administrative, effectively a business in its own right, and then I’ll use that power to expand. So yeah.

[00:56:34] By the way, let’s not forget 21 chairs, as you know, in its own way, it’s like seven practises or something.

[00:56:40] It is. It is. But you know, there’s a big difference between having seven in one building and to to sell for it actually is a huge difference. It’s a lot easier to control.

[00:56:53] You’re right.

[00:56:54] His seven chairs is 14 chairs, remember.

[00:56:57] Because that’s double shift. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. It’s no bloody joke.

[00:57:07] It’s interesting. And it could be someone else’s faulty.

[00:57:10] Practises.

[00:57:11] If they weren’t fully optimised, you know.

[00:57:14] Yeah.

[00:57:14] So interesting, interesting way of looking at it.

[00:57:17] So that’s, that’s my expansion. That’s, that’s the risk we’re taking. You’re absolutely right. If that’s the way we’ve seen it, if we run a shift system, we can literally double up. Yeah. And which patient doesn’t want to have access between seven in the morning and at night.

[00:57:36] I’ll tell you what’s really interesting, Rajiv, is, you know, we operate our practise like 9 to 5 or whatever. We do the odd one late evening. Right. And, you know, I have my team members who I call lead ninjas. Right. Who deal with our, shall we say, inbound marketing, which which you know nothing about Rajiv, because you’ve just got you’ve just got 28 chairs filled at the moment. Right. So you can’t do anything about marketing. Let’s put that to one side. And we find that the best time to get hold of patients if you want to book appointments. Right. Or get through to them or follow them up. Right. Is after hours or on a Saturday and you’re open all that time, do you find that your reception team are more optimal around that time in terms of success? Have you not analysed that? We’ve not looked at that. I’m just curious about it.

[00:58:26] Analysed it.

[00:58:27] He’s not looked at it, man. He’s just just a winner. Some people are just winners, dude.

[00:58:31] But you’re right. I mean, naturally what you’re saying is absolutely correct. People, we do get more phone calls outside of ours. And at lunchtime, that is definitely a massive benefit. And when I tell people that we’re open from 730 to 8, they’re like, Oh, okay, you know, that that really suits me. And in the area we’re in, we’re actually in quite a big commuter area. A lot of people travel into the city. And I think since going doing these hours, we’ve hoovered up a lot of that clientele. I bet just just because we’re the only practise in the area that that kind of does that.

[00:59:11] But does the name come from Buddy?

[00:59:14] It’s not original. We’re on to Green Walk. But we didn’t like the name because, you know, we try and do things sustainably. We try and do things naturally, and we like the nature representation. If you look at our logo, it’s it’s a bit different. It’s a it’s like it looks like a shell. And that for us represents. You guys know what the Fibonacci sequence is? Yeah. Naturally occurring number. And so we like that. We like the name and we kept it because of the the, you know, we like the we like to blend in with our background. We like we like to be natural. We’re we’re, we’re never going to paint our practise bright orange or do anything crazy like that to stand out. We’re not peacocking. But what we are trying to do is we’re trying to ingrain ourselves with whatever feels right in the right area and do what patients want and do things correctly. Mm hmm.

[01:00:19] What’s your what’s your bugbear with associates?

[01:00:23] With associates?

[01:00:24] What bothers you about an associate?

[01:00:27] I mean, luckily we’ve had pretty good associates. And, you know, what tends to happen if if we get associates that don’t get along? And actually, now I think about it, I think it’s what I came back to earlier is people trying to do the same thing. So associates who.

[01:00:43] The same treatment.

[01:00:45] Yeah, not necessarily the same treatment but.

[01:00:47] Oh is it not progressing.

[01:00:48] Well progressing. You know, it does it really does bother me when I see a dentist who’s stuck. He’s really stuck. More importantly, they’re not willing to try and change that. I don’t mind if they’re stuck, but they’re trying things that that’s quite nice. The ones that are stuck and don’t listen in terms of of improvement, that’s that’s the thing that bothers me. You know, I’ve I’ve asked many dentists, what where do you see yourself in five years time? I’m sure you guys are asked that as well. To many of the people on this podcast, and no one says doing exactly the same thing I’m doing right now. No one says that. Do they know so? So what bothers me is if that’s what you are feeling and that’s the way we want you to go. You’ve got to you’ve got to challenge yourself. And I think the biggest bugbear I have is is dentists who don’t challenge themselves. And as I said, it doesn’t necessarily have to be going on courses. It could be any sort of thing. But I want them to improve.

[01:01:52] The thing is, dentistry don’t challenge themselves. But by the way, I’ve I’ve been through parts of my career, I think from from around 2012 to 2015. I feel like it didn’t go anywhere. It didn’t progress.

[01:02:05] Yeah. But was that was that a period of a consolidation as opposed to progression? Because you still need periods of consolidation.

[01:02:13] I don’t think it was I don’t think it was. I just I just don’t feel like I progressed whatever. I didn’t analyse myself enough to figure out why I didn’t progress. But what I’m saying is a lot of times people who don’t move forward are uncomfortable being uncomfortable. Right. That that and you’re clearly the opposite. You’re you like being outside your comfort zone and learning and you know, the kind of person that led the first three day a week NHS practise must have evolved into a whole different person who was on a four day a week for four surgery, private practise and then a different person now and a different person going forward. Yes. And you know, you’re comfortable being uncomfortable.

[01:03:01] Why? I don’t know. You’re right. I just. I don’t like staying still. I mean, I just feel like. I don’t know, I just. I just feel like I need to do something. I need to. I feel that’s. Maybe that’s what I feel. Success is is growth is the growth is actually the success.

[01:03:26] A lot of like. Another person could be sitting here saying, look, I too, think the success is about that.

[01:03:31] But I’m I’m scared of.

[01:03:33] Trying that thing that’s going to going to going to make you like, I don’t know, taking on some new bit of digital workflow. There’s loads of dentists, you know, really good dentists who haven’t made that leap into digital. But I’m sure you have. Have you?

[01:03:48] Of course.

[01:03:48] Yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah.

[01:03:49] Yeah.

[01:03:51] And you can understand how you’re scared of. What I’m saying is that other person could be sitting here saying, yeah, exactly what you said. You know, progress is like that. And yet being so uncomfortable doing it that they don’t make the jump. But you happily make the jump. Where’s it come from?

[01:04:12] Um.

[01:04:14] It’s useful. It’s useful to, to, to know that, dude. Yeah. Because if people could get over that then and by the way, it sounds like you’ve instilled it in your teams. 100 people are thinking like this. Yeah, I’m sure you’ve got something to do.

[01:04:28] I’ve never even thought about it. I mean, I think I’ve always been like this. I think maybe it’s just my nature, you know? I’ve never been scared of doing things. I’ve always felt, in fact, I always feel like I think differently from everyone else. And in a way I have in my my thoughts. I know I think differently from other people. My thoughts are often like an outsider’s point of view from whenever whenever I talked to anyone, you know, we said at the beginning, you know, I put my opinion on Facebook sometimes.

[01:05:01] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:05:02] And I find often my opinion is vastly different from anyone else’s. Not to say mine is right. It’s just I sometimes feel my viewpoint is completely different. I’ve got where I was going with this, but I’ve always felt that way. I’ve never really been scared of the unknown because I feel that maybe I am the unknown.

[01:05:25] Maybe what about as a kid or something?

[01:05:29] Perhaps. I mean, sometimes you look back at your life and, you know, you look back and say, I wish that other people had done things. You know, I look at my mum’s career and my mum was a very and is a very successful pharmacist. And she retired a few years ago. And sometimes I feel that she got stuck running one practise and she loved it. Don’t get me wrong, she was very successful at it, but I felt that she didn’t progress because my father was very much different that way. He wanted to do new things. He’d take a little bit of a gamble. And, you know, he passed away when I was about 18. But I still that’s one thing I really remember about him and that he always wanted to do new things. And I remember him always. I actually remember him doing stuff that excited him. And I think I think I’ve taken that mantle off him and that doing something new is exciting. And I look back and I think perhaps everyone else, you know, if if you’re not being challenged, it’s not exciting, you know, for me, it’s just boring, actually.

[01:06:40] You know that Payman mentioned the fact that, you know you’re comfortable being uncomfortable. Are you uncomfortable? Like Payman said, making that jump to digital? Did you think about making the jump to digital and think that that makes me uncomfortable? Or do you just think I need to go digital? Let’s just get the shit and buy it.

[01:06:59] Pretty much. I mean, going digital is like a drop in the ocean for me. That’s not even a thing. You know, when I talk to other people about what I’m doing, even even right now, they’re like your mental. So at the moment, we’re expanding this practise. Yeah. So we renovated the existing degree in dental. We’re buying this new practise. As I said, I sold my home, I bought a new home. I’m renovating that as well. So I’ve got building work going on there. I’ve got a I’ve got a 12 day old son.

[01:07:31] Congratulations, man. Thank you very much.

[01:07:34] Yeah, he’s he’s he’s keeping me awake at night and my wife, but he’s absolutely amazing. Even at 12 days, they have such a personality is amazing. I’ve taken a roll with Smile Faster, which is great teaching, learning. I’m doing a diploma with implants at the moment. I’ve also taken a role with Invisalign speaking for them. So all of that in the one year I think I’ve looked back at this year and I thought actually maybe I’ve taken on a little bit too much, but I’m still happy doing it and I really enjoy it and I don’t like to stay still. I like to do new things. So it’s all been like, what’s life without a bit of risk and a bit of adventure? That’s what I think. You’ve got to make it interesting. You’ve got to make it fun. When we’re not on the on this for too long. You’ve you can’t stay still. You just can’t. Patrick.

[01:08:31] How would you how would you define success? What does it mean to you?

[01:08:36] Success. You know, I feel it’s it’s for me, I would say it’s doing. You know, that’s a really tough question. Success for me is, you know, multifactorial. For me, it’s you know, it is getting up in the morning and wanting to do what you’re going to do that day. For me, that’s what it is. It’s about progressing as a person, whether that’s clinically, whether that’s emotionally, whether that’s, you know, with family life, it’s about helping others along the way. You know, I’m always the other thing I really like is collaboration. You know, if somebody phones me up and ask for help, even if I’ve never met this person before, I will help them. And I like that. I like helping other people. I like I like working with other people. My sister sometimes thinks it’s at my detriment that I give too much time to other people just to help them out without without expecting anything in return. But, you know, I believe that you reap what you sow eventually. But success success is moving forward. That’s what it is. It’s just moving forward. And if you back it up, it doesn’t matter as long you know, you can you can move forward even if you have to take a step back.

[01:10:05] Let’s talk about some of the mess ups along the way.

[01:10:08] The many, many mess ups, yes.

[01:10:10] Take me take me through some of the errors you think you’ve made.

[01:10:15] You know, actually, at the beginning of the practise, I actually didn’t move that that far forward for maybe maybe for four years. And I think a lot of it was was down to us not understanding the business properly. So I think I think the first thing that that helped is actually understanding what the business is trying to do. You know, I talked about trying to make a practise fit, a lifestyle, and I feel that doesn’t work. We tried to do that. So we you know, when you when you buy a practise young, you go, well, if only I make 100,000 a year, and once I’m £100,000 a year, I’ll be happy. And so what ends up you try and make that business fit £100,000 a year goal, even though it’s trying to do something completely different. And what ends up you never achieve that 100,000? You always get 70% of what you’re trying to do. So I think the first thing we actually made a big difference is we understand, we understood that we’re a lot of patients were trying to access care, so we expanded. We understand that a hygienist is invaluable in that they help us deliver the care that we’re trying to deliver. So doing that made a big difference.

[01:11:32] And I talked about Assef before when we’re talking about talking to patients, but he also helped us form a really amazing business plan. And we continue to talk every three months about our business and how it can develop. And he’s really helped me out. And my sister, incredibly, he’s got a real keen understanding of what what’s the next good step, even if we disagree, is a great sounding board. And, you know, everyone needs a mentor, however it is, whether it’s through clinical business, business personal. So that’s made a big difference business wise. You know, we’ve we’ve made errors in God. You know, how we’ve talked to staff before. I’ve, you know, sometimes you get snappy and don’t mean to be like that. And I think every owner has done that. They’ve said something to a member of staff that they deeply regret, and that’s happened to me many times. And sometimes it’s not even what you say, it’s how you say it. Sometimes you try and get a message, of course, quickly, and you send something on WhatsApp and you go, Actually, I should have said that WhatsApp told you in person, you know, the human side of things. There are so many mistakes we had.

[01:12:51] We had Zeba Shaikh from Rue Dental and she was talking about what she learnt from her dad and her uncle. They owned this gigantic business like care home is the biggest care home business in Europe or something. And she was saying about body language. And ever since I had that podcast, I’ve been paying attention to that myself, you know, and, you know, it’s a growing number of of staff, this new people just.

[01:13:23] A.

[01:13:23] Nod and a wave from the boss makes you realise I wasn’t paying attention to this fact until I spoke to Zeba on the podcast. And everyone’s looking at the boss’s every move.

[01:13:37] Yes.

[01:13:37] Yeah, I was just walking in like one or the others, you know, like not not thinking that anyone’s paying attention to me. And ever since she said that.

[01:13:46] The just just a.

[01:13:48] Small body language thing of of of acknowledging people from a distance.

[01:13:53] Yes. Makes a.

[01:13:54] Massive difference. A massive.

[01:13:56] Difference. And it’s definitely something I’m not naturally good at either.

[01:14:00] Me either. I’m shy.

[01:14:01] So, yeah, you know, sometimes I feel like you, you know, you’re part of the team and you just want to act like the rest of the team. But in reality, you can’t be that person. You have to you have to step up. And it is small things. It often is small things. I wouldn’t claim to be the best boss in the world by any stretch of imagination. In fact, sometimes I think I’m an arse.

[01:14:22] What’s your biggest weakness, do you think?

[01:14:25] Oh, God. Many. I think my. My personal weakness is probably people management. Actually, I have to work on that really hard. I have to be very careful what I say, because what what I you know, I think I was born with that. You know what? You think it just comes out your mouth.

[01:14:52] No filter.

[01:14:52] No filter. That’s the one. And and I’ve been told I can be really abrupt sometimes. And I think with time and actually if you if anyone has been looking. What I see on Facebook over ten years, I think I’ve filtered it down to be less and less and less confrontational. Not because I don’t feel the same way, but more, you know, it doesn’t it doesn’t actually help anyone to be confrontational, you know. And what I’ve found is that is less important to be right. Yeah. So sometimes I know I’m right and I can argue a point and actually upset a lot of people knowing I’m right. I think what I’ve worked out is it’s not important to be right. Actually, when you’re running a business, it’s more important to be fair. If you can be seen to be doing the right thing for the right and being fair, I think that’s more important. For example, you know, if a patient doesn’t turn up twice on the NHS, know you have every right to not see them. Whereas if you speak to them and they realise that one of them was a funeral and the second one they, you know, their diabetic mother went into a coma or whatever it is, I don’t know. You know, it would only be fair to give them another chance. So you’d be right in saying, no, you can’t be seen again, but it would be fair to let them back. And I think it’s more important now, more than ever, to be fair than right. And I think that’s one thing that I’ve learnt and I’ve had to work on because my natural instinct is to argue about being right, whereas actually it’s not important anymore. Yeah.

[01:16:35] And what about clinically errors, patient management, things that stick in your mind?

[01:16:42] You know what? Luckily I’ve been quite good. I’ve always been naturally quite gifted with dentistry, you know, I was the person at university that it was quite happily doing molar endo and now as a student and not really having to need any help. Luckily I’ve been quite gifted. I think the errors I’ve made is being overconfident that something would work when it won’t.

[01:17:05] So when someone comes to you and says with the classic one with I don’t know that six sets of dentures and you’re thinking in your head, I can get this right.

[01:17:14] Yeah, yeah, I’ve had one.

[01:17:17] Or two with that sort of thing.

[01:17:20] You know, there’s always a little bit of overconfidence. Sometimes it’s it’s not overconfidence. I just, you know, sometimes you look at something as textbook correct, but somebody doesn’t get along with it and you fail to see the patient side of things. You know, clinically, it might be textbook perfect, but, you know, if you haven’t communicated with the patient, the patient, the patient’s adaptability is something that is untestable. And if it’s you know, it gets harder and harder to do things like that.

[01:17:52] Have you got an example?

[01:17:54] Yeah, 100%. You know, sometimes, you know, let’s use the classic doing a crown and it’s five microns off and you get one patient who’s absolutely an agonising, uncomfortable pain from it, and then you leave someone who’s three millimetres high and they don’t care. I’ve had a patient where I’ve seen a crown put in three millimetres high from another practise. I’m like, you know, you can only bite on this one back tooth. Yeah, I know. But I’m happy with that. They’re comfortable. They adapted to it. And, you know, the more and more I think about it, the more talking to the patient and then getting them on your side is more important than the actual dentistry in itself anyway. And luckily I haven’t actually had that many clinical errors, but some errors I have had of when I’ve slightly overpromised something and haven’t delivered to that exacting standard that I do have. But again, most of the time I can get the patient on my side and apologise and say, Look, yeah, I did that, overstate that. And then, you know, in the interest of fairness and value, I would say, look, I’ll just do it for you for free. Don’t worry about it. Just replace it. Luckily, it’s only been one or two patients here or there with the bits that it’s, you know, clinically I’ve been okay and I’ve been lucky. I think it will come and bite me in the arse one day. That’s probably the day I decide that clinically I actually have to do something else. I’ll probably end up giving it up at that point. But luckily I’ve what I’ve tended to do has worked really nicely.

[01:19:33] Nice to hear all this bloody. And you know I’m in touch with you and oh yeah who works at yours and.

[01:19:40] Phenomenon she is she will become incredibly successful.

[01:19:45] Very strong on the content side if that’s what you’ve read out of it.

[01:19:48] But she she’s really she’s really humble so.

[01:19:54] Your lovely girl.

[01:19:55] Lovely, lovely. She she knows her weaknesses. And you know, one thing I love about Q&A, she thinks she’s annoying me. She messages me almost on a daily basis on every other day. And she says, what about this case? How is this going to work? I don’t know how to do this. Can you come in and help me? And I love doing it. I actually love helping her. She as she keeps thinking she’s annoying me. She thinks she’s a nuisance. But what I love about her is she’s trying new things, she’s progressing. She’s going to go somewhere, whether, as I said, whether as a as an associate with us in the long run, I’d love it to be. I really would. But as long as she comes out of it, the other end better, which I.

[01:20:39] Believe.

[01:20:39] She already is, I’m cool with that. You know, you wonder is one of these people that is destined for great things. In fact, a lot of associates are, whether they do it so publicly as you end, day is very different. But many of them are destined for great, great things.

[01:20:56] What I was going to say was she really values you as the boss. You know, she she she vouches for you as a boss talking to. And that goes a long way, man. When you’ve got that many dentists and stuff to look out for, it goes a long, long way that you’re giving your time like that sometimes.

[01:21:13] As I said, I think she feels she’s pestering me and actually sometimes I feel like I want my associates to pass through room more that way. So I’d love to help them, but I think a lot of people are scared to ask for help.

[01:21:26] But that said dude, I’ve worked in practises where the me and the principal would, even though we work in the same building, wouldn’t say a word to each other for days on end. So the guy was trying to get out of my pulpit the whole time. I wasn’t pestering him at all, but. But he just didn’t want to because he was a hands off guy, you know?

[01:21:48] Yeah, I find that insane. I mean, if if that hands off, how can you explain what we’re trying to do? That’s I suppose that’s why culture comes in. You know, it comes from the top down. It never comes from the bottom up. So you have to get involved. You can’t be a practise owner, not get involved.

[01:22:09] Have you had this situation that I’ve had at some points where it’s grown in terms of numbers of people and then you spot you see something that doesn’t feel like it’s too green.

[01:22:20] Oh, yeah.

[01:22:22] I wanted to go and snuff it out. Or would you do that? Because I find it very upsetting if someone does something that I would consider not an enlightened thing to do. And it happens more as a team grows.

[01:22:34] Of course.

[01:22:35] Yeah. What would you do about it?

[01:22:39] I mean, it depends on what it is. If it needs to be snuffed out there and then it needs to be snuffed out there, and then yeah, sometimes it’s an individual issue. So somebody has done something that is already outside of the existing set culture. Sometimes it’s it’s an inherent problem within, within the organisation itself. So for example, let’s take another bugbear of everyone, which is stock, you know, one day you’ll end up. Getting a patient in the sitting in the chair before you realise you haven’t got the materials to do the work. Now thankfully that doesn’t happen that often. It happens in every practise, sometimes at some point. But then you have to go, Well, that’s not kind of what we’re about. We, we, you know, I ethos is that we have to be prepared before the patient comes in. So before the patient’s in, the dentist and the nurse has to go look at what’s out and make sure that’s correct for that treatment. You know, that doesn’t always happen. And sometimes if there’s a stock issue and it keeps happening over and over again, one thing you need, what we have to do or what we do is we look back at the system and say, where’s the system gone wrong? So sometimes you have to talk to the person. Sometimes you have to look at the system, and more often not. I think as we get bigger and bigger, the systems fail more and more.

[01:23:59] Yeah. You know, before you can rely on a, you know, saying to your nurse, can you just order that for me? I mean, you got 200 people. You can’t have 200 people say to their nurse, Can you just order that for me? It has to be a proper system in place. And I think sometimes actually, if things go wrong, it’s an opportunity to to improve. And this opportunity to find out what is, what is, what is wrong. But sometimes you have to snuff out at source if it is somebody going against the grain at the beginning in the first place. You know, and I said, my my gut instinct is to WhatsApp them. If I’m not there, it’s like, what have you done to shake them by the head? But you have to be able to take a breath, sit back, and actually it’s really important you actually speak to that person in person. It has to be done in the correct way in building culture. It’s not always easy, and I think a lot of people think practise ownership is easy when you haven’t done it, when you when you’ve done it, you know how mad it is. You know, in fact, I’ll tell you what, that’s one of my biggest bugbears of being associates. They don’t know what it’s like on the other side. Yeah.

[01:25:17] Us and them sort of culture. Prav have you seen that? You must have seen that in the number of practises you’ve been in.

[01:25:23] I have. And you know what’s really interesting is something that Cal once said to me, which was when Barbara. Right, who’s my business partner in the dental suite clinics. And one of the things that he said to me was that when he became a practise owner, he went back to his principal and apologised. Because he he realised how much of a pain in the arse he was as an associate only when he became a practise owner and figured it all out.

[01:25:59] It’s that famous thing is, you know, you’ve got to walk a mile in somebody’s shoes before you understand what they’re doing. Yeah, in that way, you’re a mile away and you’ve got their shoes. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, it’s. I think associates don’t realise how difficult it is on the other side. No, it’s a completely different kettle of fish. It’s not a simple case of we’re taking 50% of your money and pocketing it. Usually it’s a lot less than that. In fact, most associates make a loss for the business and a lot of people don’t realise that. When I when I tell people, when I tell the associates, I look, I said when you when they joined us, I said to her, you’re going to make me a loss. I don’t care that you make me a loss, because I’m hoping that we can develop you into something that won’t make loss and you can be an asset for the practise in the future. But at the beginning you’re going to make a loss and a loss for about two years.

[01:27:01] Have you got that number of like what what an associate needs to turn over before they’re making a profit in your place?

[01:27:08] Our practise is about £1,200 gross a day.

[01:27:13] If they gross 1100. You’ve made a loss on that associate.

[01:27:16] Yes. Yes. It’s about 1200 at the moment.

[01:27:22] Jesus, is that Prav? Would you say that that’s standard?

[01:27:27] Is that is that a half day shift or a.

[01:27:30] Seven hour day? An average seven hour day? Yeah.

[01:27:33] Okay. Okay. Okay.

[01:27:34] Not. Not on the not on the whole day. On the on the seven hour day. But there’s even more. All our KPIs are done on seven hour days. Seven hour days? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s high. But as I said.

[01:27:47] Is the team aware of that number? Everyone knows that number.

[01:27:51] I’m not sure they do, actually. I think the dentists are more aware of it than the dentists. Yeah.

[01:27:58] Do you publish your daily or your weekly sales or your monthly or any of that?

[01:28:03] No, no. I mean, we the one thing we definitely do do is we do we have a dentist meeting every like every quarter without fail quarter. Yeah. Every quarter. Every three months. And it’s, but, but when we meet, we, we, we meet for 3 hours.

[01:28:22] It’s not like does that end up being what kind of meeting does that end up being where everyone’s just shouting. Would you go with like an agenda and.

[01:28:29] Oh god, no, no, no, no. It’s not a shouty meeting at all. Look, the part of the culture is I mean, we really believe that the practise can only move forward if everyone’s pulling in the same direction. Yeah. So, so the whole idea of that meeting is we, we ask what’s going on, where the issues are like on individual level. And then the bigger picture, which is, which comes from me and my sister, we have to explain what we’re doing, practise and the bigger picture. Well, actually, we’re trying to move in this direction and the next thing we see, the big thing is to do this. Whether we have to develop the reception team, we have to develop nursing team, whether you have to develop yourselves, whether we need to start focussing on one treatment over the other. That’s, you know, the the key thing is, is that we all agree to pull in that direction. And I say to them, if you don’t agree, you either have to we either do nothing. Which I don’t want because our practises are about progression or you leave. Basically, if you’re never going to agree, then our practise isn’t right for you. You know, I’ve never been in this situation where somebody disagreed to that extent. Thankfully, I think most people understand you have to do something to move forward. So we do dentist meetings regularly and once every three months. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but every 12 weeks. 13 weeks. It comes around quick and I think if you’ve got three months, that’s a good amount of time for us to see whether that what we did last time actually made any difference. You know, it’s really easy to fall off the wagon after three days. But, you know, we want to meet up every three months. You want to see what we did last time actually made a difference. And we want to see what the next thing is to make the next difference. So, you know, it’s all about progress.

[01:30:27] Effortless, man. You make it look effortless. Make it.

[01:30:31] Easy. You know, if you’ve got a good system, it makes it look effortless. The way Liverpool or Man City play football. It looks effortless sometimes, but that’s because they got the system. They work together. They they all know their roles. They’re all pulling in the same direction.

[01:30:47] I’m going to meet Bob. Bob is going to call this episode The Swan, because I just see you as the swan man. Beautiful and calm at the top and working hard underneath.

[01:31:02] Working holidays? Yeah.

[01:31:06] It’s going quick. It’s gone quick, man. We’ve talked for an hour and 40 minutes.

[01:31:11] I can’t believe that.

[01:31:12] Let’s, let’s let’s wrap it up, dude, because I think perhaps.

[01:31:14] Could pass Proust bedtime.

[01:31:18] And eat a man.

[01:31:21] What was the name of that Indian restaurant? We’ll go there. Yeah. What was it, by the way?

[01:31:26] Doom down in Didsbury.

[01:31:28] Okay, it’s. Yeah, the.

[01:31:31] Pictures look nice, too, but the pictures of the food looked nice, too.

[01:31:34] But it was that, you know, the food was great. Yeah, the food was great. Not the best food I’ve ever had. The food was just great. But the service was just.

[01:31:43] Emotional emotion making you emotional?

[01:31:47] It was emotional, man.

[01:31:49] Let’s move on to let’s move on to the final questions, man. It’s been it’s been brilliant, but it’s been a real education to to listen to you talk about this behemoth man.

[01:32:02] Unfortunately, we didn’t really get to delve too much into family life or childhood or anything like that. Right. But, Rajeev, I’m assuming assuming you’ve got all your shit going on at home as well and you know, you, you make time for for that as well. You were talking about 50% of your time at home and at work and stuff. But yeah.

[01:32:26] I do try to stay at home quite a lot. You know, my daughter is absolutely a joy. She’s unbelievable. And obviously my.

[01:32:36] Other kids as.

[01:32:36] Well, not just the two, the 12 day old and my four year old daughter who’s the happiest girl I’ve ever met and just such, such fun. And she constant keeps me laughing. Yeah. You know, it’s amazing to spend some time with that. And I like to dedicate at least one day with her completely when I can. So. Well.

[01:33:02] Sir Rajiv, imagine it’s your it’s your last day on the planet. And, you know, you’ve got, you’ve got your kiddies next to you and you had to pass them three pieces of wisdom. What would they be?

[01:33:17] That’s a good question. Number one is, if you if you think it’s right, do that. Don’t do what other people expect you to do if you feel that’s the way to do it and you feel. That’s right, definitely do that. Don’t care so much what other people think about what you’re doing. And that’s definitely number two. And probably the third thing I think is, as I said, as we talked about it.

[01:33:43] Early progress is get out of your comfort zone.

[01:33:47] Get out your comfort zone, progress your comfort zone. But don’t expect you can do some things perfectly the first time round because you can’t. Progress is more important than perfection. And in fact, like my four year old daughter’s very much like that. She, you know, she tries something once and when she can’t do it perfectly the first time and she throws a strop. And then you have to I have to say that you can’t do it yet. You just got to keep trying to do it. And yet it’s really important for her. And I keep saying it to her, don’t, you can’t do it yet. You’ve got to keep trying. You can’t do it yet. But the progress thing is more important than being perfect. So definitely those three bits of advice just to I think that that makes you that makes me happy. I think that’s what I would say makes other people happy.

[01:34:35] Rajiv, what about legacy? So if you if you were to. Read this on on the equivalent of a tombstone or whatever. Right. Rajiv was. Dot, dot, dot. What would you like that to say?

[01:34:49] Um. Yeah, I would probably say it should it should say Rajiv was somebody who wanted change and instigator change. I think I think in the long run. Nice. You know, I’d like to change the profession at some point, you know, the. The whole thing. I don’t know whether it’ll happen or not. You know, the politics, the GDC, the the way the profession is seen, the you know, I’d love to be able to change all that at some point, but I would say that’s what it should be. I’m the instigator of change.

[01:35:29] It’s interesting, but because, you know, you need an opinion on what’s the best lever you can pull to make that change. You know, for instance, you would classically you’d say, oh, go stand for some media post, but that in your opinion, that might not be the right vertical. It’s an interesting question.

[01:35:48] Even if it is, you know, there are lots of people who are in the BDA who are great. But, you know, the BDA has been around for a long time. And there’s a lot of criticism that the media in that it doesn’t actually make anything different. Yeah, the way I see it is, you know how I talked about lining up the paracetamol before the headache? Yeah. The way I see it is if you’re going to make change, you’re going to need to. You’re going to have to have people behind you. You know, I’ve got 200 staff members in the dental profession behind me already or going to be 200 staff. So that will help instigate change. You know, I don’t they know what I’m about. They can spread the story of what we’re trying to do. So if I do end up the BDA, I don’t think I wanted it tomorrow. I want to do it when I’ve got real influence or, you know, lot of people who know what I’m about and people know what I’m trying to do, whether they’re with us now or not, you know, so there’s 200 maybe current members, but maybe 100 other people that I’ve improved or the organisation has improved going forward. And if they can vouch for me going forward then actually I might be able to make some change. I’ve got it. You’ve got to line it up. You can’t just join the BDA and agreed.

[01:37:02] Agreed. But, but you know, it’s like here we are. I don’t know, a good 6000 people may listen to this episode on today’s figures, but who knows? Maybe. Maybe this this episode is going to be here for for forever.

[01:37:18] Yeah.

[01:37:19] So hit us with with your your key idea on how the profession needs to change.

[01:37:27] Mostly it’s about respect. You know that the GDC need to respect the profession more. The profession needs to respect patients more. The key thing for me is, you know, obviously there’s over litigation and stuff like that, transparency with the NHS.

[01:37:45] So it is.

[01:37:47] Yeah, transparency. You know, the funny thing is the GDC say you’ve got to be upfront and honest with your patients. That’s one of the key things they say. Yet they say, you know, a lot of people have taken that to be you can’t say what you’re trying to tell them. You know, if you want to tell them that they they really should pay this for that sort of crown to get the best value of money, whether it’s on the private NHS, because that’s how you feel. You know, there are rules and regulations sometimes, so you can’t say that. It’s like, hold on a minute, I can’t be on. You’ve got to be honest or not. It’s got to be one or the other. There’s got to be some sort of transparency there. And I think the lack of transparency actually makes such a difference. You know, with all this litigation that’s going on, the work force morale, which is probably at an all time low, might have picked up a little bit after COVID, but there’s some major things going on. So, you know, I think respect and transparency is major for me.

[01:38:48] For sure. But, you know.

[01:38:51] Your final question.

[01:38:52] Final question. Fancy dinner party. Three guests. Dead or alive. Who would you have?

[01:39:03] My dad. Definitely back. I’d love to be able to speak to him again and see what he thinks.

[01:39:08] Would it be proud of you, dude?

[01:39:10] Yeah, I hope so. You know, it’s really strange because, as I said, he passed around when I was 18, and I think I was changing quite a lot. You know, it’s when you become from a dependent to an independent effectively. And he never really saw me as an independent. I’d love to see what he thought of me as an independent adult as opposed to a dependent teenager.

[01:39:35] I don’t know what kind of a guy he was, but, you know, Asian parents famously don’t tell their kids they’re proud of them until until, you know, it’s well, well, years and years later when. And so but Buddy, I’m sure he was proud of you when you were 18, but I’m sure he would have been, well, proud of you now, too.

[01:39:57] So definitely my father. Who else? Dead or alive? You know what? I still say my wife. My wife? Yeah. You know, we have such a great time. You know, she’s. She’s so interesting. We keep each other on our toes and definitely, you know, any dinner parties, she’s got to be there. And I like.

[01:40:26] That. It’s a family affair. So you got to throw in Mahatma Gandhi in there, so.

[01:40:32] Yeah, she would just say. And my.

[01:40:34] Cousin.

[01:40:38] One last person. No, that’s a bit of pressure. You know what? Actually, I call it on a business point of view. Someone who I find really fascinating is is Richard Branson. I probably get him in there because I think he’s quite famous in that. I think he said once about improving his own staff and somebody asked him, well, why? What if they leave after you spent £30,000 training them and go, well, he said, Well, what’s better that we let them rot? I’m paraphrasing massively. Or do I train them and improve them? And that resonated with me. That really does in that. Richard Branson I’d love to pick his brains about many things. So yeah, that would be my, my three.

[01:41:30] You should listen to the episode with Andy much more.

[01:41:34] Okay. Yes.

[01:41:35] She hangs with him all the time.

[01:41:37] Okay.

[01:41:38] He’s like. It’s like episode seven or something. It’s in the single. It’s in less than 20. Only one of the early episodes.

[01:41:47] He’s he’s Richard Branson’s buddy. But he happens to be a practise owner as well. And I remember Andy saying to me, the one piece of advice Richard gave him was that spend the majority of your time recruiting.

[01:42:00] Hmm. Yeah. I mean, I would agree with that. Recruitment is important. People make a business. Yeah.

[01:42:07] But he’s been an absolute pleasure. Absolute pleasure. And really good luck with the new venture. I’m sure it’s going to be super duper.

[01:42:15] Thanks, Rajeev. No, no problem. It’s been fun. It’s, you know.

[01:42:18] It’s flown by.

[01:42:20] Really? It really has. And I got a good Indian restaurant tip out of it as well. Yeah, but, man, just. Yeah, well, you know what I meant all the time, so. And I’m up there.

[01:42:32] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav. Solanki.

[01:42:48] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

[01:43:02] If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it, too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening.

[01:43:12] Thanks. And don’t forget our.

[01:43:14] Six star rating.

Payman takes a trip across the pond this week to chat with UK-born Upen Patel, who practices in Sacramento, California.

They explore the differences between UK and US healthcare, education and culture, and Upen chats about his experiences at some of the US’ top training academies.

Payman and Upen also talk about the challenges of funding dental school, Upen’s love of squash, and much more.

Enjoy!  

 

In This Episode

01.24 – Moving to the US

05.58 – UK Vs US schooling

08.39 – Funds and finance

17.59 – Next steps

21.23 – US associates

24.38 – Coping with COVID

28.42 – Safety nets

31.34 – Practice purchase

33.12 – Specialisms

36.33 – The team and US models

44.08 – Postgraduate training

56.01 – Fees, pricing and positioning

01.05.43 – Black box thinking

01.19.19 – Missing the UK

01.21.33 – Squash

01.23.41 – Fantasy dinner party

01.24.27 – Last days and legacy 

 

About Upen Patel

Upen gained his DDS from the University of the Pacific School of Dentistry in San Francisco, US, in 2005.

As one of the course’s youngest ever graduates, Upen earned the Outstanding Achievement Award from the university’s Academy of Restorative Dentistry.

Depen then completed a residency in advanced education in general dentistry at PACIFIC University, where he graduated as valedictorian with the highest honour in his class. He is now a member of the university’s faculty.

He is a member of the Academy of General Dentistry and a fellow of the International Congress of Oral Implantologists. 

[00:00:00] Yeah. I mean, I’d say more competition, but to be honest, I’ve never been worried about competition. I think there’s enough patience for everyone. It’s just what kind of patient you want to treat and also personality wise, who get along with as many patients I wouldn’t get along with. And that’s fine. They don’t see me, but there’s a certain demographic I really get along with and I know what my niche niches. But yes, I would say I would say fair market value around average for the whole country at the highest percentile, let’s call 1800 for a crown.

[00:00:32] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:00:49] It gives me great pleasure to welcome Dr. Patel onto the podcast opens. Dentists who qualified in the US but grew up in the UK a bit different to what some people want to do than where they qualify in the UK and then want to move over to the US. And actually did his A-levels in the UK and then and then moved and then started his undergrad training in in the US in Europe, in San Francisco.

[00:01:16] That’s correct. A specific San Francisco.

[00:01:19] Yeah. Lovely to have you with.

[00:01:22] Pleasure’s mine.

[00:01:24] So open. You know, the reason I wanted to do this podcast was to get for people kind of a contrast on the American system compared to the UK system. I know you’ve never worked in the UK system, but just, you know, your your answers to questions will enlighten people. But just tell me about the move itself. What what happened that made you move?

[00:01:46] Absolutely. So back in 1997, I just finished my GCSEs and every year my mom’s side of the family live in California. Every year we would go for summer holidays to the US. And, you know, I thought nothing of it. I was just I’m just visiting my cousins and but you know, they were probably always talking about my uncles or my mom. You know, you should move out here and move out here when when you’re ready. And then eventually they got a green card and they decided to wait till I finished. I was secondary school in England, so I finished A-levels. I did the usual stuff, you know, it was a pure maths, mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology, all the usual stuff. Back then I didn’t know anything. I was so young. Knowing now the difference between the UK and the US, I had no idea what I wanted to do and when I was 18 I just thought, Oh, I’m supposed to be a doctor or a pharmacist or something. So I just took those subjects and then I applied to pharmacy schools in England at King’s College. Queen Mary Westfield, I think was called in and some random place. I think it was Bristol. I don’t remember anymore. I just knew I wanted to live in London and that was that. And then my mum was like, You know, we’re going to move to America. I’m like, Oh, okay, so how do I do that? Suppose you have to take SATs, you go do these exams. I’m like, I just finished all this stuff. I don’t want to do any more. And then then I basically went through the American application process to become a pharmacist in America. I did all that and I got in.

[00:03:10] From.

[00:03:10] Here. Yeah, yeah. You just it just like UCAS form kind of stuff. But they have America similar things. So I did all that and then to basically I got into the universities in England, but I had to decide. So then basically I went, I came to America and when I, when I landed in America, I thought I was going to be a pharmacist. Day one is different here. You do for you as undergrad, pre pharmacy, pre dental or and then you go to professional school. So that was the best thing that ever happened because when I came here, apart from the cost of education is completely different. And that was a big shock to I did not understand that, which is fine. I mean, there’s a difference in the way things are done in the education system versus us versus England. But yeah, I came to school, I mean college, and they’re like, Yeah, you’re taking chemistry in biology. I’m like, I did all this, but what? What do you mean? So I first two years, I was so easy in college, I had a good time. I literally took A-levels again. And then you take organic chemistry, physiology, all this stuff. So you can take all the prerequisites to to go to pre-med pre pre farm. So what happened was I was taking all these classes. I was like top of the class. It was like everyone was like, Oh, the British student, you know, can you, can you talk like the way you talk and all this kind of stuff, you know? And it was easy to make friends and it was easy. It’s like but it was just I wasn’t used to the culture either. I missed all the sports in England. I missed just the places I used to hang out. And it was a big culture shock coming here because I wasn’t in New York City. I was in a small town in California for the university. So it was very hot too, like 110 degrees and all the time.

[00:04:51] Where did you go? Where did you go for the pre-med bit?

[00:04:54] So I went to Europe, also University Pacific, but they undergrad in Stockton. So it’s it’s inland from San Francisco about 2 hours, like not 120 miles. And so I thought I was going to be in like a New York kind of thing and all that kind of stuff. No, but it was a good thing because I studied I didn’t wasn’t distracted. I made lifelong friends. They still my friends. But what happened was all my friends were present and I was like, wait a minute, I’m getting better grades at the same grades as you guys, you know, nothing against pharmacy. But I just by the time I did some, what they call it, work experience and pharmacy dental stuff, I had time to do it. And also I think I had become a dentist. You know, all my friends are doing it. And plus, the dental school was in San Francisco. It wasn’t in Stockton. So I was like, I want to live in a big city. I want to become a dentist. And that’s how it happened. It was just stumbled upon it because my friends. They are doing it and none of my friends are preform. And I was like, I don’t want to be stuck here and get bored, you know? So that’s how it happened. And then if I stayed in London, I would have probably been a pharmacist, but maybe I would have changed mid-career. I mean, undergrad or university? I don’t know.

[00:05:58] You must have had buddies who did A-levels with you and then went to university here. What’s your impression of the difference between uni here and college there?

[00:06:09] So, you know, I don’t know if you went to a private school in England or public sight. My whole I was always in the private school, you know. So coming here was a big difference to always all boys, you know, in England, here, suddenly I’m in college. Oh, this is great. You know, everyone is like there’s a lot more girls.

[00:06:27] Did you go berserk?

[00:06:28] Well, it was it was fun. You know, I didn’t have to I didn’t have to worry about work so much. I mean I mean, studying so much because I kind of was repetition the first year or two, but then it got hard. But so British, I think three years, right? I think it’s three years and then you’re done and then you pretty much off in the workforce. I found that some of them, they went to Oxford, Cambridge, some of them went to UCL Kings. I found I found that they had a good time but it was over in a flash and of them had a hard time with that adapting straight away and then just being a professional and that’s it. You’re like here. I mean, technically you can be in college like eight years, nine years. And if you really do like undergrad masters, professional, you know, I mean, it’s just the cost of this stuff. You know, I did it a little bit different. You can go as fast as you want. So I finished undergrad in three years, you know, because I had all those UK classes, so I got credit for it and then I finished dental school in three years.

[00:07:20] Normally dental school’s for, but I went to Europe which has there’s no summer vacation. So I just kept going and that gave me an extra year. I did a residency like an advanced education, dental dentistry. So I was done in six years. I was done as a dentist, maybe similar to a UK dentist around 23, 24. So I had had a lot of time to process everything, but I had no guidance. None of my family members are doctors or dentists, so that was the first one. So in hindsight, if I could go back 20 years, it’s so much more I would have paid attention to and done, but I’ve done my own path and I’m happy with it. But I think I think UK again, I don’t know too much about what training is involved and an undergrad in dental school, but I find that we had all multiple choice in all our examinations. Any examination for anything is always multiple choice. I think UK is more essay based. From what I understood from when I was in A-levels, it was handwritten answers and maybe that’s the same way in professional school. I don’t know.

[00:08:19] We had some multiple choice, but the multiple choice was negative marking. Did you have that where if you get it wrong, you get a minus one?

[00:08:27] No, no, it’s just.

[00:08:29] It’s just multiple choice. It was like I’m not sure if they still do it, but there was a question of do I even answer the question? Because if you don’t answer the question, you got zero.

[00:08:38] You kind of guess it.

[00:08:39] If you get it wrong, you get minus one. I’m not sure if they still do that now. I know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So give me an idea of the costs. What are the kind of costs you’re looking at for undergrad and then professional school?

[00:08:52] So this is 20 years ago, so I’ll give you 20 years ago costs and I’ll give you 20, 22 costs because I do know those numbers. Yeah. So if you go and these are no I mean, no, no scholarship, nothing straight like full fee undergrad if you go to somewhere like maybe a state school but like a like a like UCLA or UC, that would be it’s not a private institution. It’s still not cheap, you know, versus a private school. Could be USC, Europe, NYU undergrad for you. I mean, you could be looking at almost 103 and 1000 just undergrad, you know, nowadays.

[00:09:27] Now pre-med bit.

[00:09:28] Yeah, yeah. Nowadays yeah. I mean, back then maybe, I don’t know, 100,000 just for undergrad. I mean, that’s maybe 150, but I’m gonna say 100 and then dental school, medical, dental school is more expensive than medical. More expensive than pharmacy. I think veterinary school is more than dental because I think that’s the only other one that could be similar. But dental school back then was 250,000. Now I know it’s pushing FI 400 to 500 just for dental school. And then if you have residency, some of them, some residencies, you’re paid a stipend, some you’re not. So if you go to Endo, Ortho and or Ortho Perio, some of those could be 250 or so now. So you could be $1,000,000 for 8 to 10 years of school age, $30 million of debt, you know, and oh, man, that’s that’s a it’s a big deal. Then you’re trying to buy a practise for 500,000 or a million with building. I mean, it adds up quick. If you don’t understand finance, I mean, you could easily take 500,000 and invest in a couple of real estate and you don’t have to go to school technically, you know, I mean, it depends. It depends, you know, what location you’re at. So you really have to like this profession in this country if you’re going to spend this kind of money. And most people still don’t know that. That’s what I mean. I’ve noticed some people, they think, oh, it’s easy money, you know, just got a. In a bunch of offices and just get going. And there’s plenty of people that are very good at business. That’s fine. They’re good at that. But you know, I don’t know what it’s like in London if there’s a tuition. I mean, England’s sorry, or Great Britain. If there’s tuition, there is tuition.

[00:10:54] But it’s it’s it’s capped. I think it’s capped at nine, £10,000 a year. Okay. And that’s kind of that’s kind of new. When I went through dental school, it was free and there was even there was even money they used to pay people. If I mean, it was means tested. Yeah, it was. It wasn’t even a loan. It was actually it was it was a grant. It was called. And it was means means tested. So I don’t know. I didn’t get it. I don’t know how much you had to earn to get it, how little you had to learn to get it. But but the government would not only give you pay you your your university, but would also give you money to live as well. And, you know and you know that that that wonderful notion that that where you come from shouldn’t affect your your opportunity for for education. That used to be a thing over here. And I bet you think it still is a thing with the cost compared to yours. Yeah. So what do you do about getting that cash? Did you did your parents pay? Did you get a loan?

[00:11:52] What happened? No, you just get a loan. They have federal grants, private loans. So. And then that includes money for living costs and things of that. But if you live in a city like San Francisco, in New York or L.A., I think your rent is going to be you might and you start going out a lot and stuff like that. You probably gonna go a little over, but you know, it was 100% loan. But if I ran out of money, you know, my parents, it didn’t come from medical or any like professional background. They similar to, I think a lot of my age group in England. They, they grew up in Zambia and Kenya. They moved to London in the seventies and they had a shop, you know, newsagent. So they worked like 24 hours. I mean, sorry, seven days a week, almost like 12, 13, 14 hours a day. I think it’s similar to Proud Dad from what I understand from the Cos. But yeah, so they gave me extra money if I ran out because I needed it for food or just rent but I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t like extravagantly spend it. No. Because I know I had to pay it back. So I mean the loan money. So back then though it wasn’t nowadays it’s very bad interest rates for loans. It could be like five, six, seven, 8%. Right back then I think it was like you could get 1 to 3% for a for a government loan and private loans might have been 5 to 6% if you don’t if they don’t cover enough.

[00:13:06] So two questions. Number one, what was your parent’s plan regarding work? Were they planning to open a shop in America as well?

[00:13:16] No, I think when they came here, my uncles, they had some history with some business here and some real estate and hotel or motel. So I think a lot of Indians say either go into that category or the agent versus us versus England. But yeah, they got a motel area. It wasn’t the best location, to be honest. They did their best. They got quite badly hurt in the recession in 28, 2008. But you know, they don’t live an extravagant lifestyle, so they’re fine. I’m around. So if they need anything, I got them. You know, I’m fine as a dentist now. So they came here and they they gave me the opportunity.

[00:13:59] Yeah.

[00:14:00] The opportunity to to do whatever I wanted.

[00:14:03] We were at a conference in San Diego, the OECD, last year.

[00:14:08] Oh, yeah.

[00:14:09] In, in the same conference hall was a it was I think, I can’t remember the exact name but it was like a it was kind of the Asian Hotel Owners Association.

[00:14:18] Okay. Yeah, yeah.

[00:14:20] And there was a bunch of happy guys walking around and we bumped into some of them in a bar afterwards. And one of them was, there was a couple who they were dentists, but they’d bought a bunch of motels as well. And they were telling us about the business model and how there’s a couple of guys who own hundreds of motels and. Oh, yeah, like any other business. Right. There’s no, there’s always a couple of guys.

[00:14:44] Yeah, it’s real estate basically. And they got in early and you know, and they have a big connexion. So my parents, a small time they had one and just to pay the bills and get by and you know, they’re content. But yeah, you can it’s just like opening multiple dental offices and selling it for multiple of them and stuff like that. That’s what it is. Or just hang on to more and more and more. Then a big marriott will come over and take everything from you if you really want to. But this, this is never ending. So why would you sell it? You would just keep growing, you know, and then sell it, maybe a portion of it. If you don’t want to deal with a headache.

[00:15:15] I don’t mean to pry, but just give me this. Like, what was when you qualified? What was your monthly payment for your loans that you had? Like, how did that what kind of amounts are we talking?

[00:15:25] So they’re like 25 year loans. So yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I forget now. I mean, I.

[00:15:32] I’m like $1,000 or was it like 5000?

[00:15:35] There’s a minimum payment. But I didn’t I didn’t want to keep I wanted to get rid of these loans. So I try to pay them off in like. I don’t know, like four or five years, I try to pay them all off. I just work like crazy. Yeah, I was done. I think I was done by, like, 31, 32. I paid it all off, but I didn’t. But there’s a difference, right? So now I look back, I would tell my 24 year old self, just make minimum payment, all that money, buy a bunch of properties. And then all those properties would be millions right now. Right. But I didn’t know because I’m very debt averse because just think on my upbringing. My parents always like don’t take risks. Look, you know, like we did this and we lost this. Like, just be be conservative and this and that. So until like I started like establishing myself, I wouldn’t really I would have given me more stress. So I just knew one thing I can earn. I’ll pay off these debts. At least that’s gone. But what I realise is once the debt’s gone, I felt good for a little bit. And then what’s the next thing you know? So the real thing about money and finance is how to leverage things. And some debts are good debts, some are not good, you know.

[00:16:43] Well, you know, hindsight is 2020, right? I mean, if you if you qualified in 2007 and given yourself that advice, that would have been really bad advice. Right? Right. So there is risk in in everything. You’re right. If your number.

[00:16:56] One thing was 1000 a month, I don’t know, three or four if I was I had to dig in. Right. I mean, otherwise, no, in most payments might be 2500 a month and you’re paying many interest. Here’s the other problem in America. If you make, I think, over 100,000 or whatever or something like that, you can’t write off the interest. You cannot so it’s it’s that’s why right now certain with Biden and what he’s said I think a lot of because of all the political things I think right now people have student loans he’s put a hold on interest payments. So they they’re not paying anything right now. They just it’s good. And he may forgive it. He may forgive some of those debts. But I’m guessing people who make a lot that he’s not going to do that. You know, so it’s all just they move the money around.

[00:17:38] You know, that debate, that debate is going on. Isn’t it about non-professional degrees and whether the amount of money they cost has been worth it to all these people? You know, people have been sold this idea of get an education and then at the end of it, not getting jobs that pay. But I think dentistry where we’re, you know, bit better on that front. So then tell me you qualified. What was the next thing you did?

[00:18:04] So I finished in 2005 and to be honest, I didn’t know what to do. I was like, Oh, I don’t know where I’m supposed to go back. Then I remember I was following Rosenthal like just a little bit on on back then there was no Instagram, no Facebook just started. So I was.

[00:18:21] I was just doing.

[00:18:22] Magazines and stuff. I was I was looking at magazines. I would I would like read about stuff. I would fly out to some small courses, but I was I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. So then I was, you know what? I know how to do some things, but I’m unconsciously incompetent. I was at that level, I didn’t know I was doing things wrong. So then I was like, I need to get to consciously incompetent, then I need to get to consciously competent, and my ultimate level is unconsciously competent. I knew that. So then I was like, Dude, right, I’m going to take a residency, I’m going to do a one year here. We have, we don’t have VTE here. So I learnt about that a little bit because I’m going to actually what happened was I did the one year it was, it’s called Advanced Education, Dental Dentistry. Another programme is called General Practise Residency. They’re very similar, but one is more hospital based. I’m one of the more private practise space, so in that one year I got about five years of private practise experience. I did. I did a lot of fixed price, a lot of removable, a lot of endo implants, just everything I wanted to do as a private doctor, dentist. And so that was great. When I finished that, that’s when I entered the workforce. And then I was like, Oh, okay, let me try to live in LA.

[00:19:29] I want to I want to work on Rodeo Drive. What’s that like? So I drove down. I drove like 600 miles down from Norco. So Cal and the jobs were I mean, I don’t know, they were kind of shit, to be honest, you know, they were like, here’s, here’s a base pay of X amount and you do all this kind of stuff. I can’t even cover rent, let alone my payment for loans, right? So I said, You know what? I don’t think I can do this right now. I think I’m going to have to live in Northern California. The jobs are better, and maybe I’ll just find something more corporate, which I didn’t want to do. But there was a new company back then that initially they were good. So I got a job, I got a job and it gave me a good start and I learnt a lot of things, but then a lot of things changed and it became very production based and and just no time and patience. And I had to do hygiene. I started going down this spiral. I was like, This is not what I want to do. Then my mind started thinking about different things. I was like, Don’t want to go to school, don’t want to go to school, then want to go to a surgery school because a lot of my friends were in residency and from a US was still although I was like, maybe they’re doing something right, I should look into this.

[00:20:31] And then I started thinking, I think I want to come to England to do a residency. So I googled all that stuff. So what’s it like to go to England? You know, because I’ve kind of missed I felt like I missed out on on my time in England at that time. I was like 25, I was 24, was like, what if I did a year or two in England? I know it must be cheaper out there and maybe I can learn something different and come back. So I started researching some programmes and then I got more in-depth emails. It’s not cheap actually, and then I’ll say, Wait, I got payments, I got to do this stuff. And so then I scrapped that idea and I realised you have to have a licence to work there. I can’t just even though I’m a citizen of us and Great Britain, I don’t have a British licence and so I seemed like a bit more complicated, take exams and all this kind of stuff. So no, I just, I just started focussing on SEO side of really taking whatever I could at wherever it was in America and just started building on that.

[00:21:23] To just explain to us as an associate what’s the what’s the sort of standard percentage that associates get paid?

[00:21:32] So it depends where you are. So there’s a there’s a great dentist and you probably heard of him. Howard and I took all his 30 day MBA classes and all this kind of stuff on online. And he was saying, you know, most associates, when they get out, they want to live and practise in New York City, L.A., Chicago, right where there’s so many dentists and the kind of job you’re going to get there, you might get a base pay of me for 5500 back then, maybe like a hygienist kind of pay. And well, the best thing to do is go more in a rural area or maybe a city that’s not so large. You’re going to get more opportunities. You have potential to have unlimited income. You could make base pay, but then a percentage of collection of production, maybe 25 to 30 or 35%. So if you’re a specialist, you could make 40 to 50%. As a general dentist, I would be very happy with 30% adjusted production or 35% collections. At the beginning I was getting around 25 to 30. I was happy with that, you know. I mean, I was more interested in just learning my skills. I, I never really I could have made a lot, a lot more money as an associate, but I didn’t want to put myself in risk situations and then deal with problems when I left the practise, because litigation, I thought litigation was bad in the US, but I found out that UK is.

[00:22:43] Quite.

[00:22:44] Yeah, I did not know that and I started hearing about it and I was like, Oh, that’s not not good. What’s going on over there? So something changed so that.

[00:22:54] Yeah, yeah. Basically we’ve got one law firm who changed the whole picture. They, they basically lobbied government. They buy dental cases, they advertised ambulance chasers. Has the dentist hurt you? And then they they they really push hard. And they literally it’s it’s sad to say, our profession has been I mean, society as a whole has become more litigious here with our profession basically in the UK has been turned over by one law firm which which by the way, a couple of dentists set up, you know, like really qualified dentists and lawyers here. It’s awful. It’s awful that we haven’t managed.

[00:23:38] Yes. Together. Yeah.

[00:23:39] Well, you know, they became dentists first, I guess, and then I then did LLP or something. So but this 25% that you just mentioned for the associates is is that is that around the number you’re paying your associate right now? Is that is that the kind of thing is that normal?

[00:23:55] Yeah, I would say, like I said, I pay based on what they do. So there’s no adjustment unless there was like, you know, maybe the patient paid $100 and there was a 5% discount. So they’re going to get 95 rate of 95. I’m not going to. Yeah, that’s what it just means. But yeah, 30%. That’s very fair. I’m covering all that bill. I’m covering you pay the bill anything you want. Yeah, I’ll take care of everything.

[00:24:20] Okay. So I was a slightly different. The associate shares the lab bill 5050, but then a standard kind of percentage here is 40 or 45% now. But that’s recently changed. I mean, it used to be 50% for years and years and years and the last sort of five years it started moving. And then since COVID, which we should we should talk about COVID. Tell me about COVID. Did they force you to close? How long did you close for?

[00:24:47] In this country. I was closed for three months because I felt it was the right thing to do, but there were offices that were open. They can’t force you to close. There was a guideline and then there were some practises that I know of and dear friends, they were open and obviously nothing happened. But to be honest, personally for me, I bought my first practise in 2014 and it’s a large dental complex, so there’s other practises in it. So slowly over the years I’ve been buying out all the practises in this building and I keep merging them into mind. So then right before COVID, I was talking to one of my mentors in the building and he’s, he’s. To be honest, I feel like he’s his level of education and training is in there time and age. But he was close spirit kind of level. And I don’t know in England who are the guys or women that are that kind of level? To have someone like that help me and train me is priceless. He’s like, You know, I want you to buy my practise. I approached him. I was like, You know, I’ll be interested in buying your practise when you retire. He’s like, You know, I really like that. I really like you. And I’ll be honoured if, if we could merge together. So we started doing that and then COVID happened and I’ll say, Oh, is this going to happen now? You know, and then best thing ever happened. I mean, I don’t like that could happen, but it was a good thing because it gave me three months off to merge my practises with him, to merge all our systems. I’ve never in my career had time to strip the whole practise down, go fully childless, go fully everything I ever wanted. I systemise from from A to Z and it’s increased. Like my happiness here is increased obviously the efficiency and profitability. But main thing is, is that I, I’ve just kind of set it up the way I like it now. And he finally retired a few months ago. And it’s been a very good transition, a very smooth transition.

[00:26:33] So did you not have that oh shit moment where you know you’re not going to get any income?

[00:26:38] Oh, I did not. I did. But then we got in this country, we got what’s called a p p p e loan or something. So the government gave up some money, you know, to all businesses. If without that, I was in trouble. Yeah, I had, I had one day I came to the office and I was like, you know, what the hell am I going to do? You know, because I got payroll, you know, the whole country was like that, though, like all the staff, you know, how are they going to pay their bills? But then the government came up and we got these business loans and they were forgiven. So that was good. So we basically injected cash. Yeah, they injected cash in our practise. They go off they go off your monthly payroll and they’ll times that by X amount and say That’s how much you get. So you have to give all your tax returns, all your pals, all that stuff, and then they gave some grants out. This is all this money they were just pushing out there. You know, we got to pay it back in different ways now, probably very different tax rates and all that kind of stuff, but it helped help stabilise the economy and it was necessary. Without that there’d be a lot of practises.

[00:27:38] Yeah, we had this similar, we had a similar scheme.

[00:27:41] Yeah. But with that.

[00:27:43] Also what they did is they paid 80. Oh. On top. Yeah.

[00:27:48] No. Yeah. Because I bought the practise. I got a loan for that.

[00:27:50] Um, ha ha ha ha. I get it with as they paid 80% of the salaries of all the staff. For that three month period, actually a bit longer than that if you wanted to. But when you brought people back to work, then, then they stopped paying them. But you’re right, there would have been carnage. And you’re right that we will all be paying for it some other way.

[00:28:11] Yeah, I mean, it’s fine without that, even our patients wouldn’t able to come see us say everyone needed it. Right. Because they all have businesses they all employed somewhere. It would just be a complete disaster. I mean, I can’t imagine what would have happened. I mean, there would have been criminal activity, looting. I mean, it was a little bit of that was happening, right? People were just smashing downtowns. And it was there was many, many things that were going out of control. I’ve never seen it as, like, a movie, you know, like, just. There was just so many people were getting really messed up and.

[00:28:42] Tell me this. Yeah, my, my. I’ve come. I’ve been to America a lot because all our suppliers are American. I’ve got family there and so on. My, my feeling about America. And one of the dangers of America is that if you fall, you can you can fall a long way down. You know, the safety net, you know, just from the from the health care perspective, we’ve got the NHS, you know. You know if you, if you get ill you’ll be kind of alright. People can argue about the standard of care in the NHS or how long it takes to get the care. But, but tell me that I mean maybe, maybe, maybe that’s the reason why suddenly violence or criminality and so on. But they were desperate people.

[00:29:23] Yes, I would say that the one the one thing about Great Britain is the access to health care is very important. Yeah. If you if you’re if you don’t have a stable income or just someone to or it depends where you live, too, but that is taken away. You live in paycheque to paycheque, you know, and with health care costs, I mean, you can get treatment done, but that there’s going to be a bill that’s coming and then you’re going to be credit lines gone, this and that. So it’s just a cycle. So in America, there’s no limit to how far you can go if you want to pursue whatever you want to pursue. But if you fall a slip up or you get ill and you don’t have the money to cover your health expenses, you could get in a lot of trouble. I mean, you’ll still be taken care of, but your financial distress is going to be quite severe, you know, but that’s the one thing about Great Britain that I do think is very good and even I don’t know much about dentistry with my own experience was I went a few times as a kid and I absolutely didn’t want to go, but I think I never like going to a dentist as a kid. I didn’t know anything about it. And I remember I had a shop, we had a shop in Wandsworth and Vauxhall area, and the dentist was right next door to the shop and it always smell of mercury. Now I know is mercury or amalgam, but I didn’t understand back then. I just didn’t like going there. But yeah, I think I don’t know much. I feel like if you live in London, it’s not easy either. I mean, it must be very expensive to even afford to live there more than it was before. So I don’t know how people and.

[00:30:51] It’s tough also, you’re right because, you know, we’ve got 40 people work for us and, you know, some of them travel used to anyway. Now, now there’s a lot of working from home going on. Yeah, some of them used to travel an hour and a half to get to the office. And I know in America that’s not a big deal. But here you remember, that is a big deal here. And we all drive here.

[00:31:11] There’s no public.

[00:31:12] Bus. Yeah, yeah. But but as I say, working from home has been a big difference for us in our business. Obviously, our business isn’t a dentistry business. We we supply dentists with stuff. So it’s actually rather than expanding our buildings, we’ve just now got people working from home more and more and more and more, and we’re sharing the same buildings, basically. Tell me this, but when you buy someone else’s practise, are you literally only talking about buying their patients?

[00:31:41] No. There’s two ways to buy a practise.

[00:31:45] In that building. In that building.

[00:31:47] Right, right, right. No. So no. I bought it’s practise. So I bought. Yeah. Because a patients alone, the only reason you would buy a patient base is if that lease is up and the equipment is up for sale and it’s like it’s like a fire sale, like they’re just trying to get rid of charts. This is a practise you’re buying the staff. But in this situation is unique because I own the building. So I if I didn’t own the building, oh no. Then I got a I got to pay. That’s different. Then I would I would probably be like, you know, I don’t need your what I do with the space. I need to do a different deal here where I just want the patient base. But he may not have sold it to me that way. So what I did is I bought the practise. I move all his stuff to my practise because my practise is twice the size, so I have plenty of chairs. And then his suite, I had another guy come in and we have an oral, one of my good friends, he’s an oral surgeon, so we do all implants there, so he pays me rent. So it’s worked out really nice to have a dental building, which is a dental implant centre, restorative centre or whatever, but they’re separate entities and I like it’s worked out nice for me but yes, normally, yes, you’re going to have to negotiate the. Or you have to buy the condo suite if that’s available. But typically, most people, they’re going to set up a four, 5 to 7 year lease with options to renew. And you’re buying the practise and that’s that’s what it is.

[00:33:10] But so for our listeners up and Patel dot com that’s your main place where you work are there are others. Are there other practises that are different websites.

[00:33:19] Yeah, they’re all separate entities. So it’s just yeah, it’s just, it’s just like if you had an office building and there’s six other dentists in that building, we all have our own practises.

[00:33:27] They’re paying you rent, basically.

[00:33:28] Mostly, yeah. I’m the landlord. Yeah, I’m the landlord. But eventually, you know, you never know. Maybe the guy next to me, he’s a periodontist, he’s married. He’s going to retire one of these days, if, you know, I don’t know what’s going to happen five, ten years from now, but it’d be great if another guy boys practise or woman and the periodontist is there. But maybe in the future, as many things I want to do if it gets going with all the digital, all on X and all this kind of stuff, maybe I can, I can have a lab, you know, that is in that in my building. Maybe they can pay me rent, but I have it in house lab. That might be cool. Or maybe a paediatric practise because we have a orthodontics in the building also. So there’s many options I think. But it’s always nice to have the cash flow to have option, I guess.

[00:34:12] So tell me this. But as far as the choice between specialising or not, which specialism is the one that is thought of as the most sort of high level or the most prestigious? Is that all surgery in America?

[00:34:28] I would say it depends on the person. So I would say just historically or my office, because you can get a six year programme. We have MD and then there’s four year programmes. Yeah. You’re saying oral surgery for a four year programme is the same exact thing, except you haven’t done those two years of medical school. So it’s nice to have MD because then you can get some hospital privileges and billing codes that help out. So I have a number of friends that are and even from my from me personally, yeah, I always feel like they like the oral surgery, you know, like got to respect a little bit more or whatever it is. It’s just there’s an aura about it. But looking back, to be honest, like.

[00:35:04] Do those guys earn a lot more as well?

[00:35:07] Yes. I mean, if you just took everyone baseline like an average general, dentists, average, endo average, I would say all surgery owns the most. But as you know, exceptional general dentist can earn more than anyone, right? Sure. An exceptional paediatric dentist can earn more than anyone. So I think it’s more about.

[00:35:28] Well, well, not here, not here, not here, not exceptional paediatric dental. Unless you’re talking about ortho. Yeah.

[00:35:34] No, no, just Peter.

[00:35:35] Not. Not, not here. Not here.

[00:35:37] No.

[00:35:38] It’s just I mean, there are there’s the odd, you know, kids only practise. Oh, okay. But they’re not they’re not making loads of money and people expect their kids to be treated for free. And there isn’t the culture of saving money for your kids teeth. I mean, there is the cultural thing.

[00:35:54] Too. You know, I figured a lot of paediatrics would be seen by. Yes, you’re right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[00:36:00] It’s a different culture, you know, it’s like we’re just getting around to the point of people spending money on their own teeth. You know, that’s a big deal here. Things like cosmetic dentistry have changed that a little bit. So you might have heard we were talking on the podcast, you know, when we talk about, you know, the bartenders having Invisalign. Yeah. And it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t have been the case 20 years ago.

[00:36:21] No, I never saw that when I was there. You’re right. I just even here when I go from England, doesn’t everyone have bad teeth? I’m like, I mean, not really anymore. I think people are really want want my teeth.

[00:36:33] Yeah. Things are changing. Things are changing. So tell me about your team and you know, how many people are you responsible for?

[00:36:42] So I have a seven operator practise. So I have a three dental hygienist. I have two dental registered dental assistants, I have one associate doctor and I have one office manager, one patient coordinator and one benefit coordinator. So three front desk. So it’s nice because ideally as I have my associate pick up more days with me right now she’s part time. So the ultimate I work four days a week and she works. She used to work too, but then she took time off to start a family. So I’m trying to bring her back two days and then by next year I’m hoping to bring a three. And my long term goal is for me to work three days in her to work three or four. I mean, it’d be nicer to have like one more assistant as a floater, but I don’t need it right now and and the way I practise. And if you want, I can go into more detail about the different. It’s like three different American models.

[00:37:36] Yeah. Are you jumping between chairs?

[00:37:38] No. No. So when I first started as an associate, I worked pretty much what most practises are in the US. There’s in every insurance driven. So one method is called an HMO. That’s health management organisation where you’re the practise signs up with basically insurance company and. I send you a capitation check per month? Whether you see the patient or not, it doesn’t matter. You’re going to get checked, but you’re going to get a lot of patients. But they may not show up. They may not listen. That when they show up, a lot of stuff’s covered. It’s free. But when you need to do a crown, you’re going to upgrade them. Maybe instead of a metal crown, you might want to do a zirconia crown. They’re going to pay full price cash for that. So it’s more about numbers with that. And I never liked that and that’s what I had to do when I first started because I needed a job.

[00:38:22] And in hygienists it’s more like our NHS.

[00:38:26] But the thing with these models is if you’re in business, you can own multiple of these practises and have multiple chairs and you can make a lot of money, but that’s not clinical based. The second model is PPO, so preferred provider organisation where you can be in-network. So you sign up with insurance company and they say, okay, your crowns, are you going to cost $600 and your family is going to be X amount of dollars and you’re cleaning $50. But when the patient looks up your name on our website, you’ll be a provider, so they’ll pick you. Now they’re this one. You don’t get a monthly check. But what’s happening is, is that your marketing budget? Maybe it’s ten, 15,000 a month. Just making a big number right here. Instead of paying marketing, you’re getting those patients. Right. But what happens is, is that you still got to see multiple chairs, because how can you spend 2 hours with someone doing, you know, a number 2/2 molar crown and and you’re doing it for like half your fee, right? And then you’ve got to go do a hygiene check, which is half your fee, and then you got to do a cement. So you have to run multiple shows.

[00:39:29] That’s why they’re running multiple chairs.

[00:39:31] Yeah. And then you have a but then also that’s very profitable. If you have assistants that are trained in this our country, you can have them trained to take impression to symptom. Yeah. So that’s the second model. Again, very profitable if you want large scale.

[00:39:47] Is that is that the model that how the foreign runs in his Arizona.

[00:39:51] He may he may be out of network too. I’m not I’m not sure I think that is at his peak it might have been in a network but but and it works just fine. You don’t have to see multiple chairs. But I’m saying you’re going to get a lot of patients and and you can have multiple doctors work for you and it’s great. And the final model is more like what you what you kind of have, which is cash, but you’re out of network. So that’s purely relationship based and it takes a long time for someone to say, I’m going to come see you. Let’s just say I’ll make an example. Let’s say your your filling is $400. If you were in network, the filling would have been $95. That’s all you would have got for the occlusal in on number 30, I can set my fee to whatever I want. So if I say it’s 400, I know the insurance is going to pay 100. The patient owes me 300, so I’m going to use your insurance as a limitation benefit. You get something out of it. It’s like a gift card, maybe 2000 a year you get for that. But you come in to see me because I’m going to spend as much time as I can with you and do the best that I can.

[00:40:46] And you come in and see me because you want to see me, not because I’m on the list. So there’s a lot of practises in this country, especially after COVID, that are going at a network of fee for service. That’s what it’s called. And what that does is it opens up your whole like rest of practise career. You don’t have to kill yourself, break your back, you know, see multiple patients with a I might see and I see one patient at a time. So my typical day is I’ll see two procedures in the morning, two in the afternoon, maybe one or two cements. I’m done. And then I have hygiene checks, but I’m only doing hygiene checks once a year and that’s just an emergency, etc.. So it’s given me a lot more longevity to my career. And you can attract better associates because they where else they’re going to get a job like this. No one’s going to give them a job that it’s almost like they have all the perks of being an owner where they get good income and also getting good quality patients, you know, in terms of they pay the bill on time. Also, they want the best level of care and they’re loyal. So they will hopefully refer other friends and family that are similar in that mindset.

[00:41:46] But but you’ve got inverted com. I’m holding my fingers up marketing costs now right.

[00:41:53] Yeah someone get to that. So right now I mean all my growth since I’ve started my career has always been organic. What does that mean like that? I mean, that means word of mouth. Yeah, word of mouth. And it’s just been internal referral and I’m happy with I can go like that probably the rest of my career. It’s fine, but I have to work, right. I want to now start looking into how can I do some type of digital marketing and maybe some personal marketing I have to do in the community, perhaps outreach somehow so that I can start selecting the cases that I want to do, which is primarily hopefully more orthodontics and implant restorative revision dentistry. And that’s the next level I’m trying to look at, which I haven’t spent any time or money on yet, but that would make sense so that.

[00:42:39] You’ve got an Instagram page and there’s a lot of I mean, there’s hundreds and hundreds of cases on that Instagram.

[00:42:46] I mean, these are 20 years I’ve done 20 years worth of cases. You know, that’s my and then also I bring it that’s my catalogue that I show patients in the office. Right like this I’m gonna do this I don’t use Instagram for. I use it mainly to so I can look up tennis and squash and fun stuff and like restaurants I want to go to. I look at some dentists and I’m like, Yeah, that’s cool. I like that. And I pick and I also learn about people like, Oh, that’s a good course to go to. Or He or she is really cool. Okay, I never thought of that, but I noticed Instagram is good if you already have a very good baseline and good knowledge of what dentistry is and you can pick up some tips and tricks, but if you’re if your training is very novice level, you can get quite overwhelmed and thinking you have to be that straight away. And I can see if I was a dental student at 24, 25 and an Instagram was around, I might have I might have gone nuts, like just thinking, I’ve got to be this like within a few years, like, how can I do this? It takes a long time to become like that. It takes at least ten years to get to an excellent level of dentistry where you you feel like you made enough mistakes and you know how to fix a problem. And it’s great that it’s out there because back then I didn’t have people unless it was local, to see what kind of dentistry they do. I had to fly to a course or something like that, you know?

[00:44:03] Look at it, looking at your work. It’s definitely sort of restorative implant based.

[00:44:07] Yes.

[00:44:08] Where did you get the education? Was it Khoisan Spear? Have you done both of those?

[00:44:13] Yeah. I mean, I think when I finished my first level of training was that one year residency I did. And oh yeah, that was that was all hands on and it was all clinical and it gave me about 4 to 5 year head start. But to be honest, the best thing you can do is document your cases from day one. In this country, I notice in England that you have a lot of different qualifications and I don’t know much about it. It’s something to do with Royal College of Surgeons and MD, JD and all this stuff and stuff is but it sounds cool, but here we have, you know, there’s many organisations, a AICD is a AGD or Academy of General Dentistry, so that organisation does have a very significant pathway for comprehensive training in all 16 levels of disciplines of dentistry. So I first did like a fellowship that was like 5 to 600 hours of C and you know, taking classes and an exam. And then I did a monster ship course that was like four or five years took me. So I did like three, 4000 hours worth of C over like ten years, you know. And so that’s what my DDS says, Magdy F du f ICU or whatever it is. And then, you know, all college of ontologies, they have fellowship programmes.

[00:45:20] So initially I just kept doing all this stuff. I found it just more and more like minded people that I would learn from. But then at some point I was like, You know, I’m just I need like a real course. And the course was that course. Ever since I’ve taken course, it just changed the whole way of practise dentistry. And in my opinion, he’s one of the best educators on the planet, period. And then I also did Spear, I did a lot of spear study club in this country. We have it’s called Spear Study Club where local dentists, we all get together and once a month as a club and we go over cases. But Spears provides the case presentations, things like that. So you have a periodontist, orthodontist or oral surgeon in general. Then as we all get together and just kind of dissect the case and then one of the best courses I took last year and it really was more of a tips and tricks kind of course, strop and drum in. He came out to San Diego, but they have it online now too. I really put a lot of stuff together, but I wouldn’t have understood that course to the full extent if I didn’t take course first.

[00:46:17] So what’s that course called again? Say that course again.

[00:46:20] Strop and drum.

[00:46:22] Strop and drum.

[00:46:23] Yeah, they have an excellent Facebook group. So just add join that Facebook group. Excellent cases in there. And they’re there in Clearwater, Florida.

[00:46:30] I believe. Yeah, I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:46:35] He is excellent. And his and his new. Yeah, but.

[00:46:39] For someone who’s not fully familiar with voice or spear or voice and spear, I mean, for someone it’s rare to come across people here who go to both of those because it’s you know, it’s such a expensive travel nightmare and all that. And the courses themselves are very expensive. What would you say is the difference between those two schools of thought and, you know, should you do both or should you do one or the other, or should you go right to the top of one or do what are what are your thoughts?

[00:47:07] So there are I’m going to talk about maybe four or five of them. There’s Dawson, Pankey, Spear, Kois and La, and they’re all great. I would say Spear is in I think it’s in Arizona and I don’t think Frank Spear talks personally anymore. I think he’s retired, but and it’s a larger group. It’s an excellent course. I think either one pick one. Personally, I like the personal hands on approach of John Cox, and he’s always up to date with all evidence based scientific data. And the thing about course is you kind of meet people who are only interested in a similar thing that you’re trying to do there, and you learn from them actually, because they’re also starting their journey or they’re they’re interested on us, they’re periodontist, they’re lab technicians. They’re it’s almost like the top 1% of dentists that want to be the best. They go to these courses. So you not only learn from John Kois or Frank Spiro, you know, the Pankey course of Dawson, but you’re learning from your peers and you’re a mentor to people maybe younger than you and then someone older than you. You’re learning. You’re learning from them. And then you make friends. And then when you leave, you keep in contact with people. So it’s more about network. But but the context.

[00:48:17] What does it mean? Yeah. What does it mean to you as a dentist? Are you now looking at full mouth?

[00:48:22] Yes. So before I think the best thing would be like I didn’t know some of the stuff I was missing. Like I didn’t understand why there was tremendous in a case how to how to predict, predictably, why there was constriction in the case, why there’s dysfunction, why there’s attrition, why these things happen in with biology, how to break down a case into gum and bone, how to break down a case and care and caries or biomechanical or functional or aesthetics. You want to break a case down in four parts, but a systemised way and spear does the exact same things to a different verbiage. And once you break down a case like that in your treatment plan, start to finish and how your whole office is aligned. That way, it’s very easy to communicate. For patient, whether it’s in hygiene, whether it’s with associate, whether it’s front office. And also when you refer to specialists, they also appreciate that you’ve taken the time to figure out why we’re doing this. And it just it just makes everything more it’s almost like a manual. It gives you a guidebook to kind of help you dissect something, because the key to any part of dentistry is not how good your hands are. It’s diagnosis. If you’re excellent, if you’re the best diagnostician, that’s when the best, probably the best dentist or doctor, because you can be excellent in radiology.

[00:49:34] But if you don’t know how to like if you don’t understand the dynamics of your CBC or your pano or your or your bite wings or pars, and you’re missing some education level there. You’re going to miss things all the time if you don’t understand how to use the correct burr or the finishing systems or why certain segments are better than others. Not just what some rep tells you. Because what typically happens is that you buy a product, you buy equipment, and the least qualified person, which is the dental rep, is going to train you on it and then you’re training the same stuff through your systems. But if you have someone who has gone through all this data and done the evidence based analysis, you know what you’re going to put in someone’s mouth, I think, and also that there’s studies to show that. So I think it’s for me personally, I’m more technical based. I want to know why I’m doing something and how to do it versus just randomly get into the endpoint. So it’s a good it’s almost like a not a cookbook but a like it’s it’s a manual that you can refer back to.

[00:50:29] And I’m going to have to defend dental reps now because dental reps have a real tough, tough time even getting in front of you. And I get I get your point. I get your I get your point, I get your point, I get your point. I get your point, I get your point. You want to be trained by John Kois, not by, you know, the three MB rep. I get it, I get it. I get that. But but the one thing that dentists should, should pay more attention to is that dental reps have a wealth of knowledge about what’s going on out there.

[00:50:58] Right.

[00:50:58] And you’re right. It’s the wrong place to get your knowledge. Yeah, but you know, what a lot of dentists do is, is train their team to keep reps out completely. And, you know, and it’s an error. It’s an error because you can learn a lot from a rep. I wouldn’t trust the rep on, you know what he’s talking about his own product over another one necessarily. Necessarily. But there’s a lot of great reps out there. Now, let’s talk.

[00:51:23] I agree. I agree with you.

[00:51:24] I know you do. I need you to let’s talk about how far you went in voice and how long it took, how much it cost. What did it return?

[00:51:33] Yeah, let me when did I start? So I think the last couple of years. What I’ve noticed to be all these continuum, they’ve rapidly expanded. A lot of younger professionals are really taking them straight away. And in the old days they wouldn’t. It was a lot of older doctors because it was Instagram. It’s just given in Facebook, especially. Instagram is just throwing the light what’s possible out there. And people are thirsty for this knowledge and and they’re okay take spending their money on dentistry instead of buying a fancy car or going on a holiday because they’re getting the return out of it, too, you know. So I think I forget I took me two years, though, because you can probably do it in one year, but only one person I know has done that. It’s one of my close friends who actually is a mentor that he just went back to back to back to back. And but most of the courses sold out. So you want to book your your courses. I think there’s like seven, eight, 7 to 8 continuous. You’re there for like a week or something like that. Total cost, I think 50,000. That’s just for the course fees. And you can pay for flight time, hotel time and then also that amount of money away from the practise.

[00:52:36] If you’re gone for a week, I mean, let’s just say on the low end, 10 to 20 to 30 to 40000 is gone. Depend on what you do. Right. But that doesn’t matter because when you come back, it’s not like I’m treatment planning for mountain people. It means now I know even if it’s single tooth, I feel very confident in telling the patient why I’m doing something, what’s going to happen, predictability, why it fails, why it doesn’t fail. And also, if I have a full mouth case, I’m more they can see. I’m more confident in explaining why it would help them. So if they have questions, I can answer them very easily now versus before I kind of make up some stuff in my head, which was correct, but I didn’t have like it was just kind of like my experience. But now I know it’s evidence based, it’s in literature and and it’s always evolving. So if I want to access stuff from then I can just log on and see what’s up to date and they have a yearly symposium to. So I’m not just plugging, I’m going to say SPEAR Thank you. Dawson They’re all great. Whatever, whatever system, whatever.

[00:53:31] Programme finished the whole thing.

[00:53:33] Yeah, of course.

[00:53:34] Yeah. Amazing, amazing. And I mean, I guess the reason why younger and younger dentists are going into it and by the way, we run courses over here and younger and younger dentists are going to courses here as well is they’re trying to get out of that HMO, PPO system. And if you want to give someone an associate job and they tell you, I’ll finish Coinbase, you’re more likely to to consider them for your kind of practise, right?

[00:53:58] That’s true. You know, a lot of times associates don’t know. Maybe what the best path is. And it’s nice. I’ve had a lot of mentors and they gave a lot of free advice and if I need anything that always there, I can call them. And, and also I mentored a lot of other people too, but for my own associate to help get started and part of its own initiative too, I paid for some of the initial course costs. Just the first one. Yeah, because I want I don’t want if someone’s going to work for me, it makes sense for me to get them aligned if, if they’re loyal and they’re going to be with me a long time. I don’t want to just throw money and then you’re gone in a month or two, right? So I know that my associate, my team members, unless something drastic happens, they’re going to stay with me. And so I’ll invest in them because these are not liabilities. Any employee, any person in your practise, they’re all assets. They’re not liabilities. So in the old days, I think I’m thinking, oh, what’s your overhead? Well, payroll is 25%. It’s a liability. It’s it’s not I mean, you’ve got to be careful how much you’re paying within reason. But but if you invest in your team, you’re going to get exponential return over all, not just financial, but a good camaraderie. And also patients notice this. They’re like, oh, the same person is here all the time. It must be something good. You guys get, get, get along well. You work well and patients do say that. They’re like, you guys are like seamless. You guys know what you’re thinking each other thinking without even talking, that kind of stuff. It’s nice to hear that, you know?

[00:55:21] Yeah. I mean, you know, to ask your patients to make your ask your staff, your team, to make your patients delighted. Yeah, you’re going to have to delight your staff a little bit. Yeah. You can’t you can’t whip people into delighting people, right? No. Absolutely right. Let’s go through some fees, because it’d be interesting for people over here to, first of all, caveat that with the £1 million it costs to qualify $1.

[00:55:50] Million, that’s an extreme example. If you did if you went full. I mean, I’m I’m going to say nowadays undergrad and dental school, eight years, let’s just call it 300 and to 400,000. That’s to say.

[00:56:01] That’s correct. 400,000. What are you charging what do you what do you charge for a standard, let’s say just crown.

[00:56:09] About 1600, but would build 1800 1800 is a fee and that that that is again you might go to New York and some might charge 3000 or 5000. So so yeah. But I think fair market value where I’m at 1802 thousand makes sense that.

[00:56:29] The positioning of the practise I mean are you positioned at the higher I know you’re at the higher end because you’re not doing those models, those PPO, HMO models. But but when it comes to this sort of non non insured. Yeah.

[00:56:41] Yeah. 99% on. Oh really. Yeah. In this where I practise. Yeah. Now if I was in San Francisco.

[00:56:49] I know. Few competition.

[00:56:50] More. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I’d say more competition, but to be honest, I’ve never been worried about competition. I think there’s enough patience for everyone. It’s just it’s kind of patient you want to treat and also, personality wise, who get along with as many patients I wouldn’t get along with. And that’s fine. They don’t see me, but there’s a certain demographic I really get along with and I know what my niche niches. But yes, I would say I would say fair market value around average for the whole country. At the highest percentile. Let’s call 1800 for a crown.

[00:57:19] Yeah. What about like an mod competition?

[00:57:23] Like for 95?

[00:57:24] For 95, that’s higher than we get in general. In general, what about, let’s just say skin polish, cleaning, hygiene.

[00:57:35] Like a trophy? Yeah. 150.

[00:57:40] 150 an examination. Just like a six month examination.

[00:57:45] $75.

[00:57:47] What about implant?

[00:57:50] Start to finish or just the fixture.

[00:57:52] Start to finish.

[00:57:53] 5000. No bone graft though. So it would be like, you know, 2000 for the crown, maybe 2500 for the implant plus some tissue stuff. So 5000.

[00:58:03] Now.

[00:58:03] Yeah, sinus lift. If you hadn’t a sinus to add another 2000. If you add in GBR and Ridge augmentation, add another 1200.

[00:58:11] So how about you know, because you’ve been trained. So I bet you’re doing some big, big cases. What’s what’s been your biggest case?

[00:58:19] I mean, to be honest, I’m very different in terms of. I don’t do a lot of stuff anymore. Like when I first qualified, I did everything I did endo. I did all surgery. I did p do. I did. I never did really a lot. Although, to be honest, I never trained in all of those. But like, I mean, biggest case, I mean, it’s full mouth, full mouth all on X or full mouth crown and bridge like 28 teeth. So you can add that up, you know, 28 tooth times, 1500, whatever that is. But because I needed it, so my kind of practise, the kind of patients that I see, I don’t have full mouth every day. I might I’ll be very happy if I got one once a month. That’d be great. But my favourite case is seven through ten. No occlusion changes seven through ten composite seven through ten veneers seven through ten crown with some cor bleaching. I think you have enlightened, is that correct. Yeah. With the white whitening product. And then I finish a case with a pair of attacked or something like that and just good hygiene protocol.

[00:59:17] What’s Perrier protect.

[00:59:19] It’s, it’s basically a tray that’s kind of like a mouth guard kind of material tray, and it’s scalloped to your gum measurements and you load it with 1.2% peroxide with xylitol and and they wear it for about 10 minutes once a day. I’ve noticed significant decrease in bleeding points and plaque build up plaque build-up is much less so. But yeah.

[00:59:41] I looked at that. I looked at that. But the, the resistance from periodontitis on that product. Yeah, it’s gigantic. I mean, like over here I just, I didn’t have the stomach to, to, to, to argue with Periodontist about it. But, but you’re right. Just just by looking at bleaching patients, you can see their gums getting so much better.

[01:00:00] I mean, you don’t want to like I have a team, right? So I have three or four periodontist that I refer to, three or four ended on as I referred to. I have a network so they know what I like to do. I’m referring patients to them so they don’t want to piss me off. So we have a I’m the lifeline for their practise and then I’m they’re helping me with cases that I can’t do. But in order to answer to your question, I predominantly do revision dentistry. My main patient base is 55 plus. I have no kids in my practise. Maybe I have like a handful, like five or six young professionals a little bit, but my predominant patient base is retirees and 55 plus baby boomers. And I love treating them because the best. Yeah, you know, they want the best work done there. Most dentistry is root decay, zero stoma implant work and they’re not in aesthetics. It’s much easier on them. It’s either I do the whole mouth or I just fix the quadrant of the front tooth and they’re happy. They don’t complain too much. You know, some of the middle high maintenance is true, but they just afraid and things like.

[01:00:56] That in general, they’re respectful as well. Right. They’ve got the old school feeling about the doctor.

[01:01:02] Yeah. And then they stick with you unless they’re going to move, you know. And yeah, I’m happy with that. And they actually happy coming to the dentist because it’s, it’s almost like it’s their routine. They go in the dentist, they go in the grocery store now they’re going to the MD and they’re going and then they love a hygienist because they’ve been seen the hygienist for like last ten, 15, 20 years or whatever it is. So I like that. Then that’s what I’m going to try to market more now, and that’s kind of the cases I’m looking for anyway, where patients want locate a denture or they want a little bit Invisalign. But what I’m hoping is the younger professionals would come and see my associate and then she can focus on Invisalign and some cosmetics and I can.

[01:01:37] I think that that demo you’re going to find on Facebook, right?

[01:01:41] Yeah. So that so my cousin actually works at Facebook in the marketing division. So I’ve been talking about this. I’m like, Hey, I need to get involved with some type of Facebook ads at some point and maybe I should look into how to do that because I haven’t done it before.

[01:01:52] But very different, right? The kind of you know that now we’re talking about a lead, the kind of lead that comes from Facebook ad is very, very different to patient who comes from word of mouth. And to start off with, that’s going to annoy the hell out of you.

[01:02:06] Yeah, yeah. Word of mouth. They don’t. They don’t. They tend to show up. They don’t.

[01:02:09] Like. Well, they show up. They show up. Sold.

[01:02:12] Yeah. They’re like so-and-so referred me, you know, I’m like, oh, great. Say hi to.

[01:02:17] There is such a thing as digital word of mouth that exists, right? And so it’s kind of a hybrid between between normal word of mouth and the digital marketing thing. I forgot to ask you, Invisalign, what do you charge for that?

[01:02:31] Oh, I think full cases like $6,000.

[01:02:35] That’s similar. That’s similar.

[01:02:36] But then I have my okay, so I have friends in Orange County that are fee for service. I mean, I’ll give you a difference in price right now so you can see the difference. His whole office, he’s he’s fully digital. So he has his own lab. He’s got every single implant lab system you can think of. He he hasn’t used a lab in the last ten years. He’s amazing and he’s a voice instructor and those kind of stuff. So his fee for an anterior crown would be 2500, his fee for all in upper and lower. All next, you might be looking at 80,000, right? But he does all the surgery himself. I don’t do any implant surgery anymore. I kind of just focus on restorative. That’s my I like doing that. And I have a surgeon like 20 seconds for me that we get along great together and I supply him with all the patients. But the thing is our case acceptance is exceptional because I say something, it’s a complimentary consult with the surgeon. He doesn’t charge a console or CBT, and then he agrees. And then they come back to me and there’s no pressure to do anything. I’m just here, no agenda, just to advise them on what I see. And they like that they get a second opinion or that we’re in a team together and it’s just no stress and no pressure. That’s how I kind of like to come off. And I’ve noticed, like, they do accept the treatment unless it’s financial or they just have a stigma about, well, my cousin or so-and-so had a bad experience with implants. I’m like, Whenever you’re ready, we’ll wait. We’ll wait for you and you let me know when you want to start and I’ll help you. That’s all you can do.

[01:04:00] It makes a lot of sense to stick to the bit of it that you enjoy and your most predictable on. Yeah, because what you said before about the confidence in your voice. Yeah, just comes through. It just comes through. And then you don’t, you don’t feel like you’re selling anything. You’re just you’re just telling them you’re, you know, what you know in your head. And people are saying, yes, you know, and you forget sometimes the how tiring it is to have to worry about people saying, yes, it’s tiring. And mainly it’s tiring when it’s an area you’re not 100% comfortable in. That is when you’re comfortable when it’s your area, you know. And for you, it’s this this sort of implant restorative mix or you said revision work, then it doesn’t feel like selling, it feels like educating.

[01:04:48] And I mean, it’s not easy. I mean, of course the case is not easy, but I’m not like I don’t act like, hey, you got to start today. When I worked when I worked in these corporate offices, the whole model was get the patients start right now. Otherwise you’re going lose the case. So patients can tell like you’re like hungry, you know, like it’s not right, you know? And I remember I mean, you can ask me later if I had some bad experiences and I’ll go into them and they were all pretty much is associate. But if you don’t have proper roadmap in the case you can get lost real quick, you know, and you can’t fix me can fix it kind of, you know, what you’re doing. But if you don’t like I think people sue you when they don’t like you, they don’t trust you and you feel like they’ll be taking advantage of their your friend or, you know, you’re looking out for the best for them. Even if something goes wrong, they’ll be like, okay, doctor, I come here because I know that you take care of me. You’re going to you’re going to handle it or whatever it is, you know. Yeah, that’s really it.

[01:05:43] So tell me tell me what was let’s, let’s get on to the darker side then what? But let’s start with what was the best move you’ve made professionally. And then and then let’s move on to mistakes, errors. The worst move you.

[01:05:54] Make like my clinical or just dental?

[01:05:58] Anything hit me.

[01:05:58] Just hit me. Okay? It comes to me. So like I said, I’m not graduating in 2005. I thought I wanted to be a Rodeo Drive or New York City dentist because I wanted that London feeling. I used to draw. I used to go to work in a three piece suit like Dolce and Gabbana, all that kind of stuff, right? I thought, This is me because I’m a London boy. You know, I’m from Wimbledon. I’m like, I’m going to I’m going to.

[01:06:18] That was that was going to be your brand.

[01:06:20] Whatever. I’m going to be like that aesthetic, whatever. And I didn’t know the whole world was kind of thinking like that initially anyway. You know, everyone wants to be that kind of thing. And then I realised these patients are not cool. They’re like really demanding. They don’t, they don’t care about who I am and stuff like that and what I can do for them. They just actually not as nice. The nicest patients are the ones that actually aren’t as wealthy and they’re they just have a problem. You’ve got to help them get out of pain, you know. But yeah, basically initially I tried all that and I came back to Sacramento. Sacramento maybe like kind of like maybe it’s a city, it’s a capital of California, but I don’t want to disrespect any London, U.K. cities. But maybe Leicester’s a big city. But it is kind of like that. It’s not.

[01:07:00] Like that. Been there. I’ve been there. Yeah, yeah. It’s nice.

[01:07:03] Yeah. So it’s very hot. But so I did a jobs there and then. Then I try to go to San Francisco in the bay. Same thing. I couldn’t. I couldn’t find anything I liked. It was just underpay. Patient quality was poor. And I was like, you know, I’m in Sacramento. It’s right here in front of me. It’s right here. Let me just start looking for something here. I found something straight away in 2014, I found an old guy. He was an ex lab tech and. And the dentist too, and, you know, Caucasian. Practise in a friendly neighbour. And yeah, I bought his practise and that was the best thing I ever did because it was a gold mine. So much amalgam. No digital X-rays like Handbook of Charts. Nothing. So I could just went in there, took my time. I remodelled the whole place. I made it my own over time. Of course, there’s a lot of turnover with old staff and this and that because they don’t like change, you know? But I had so much experience by then. I was an associate for like eight years by then.

[01:07:58] And to be honest, in retrospect, I wish I had become an owner much sooner. But if I had, I wouldn’t have got this practise. So I bought the first one and then I was still a tenant then. And then I the office next door to me, she would have it. She was having a hard time. She just bought the practise and there was a war between us and at the beginning like one year. And she said, Can you buy my practise? I’m like, I don’t, I can’t buy this. I just started looking back. I should have, but then I bought it later from her. But by that time, most of the patients had gone. But I got some patients, so then I had a bigger space. And then I approached the landlord, who is my friend and mentors like, Hey, whenever you want to retire I’ll, I’ll buy your building. And it came up. So I bought the building and then eventually he’s like, I want to sell you the practise. I bought his practise, so I.

[01:08:41] Used it to get the finance. And when you tell a bank you’re a dentist, does it help a lot?

[01:08:46] Yeah, yes. I don’t know how it is in England, but here you can put a00 down.

[01:08:51] Oh, really?

[01:08:52] Yeah. Zero down. So you can get 100% finance. And it could be a five, ten, 15, 15 year loan. You’re looking at 3 to 4%. And then that includes working capital equipment loan plus the practise. So average practise, let’s say practises is producing 700,000, right? Maybe you’re going to pay 475 for that and maybe 60%, 65%. And maybe you need a working capital of 50,000 equipment loan at 100,000. So now, you know your loan is like five 5600.

[01:09:20] When you say when you say produce, do you mean producers in income or do you mean.

[01:09:24] Oh, no, no, I’m sorry. Just collection. Collection per year. Collection not not vacant. Yeah.

[01:09:30] Oh so that’s, that’s actually quite low that our practises are valued much higher than that.

[01:09:35] So it depends where you are though, right. If you’re like I’m going to, I’m going to say average practise. Like if you’re in like San Francisco, Sacramento, L.A., New York, it really depends what kind of practise you have to. If I saw my practise today, I probably want up to 90 200% of my practise, like what I produce because it’s a big value to what I’m bringing. My the practise is very unique. If you have average PPO in-network practise in an average community, it could be 65 to 70% of collection if it’s doing average.

[01:10:07] Still low, though, still low compared to what’s happened here is the I guess it’s the corporates here. I know you have corporates too, but but the prices have there used to be like this, what you’re explaining. But now it’s like I don’t know eight times take home.

[01:10:23] Oh wow. That’s yeah. I mean that’s that’s if you’re buying I mean I have a number of friends now in our age group now like, you know, in their forties where they’ve, they’ve started like selling all the practises to the, to the corporate rate. And so they’re getting a payout initially maybe 70% payout and then 30% reinvest in with them and then maybe five, six, ten years from now they’ll do it. So they’re going to get a big, big payout. It’s great, but they’re going to have become employee four or five, six years. I don’t know what it is.

[01:10:49] Yeah, we have that too. We have that too. Yeah. So let’s quickly jump into before we go on to your biggest errors, let’s quickly jump into corporates there. Are there corporates in all of these different levels of you said the HMO, the PPO, do you have corporates doing high quality fee per item as well or no.

[01:11:07] I wouldn’t say corporate in fee for service. I would say you got guys like just make an example like you got Appa. You know, he’s got multiple offices around the world. You have many clients. Yeah, they’re not. Not this a brand, right? Yeah. And you got like people are very low key, but they have many, many offices and you don’t even know about them. But they’re all fee for service. I mean, they just don’t hear about it, that’s all. But they just one owner or there’s a bunch of partners, but they haven’t sold out anyone. They may as their final cash out, I don’t know. But in general, no. There’s a lot of people who are non dentists, MBAs or whatever it is and they’ve got together with dentists. And yeah, the new model is to buy a lot of offices and, and just grow them and then sell to venture capital and cash out and people do. That’s fine, you know, that’s a way to retire at 50 or 45 or whatever it is. And it’s excellent. And if you can still keep the quality of dentistry, you just have to find the right model and stuff like that. Yeah.

[01:12:09] Let’s, let’s get to the things. What was your biggest mistake that you’ve made now? Now I do want both business and clinical. Does that make the biggest some some mistakes? I mean.

[01:12:21] It’s not a mistake, obviously. I wish I became an owner sooner. That would have been the best thing I ever did. But there was an opportunity but to do that mistake wise when I was an associate, like I said. Back then they would just say like some treatment coordinator does, they start the case straightaway. So a couple of times this happened and I would get random like message from office manager, especially one case in particular. I did a full upper arch decay everywhere and I finished it. But the patient at the end, there was a lot of recession in the case after a while and so she started seeing it was a Coptic case, I believe back then I was using Coptic.

[01:12:55] And.

[01:12:56] She started seeing this gold and black hue around the gum line or whatever. It wasn’t my fault. Patient didn’t care. Take care of the teeth. But you know, I started getting letter from the board for case review and this and that was like, you know, I need to handle this. I haven’t done anything wrong, but I don’t care about the money, you know, like, let me let me have her sign a non-disclosure or whatever, and just give her back the money, whatever it was. I don’t care. But make sure she signed this paperwork and she did, luckily. And I just refunded everything. And she, you know, she probably did it on purpose. In my case was fine. It wasn’t a big deal, but I didn’t want to deal with that as an associate. What I realised as I work more and more, the patient is unhappy. I can’t make them happy unless it’s something for something psychological. You know, I might have missed it that beginning and sometimes a certain case you shouldn’t take on, even if especially when they say to other dentists through other dentists they can’t help me. And, and those are the cases I’m talking about. And when I was young, oh I can do it, I’ll do it. Yeah. You know, and then and then you’re stuck with them, especially like denture cases or like no one wants to pay the teeth out. And I did it and oh, I’m in so much pain now. I need all these drugs. I’m like, I just took out your teeth and your denture is going to be sore. It looks fine, but now you’re the one that they’re blaming, you know? So I would say mainly I haven’t gotten a lot of trouble, but there are some instances cosmetically as an associate where, yes, it could have it could have become something more like, okay, we want to actually go further by just refunded them, you know.

[01:14:21] Other than this sort of spidey sense that you’re sort of talking about of I guess I guess we call that experience one.

[01:14:26] There’s one thing.

[01:14:27] Yeah. Yeah.

[01:14:28] But I mean, obviously, back as an associate, I had to rely on assistants to do some of the auxiliary work, which nowadays I do everything myself. She took off a temporary on number 31, the second molar, and she tried in the gold crown to take a bite. And I was in the other room. And the next thing I know is there was a crown. I always followed it. I’m like, Oh, okay. The guy said, Yeah, I swallowed it. I’m like, No, man, you have to go to the hospital right now. You know, it’s not it’s not coming out. There’s a possibility it could be stuck somewhere in your lung or whatever it was. So but they didn’t go all the way in. And so I didn’t have to do surgery. But luckily I told office manager, hey, whatever it is, I’ll pay for it. I don’t care. They were kind of blowing it off. I was like, No, they need to go now and I’ll take care of whatever it is. And they were able to get it out without anything invasive, but that could have become something. So what I notice is when you’re an associate, sometimes the manager, the doctor’s not on site, you have to just kind of make the call. But ultimately it’s your licence on the line. End of the day, your assistant, your front office, whatever.

[01:15:31] Nothing’s going to happen to them. You know nothing. You are still the one that’s liable. So you have to make sure that you really. That’s why I don’t see multiple chairs anyway. But I make all my own temporaries. I spend the time and do all this kind of stuff. I want to make sure that patient knows that I they’re paying me for a premium like I’m going to take care of, start to finish everything that you need. And if there’s a mistake, it’s my fault. No one else’s. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, the docs. The darkest day, though, was nothing to do dentistry in terms of clinical. When I was an associate, I used to work six, seven days a week initially to pay off these loans, and I was working in random places. I didn’t want to work, but I had to. And one day I was doing a little hygiene. I woke up and I couldn’t move my neck. I couldn’t move my arm. Oh yeah. I had severe impingement of C five, six or whatever it was. I had brachial plexus pain. I went to neurologist, chiropractor. It was a bad idea. It was a chiropractor and I was out for that year. I was out six, seven months. I really thought I couldn’t work. No. I was like, I’ve got to figure out something.

[01:16:31] I had loans. I just bought a brand new car. Was like the first car I ever bought back in zero eight. And I was like, Crap, what do I do? Do I go to auto school because I don’t know if I can pick up a handpiece? I was literally I couldn’t move anything and I was under a lot of stress back then too from other things. What happened was I took time to take that year off in a way that that year I saved by finishing dental school, one year, early undergrad one year. I kind of lost it there, but it doesn’t matter. And then I found a practise that I liked. It was slow practise, it was a private practise. And that’s where I met my office manager that she works for me now. Eventually, you know, he sold that practise and it gave me time to work in a real practise on my own. I was the only doctor there, so it felt like I owned it, but I was just the associate. But I didn’t make that much money. But I was able to take the class that I wanted and rehabilitate myself. And that was a turning point where I was like, Crap, I could be disabled. Like, what does that feel like? I can’t do anything.

[01:17:27] And, you know, interestingly, often the worst moment in your life actually brings out something, you know, you wouldn’t have met that office manager. There’s many things you might not have done. Yeah, no, no.

[01:17:37] But now, looking back, yeah, it happened the way it happened because that’s what I needed.

[01:17:41] You know? But. But, but I can understand. I mean, I’ve woken up with a bad nick.

[01:17:47] Sometimes it’s bad, but.

[01:17:49] Six months, a year of it.

[01:17:50] I mean, I couldn’t because I try to work and it just bend in my neck. I could I couldn’t see anything.

[01:17:55] How did you fix it? Did you have to have an operation or something?

[01:17:57] No, I went I went to the the I went to all these different doctors and there’s a family friend, neurologist I finally went to. And by that time it was like four or five months I was going to a chiropractor. And there’s different levels of chiropractor. This one was maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was like going to a very bad dentist, like they actually made it worse. And now I don’t go to chiropractors now, but if I really needed to, there’s one person I found is physical therapy, is what is needed in conjunction with a chiropractor and a good one. But just like a bad dentist can perforate a canal, you can not have bandanas. But. But if they’re really doing it all the time, right, like that, they can have certain chiropractors that just doing stuff and collecting money. They’re not really helping you. And I notice I was feeling worse. But anyway, no, I went to everyone and then I just found a good physical therapist. I it’s because of dentistry. I was hunched over a lot, even with loops. I’m very tall. I’m like six two, six three. I was working in clinics that weren’t fit to me. So my office now every single chair and item is built to me like special, like certain chairs that I like, certain ergonomics that I like. And when you work for someone else, you can’t do that. So I was it wasn’t my it’s almost like when you’re a dentist, it’s your operating room, you know, it’s your it’s your canvas. And you should be able to paint and, and work how you see fit. But you really can’t do that unless it’s your own. So that, that realised like I need to get my own thing, you know, this is, this is not good. So.

[01:19:19] So you’ve got, you’ve got. I see behind you the London Underground and the map, and you’ve got the Wimbledon Championships logo and thing. What do you miss about the UK?

[01:19:33] I get that question a lot. I think it’s my childhood, really, because when I when I go, I go back every 4 to 5 years and I notice when I go back now I feel like a tourist, you know? But I just miss I think I miss my memories of growing up. And I think I was mentioning earlier, I just watched Doctor Strange recently the multiverse. And sometimes I think like what if I actually didn’t come to America when I was 18 and I actually went to university in London, what would I become? Would I become a pharmacist or a dentist? And if I did, where would I have lived? I know where I would have been and where I always envisioned I always envisioned myself having a nice house in Wimbledon Village next to the championships, up off the road, you know, having if I had, you know, having friends and family around that area, my friends I grew up with, that’s what I envisioned when I was younger. But, you know, it might still happen in the future if I decide as possible one day.

[01:20:25] But no, but but as a comparison of of life, life there and life here, what is it about here that’s better than there?

[01:20:32] I think socially it’s nicer in England because people aren’t so far away here. I have a lot of friends from undergrad and dental school, no high school friends obviously, because they’re all in England, but people live far away. And when you go to university here, people could be from New York, but they come to new university in LA, people, you know. So I might talk to them on the phone, but like I’m going to New York end of this month for a week. I haven’t seen my old college roommates for about 15 years together as one, so we’re all going to be there for a week, but it doesn’t really happen. You know, everyone’s in their own lives. So I would say socially I miss like just and also the city of London. I love London. I love New York. I’m a city person.

[01:21:09] City guy.

[01:21:10] I am. But you have to make sacrifice career wise. I’m very happy with my career in Sacramento. Like I love my patient base here. I wouldn’t I probably wouldn’t function as well in a in a city practise the way I like to work in the clientele I want to see. But it doesn’t mean I can’t get on a plane and go somewhere, which I used to do that quite a bit. But because of COVID, I can’t stop doing all that. But yeah.

[01:21:33] And and I noticed you said you mentioned squash. Yeah. You played a really high level, right?

[01:21:38] Yeah. So, you know, back when I was younger, I don’t know what it’s what was it like in your cultural, cultural family? But it was always like, come studies come first and all this kind of stuff. And my parents had a shop. They always say, you know, this is just for fun. Like if you don’t study, you’re going to end up in a shop. You don’t want to do that or whatever it is. We’re doing all this work so you can go to the best school and you can become something because we ain’t doing this for nothing, you know? So I felt this pressure. I’m the oldest in the family. I always felt this pressure I’ve got. I’ve got to do something. I mean, obviously, in hindsight, I wish I had opportunity to to at least take a year or two out and try to play on the professional circuit and then go to dental school or university. But that’s not what happened, which is fine. But yeah, I love squash. I played it for Surrey, you know. And then when I came to America, I thought it was done. I didn’t think they had squash shoe in the first in two years, three years. I didn’t play anything because I was in Stockton once I moved to dental school in San Francisco. They actually have a very big squash community in the Bay Area. So I got back involved and yeah, I do play regularly. I actually got injured last year, so I’ve been dealing with that.

[01:22:41] But you talk about sliding doors, right? And if let’s imagine if your parents had moved or got their green card three years earlier and you’d moved when you were 15. Yeah. And you could have maybe got a scholarship into dental school, you know, and actually and actually done squash, you know, like squash to a higher level. I mean, life is so strange like that. It’s all the water. Yeah, we have amazing.

[01:23:08] I mean, it’s fine. You know, I got to play like now as I became a dentist, I got to on my own terms, you know, I played like a little bit satellite professional tournament. So local amateur tournament is fine. It’s just it’s nice when you’re younger to have the energy, right? That’s all, of course.

[01:23:24] How old are you now? 42. 43, 41, 41.

[01:23:26] Sorry. Yeah.

[01:23:31] That was close.

[01:23:32] In my head. And I was, I was like 39 and then suddenly I turned 40. So it’s cool right now. I don’t like the sporty sound, but it’s okay now.

[01:23:41] We’ve come, we’ve come to the end of our time. So I’m going to finish it with our usual questions. Let’s let’s start with the fantasy dinner party.

[01:23:50] Three guests, dead or.

[01:23:52] Alive, who do you have?

[01:23:54] So I’m a I’m a big fan of Roger Federer. I would love to have Roger Federer one on one. I really feel like I get along quite well with him. Dennis Bergkamp I’m a big Arsenal fan, but from the old days, like Bergkamp these both these guys are professional, but also they seem like a lot of fun. And I’m going to I’m going to say Michael Schumacher, but if not him, this is more of a spiritual thing. Now, I’m Hindu, so I would I would like to meet Lord SAMINI and or Lord Krishna in person, but that’s more of a spiritual thing. But yeah, that would be good.

[01:24:27] You can have that dinner party if you want that dinner party ready. Yeah. And what about. Perhaps. Final question. I know he’s not here, but that’s bad. I’m sorry to. To bring you down. Your nearest and dearest around you. Three pieces of advice for them. For the world.

[01:24:47] I say. If you wait until later. You’re going to be waiting forever. Take risks and follow all your dreams, especially when you’re younger. You have so much time to to make mistakes. And also mistakes on mistakes that you learn from those experiences are actually, you know, good, good things within reason. I think happiness comes from what. You do so living and making memories of people that you love leave a legacy based on relationships, not just wealth, and be present. I think especially during COVID, I realise like I can’t see people, this is I mean, all this stuff you can do on your own, there’s nothing you can really do that much you and you need people to, to share things with, you know. And then the main one for me personally, this is more like what I’m really like the power of discipline, work ethic and consistency. I think the ingredients of success and luck is when preparation meets opportunity. That’s why I really like Federer and Bergkamp and Schumacher. I really feel like, you know, they really embody these things. And and that’s why I would say.

[01:25:53] Like there are like all three of those very much alike. All three of those very much. But yeah, to younger colleagues, it’s amazing the number of younger people who listen to this show. I keep getting, getting, getting told. Dental students and other younger colleagues take risks early, for sure. For sure. You know, you’re absolutely right about about that. And the other two things, very, very nice.

[01:26:16] Let me ask you a question. Yeah. If you could go back in time to any period, where would you like to go?

[01:26:22] I got asked this question, like if it’s a fly on the wall story. Yeah, I would. I wouldn’t mind being there when whoever decided to. To assassinate.

[01:26:31] Kennedy. Oh, really?

[01:26:34] But. But. But if it’s not a war, then dinosaur, you know that that moment when. When the dinosaurs became extinct.

[01:26:45] On.

[01:26:45] The earth and and and, you know, you know what? Not all animals became extinct. The dinosaurs did. I’d love to see that moment. What about you?

[01:26:56] I’d like to go to the Egyptian era. I want to know how the pyramids were built, you know.

[01:27:01] Have you seen the pyramids?

[01:27:02] Yes.

[01:27:03] I’m going to sound like a Philistine now, dude. When. When I. When I went to see the pyramids in Cairo. But, like, you know, they’re not that great.

[01:27:10] In all their glory. It seems like it’s just the architectural or even Roman time, one or the other. I just. Gladiator. It’s gladiatorial. Just that. The whole civilisation either or. I just like architecture, you know, and.

[01:27:23] Just.

[01:27:24] The different time periods. I mean, it’s just something where you, you study a lot of it. I mean, especially in England, you know, I had to learn Latin and all that kind of stuff. So I don’t remember any of it anymore, but be nice to actually live it at school. I went to Hampton School in New Hampshire. Hampton Court Palace.

[01:27:40] Oh, nice.

[01:27:41] Took the I took the Southwest train pass Kingston and they took the 111 bus. I mean.

[01:27:49] It’s a massive pleasure to have you, buddy. I really, really enjoyed that. Thank you so much for being so open and giving us an insight into your life over there. And please stay in touch.

[01:27:59] But I will. Thank you.

[01:28:00] Thank you. Amazing.

[01:28:04] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav. Solanki.

[01:28:19] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say. Because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

[01:28:34] If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it, too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks.

[01:28:44] And don’t forget our six star rating.

 

After Mudasser Hussain discovered the transformational power of executive coaching, Mudasser Hussain decided to slim down his clinical hours to divide his time between dentistry and coaching.

In this week’s episode, Mudasser chats with Payman about his motivation for helping others through coaching and how his love of football is bringing the dental profession together on social media.

Mudasser and Payman also discuss the stresses and mental health challenges of being a practising dentist, the efficacy of professional bodies like the BDA, and much more.

Enjoy!

 

In This Episode

01.20 – Social media and screen time

04.45 – Backstory

10.02 – Choosing dentistry

12.21 – Associates and principals

15.59 – First job and VT

20.00 – Benefits of coaching

34.56 – Mental health and stress

36.20 – Real-world examples

44.26 – Coaching – the nuts and bolts

50.36 – Blackbox thinking

59.25 – Chairside vs clinical skills and personality types

01.04.27 – Football on Facebook

01.08.14 – Professional bodies

01.19.07 – Last days and legacy

01.21.45 – Fantasy dinner party

 

About Mudasser Hussain

Mudasser Hussain is a dental surgeon with more than 15 years of experience in private and NHS practice.

He now practices part-time while studying for a master’s in medical law and ethics and providing executive coaching for dentists and professionals through Clarity Coaching International.

He is currently studying for the ILM-7 diploma in corporate coaching, international leadership and senior mentoring—the highest qualification recognised by the International Coaching Federation.

[00:00:00] My my purpose is to serve people, be able to coach people. But I think my bigger purpose is to sort of show the dental world that coaching has massive benefits. If you get the right coaching and you get the right coach, there’s huge potential for you in terms of growth. And I feel like as a profession, we should really open our eyes to opportunities and possibilities and sort of get away from the doom and gloom. Because I think dentistry is a fantastic career, it’s a fantastic profession and it’s got a limited potential. You can do absolutely anything you want. You’ve got a guaranteed job. There’s probably I don’t think there’s any dentists out there that that would be struggling with a job as long as they’ve got the right kind of paperwork. There’s huge demand from patients for work. I just think that how many jobs can you say that you get all that.

[00:01:03] This is dental Leaders the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:01:20] It gives me great pleasure to welcome Odessa Husain, a dentist working out of Oldham. Born and bred Manchester Oldham guy, I guess that’s a Mudassar is an associate who contacted us about a while back during the COVID thing. I was having some questions about How’s the profession going? In the meantime, he’s also become a sort of a business coach or a personal life coach for other dentists, and he’s set up a group on Facebook, a football group, which is I think the regular listeners will know I know nothing about football but football for dentists, which you then changed.

[00:02:02] Melissa Ray Yeah, I wanted it to be more inclusive, so originally it was just for dentists and then I wanted to widen it to increase inclusivity and make it about professionals as well.

[00:02:15] So dentists and professional football for dentists and professional.

[00:02:17] That’s right. I wanted it to be a sort of more intelligent kind of conversations and sort of, I suppose, make it more inspiring and motivating and sort of being able to engage with different kind of people from different lines of sectors.

[00:02:32] Let’s let’s let’s quickly start with that. How many members has that group got?

[00:02:37] Last time I checked, over 700 members.

[00:02:41] Oh, well. And was that completely organic or how did you how did how did.

[00:02:44] You grow that? Yeah, it was completely organic. I’ve kind of myself I’ve actually not been on any social media until about seven or eight months ago, actually, and I decided I wanted to engage with the profession in a way. So I went on social media and this was part of my vision as a coach.

[00:03:03] You know, it’s interesting because you say that did you on purpose avoid social media?

[00:03:08] I think there was a lot of, I suppose, negative connotations to social media, and I still think there is. But I think if it’s used correctly, then it’s a great way to connect with people. So I kind of have now realised the huge benefits of of it as well. But you also have to be mindful of, of it being an addiction. And that’s something I talk about a lot about social media being addictive because we’re constantly on our phones and it’s constantly asking us to use our phone.

[00:03:39] Yeah. What’s your screen time in the moment? Do you know?

[00:03:42] I do have an app to limit that, but I would say that it’s around 3 hours a day.

[00:03:48] You’re good. You’re super good. It’s interesting, though, you know, this question. You’ve got you’ve got kids. You just said you’ve got three kids. And this question of screen time and keeping the kids off the phones and all of that. But, you know, for me, there is an aspect of if they’re not on the screen enough, they’re not going to know what’s going on in the world. Not not not that I’m not saying the phone is going to show them news. I’m saying that, you know, life will be on the phone so much more or what about the time they’re older? It’ll be some sort of, you know, lens in the eye. But you know what I mean? Like, in a way, it’s very popular to say I’m keeping my kids off screens. But I remember that kid when when I was when I was a child, that that kid who was on his computer all the time. And that kid’s probably like a billionaire in Silicon Valley right now. But let’s get let’s get to your story, buddy. Tell me about your childhood. Why did you become a dentist?

[00:04:49] So, yeah, I grew up in Oldham, born and bred. I actually, which is a town just outside Manchester. For those people who listeners who may not be aware, my family obviously settled here. I’ve got a huge family and I’m still based in Oldham and obviously went to uni in Manchester. Oldham is quite an interesting sort of place in a way, because I suppose people may remember there were the Oldham riots and kind of Asian communities living alongside white British communities and things like that. And I think a lot’s changed for the better in terms of integration and things like that. So Oldham sort of really transformed, I would say, as a town.

[00:05:30] Would you say there is still some friction?

[00:05:33] I think there’s always friction in different parts of of every neighbourhood. It depends on where you are or where you live. But one thing I do really love about this country is how tolerant we are of each other and how respectful we are. And we allow each other, for example, to practise our religion. And I think we should be proud of that as a country that, you know, there’s a lot of tolerance, tolerance in this country. And I’m proud to be British.

[00:06:01] You’re right. You’re right. And it’s easy to look at problems, isn’t it? But when I look at cousins and things who live in other countries, particularly European countries, and the US has got all of its own. Sure problems. I’d say we have it pretty good here. As far as, you know, relations between different groups, I’ve been told him it’s quite a kind of a ex mining town. Right. Is that is that the thing?

[00:06:29] Yeah, historically, it used to be also used to be a cotton mill town. And, you know, originally there was a lot of migration from Pakistan. My family came from, I might add, in particular. And he’s one of my actual inspirations because obviously he came and and they used to live in quite squalid kind of conditions and worked very long hours in these factories. And yeah, it’s kind of amazing the journey he’s been on and yeah, I’m very, very inspired by him really.

[00:07:03] Tell me about that. He came when? How old was he when he came?

[00:07:07] He came when he was 13 or 14. And so he was very, very young. But back in them days, it was kind of the done thing to work when you were under age as well kind of thing. So you know that. You know what?

[00:07:19] Yeah. Do you know what year that was?

[00:07:21] I don’t know the exact year, but I would imagine he said it was he was when he was 13, so it must have been around 1964, something like that I would say. But when he first came over, yeah.

[00:07:32] Yeah. Very different place to what it is now.

[00:07:35] Oh yeah. It’s very, very, very different and very, very kind of you know, I look at him and I’m amazed when when you look at the history of coming, you know, with with literally no education and living in those kind of conditions to where he’s moved up the ladder and sort of a bit of an entrepreneur in a way, and kind of really successful. So I look at him in all really and and wish that I could aspire and do the things he has achieved in his life.

[00:08:03] So tell me about your childhood. What kind of a kid were you?

[00:08:06] Yeah, I mean, I come from a very large family. I’m second youngest in my family. Childhood was good. It was it was nice. You know, I think things that life is very different now. But as kids, you could go out and play on the streets and then you’d have to be called, called in and you know, you could play football on the streets. And it was just you did knock on each of those doors and it was a very community kind of spirit and it was a very free kind of spirit which which I enjoy. Whereas I think nowadays we talked at the start of the about the distractions of being on phones and being on, on social media and all these pressures that come. But yeah, childhood was really, really good. I really sort of enjoyed that time and I look back fondly and I think it’s probably one of my best times in my life. I would say that those those times where you were just free and you could just go out and kick a ball and play with random people and play football. And I didn’t say you can all these childhood games and there was no no care of concern of whatever was going on in the world. Whereas now I think we’re bombarded with too much information.

[00:09:09] How old are you? Do do you sound like you were you were growing up in the forties.

[00:09:14] This I’m actually I’m actually 34 but I feel like I’m more connected with the older generation than the younger ones because I my sort of I think Facebook came in my second year of college. So so I I’m not kind of converted to that. I’m one of those that I enjoy the simple things in life.

[00:09:35] Unlike older people, I’m actually in many ways more comfortable with older people than younger people. But but also I’m energised by younger people, too. I think you need a good mix of both. And in your thirties you are not yet at that stage where there’s loads of younger people who want to talk to you. But you’ll see you soon. Soon there’ll be there’ll be lots of those, I suppose. Now in your coaching game, you’ve, you’ve got a lot more of this. Why did you choose dentistry?

[00:10:04] I think at the time I was I was actually only an hour in between dentistry and medicine. And at the time as well, I think now there’s a lot more resources available in terms of do a lot more research into things. But when I chose dentistry, you know, it was it was one of those that I perhaps naively thought that you look at the career pathway of a, for example, a doctor, you do your five years and then you’ve got a lot of training before you actually become what you want to become. Whereas I think the thing that attracted me to dentistry was the fact that after the five years of one and the one year training, you’re kind of at the same level as everyone else. So it is more like it’s not a long training pathway and perhaps I’m not looking back thinking that was quite a naive way of looking at it. But you’re young and you don’t really you don’t really know the world or see the world, and you see the world in a very different way now than you do then.

[00:10:53] Did you? You said you came from a big family. Did anyone else in your family become a dentist or doctor?

[00:10:59] No, no. I do have a doctors, optometrists, pharmacists. But I am the only dentist at the moment in my family. But yeah, I think for me it was more like also making my parents proud. It was something that was really kind of important to me. I wanted to to make sure that they felt because because obviously there’s a lot of, I suppose, time and energy parents put into making sure their children aspire to become successful individuals. And for me, that was also part of my motivation to become a dentist. Yeah.

[00:11:35] Then when you decided to go to university, did you not have that feeling of, Hey, I want to get out of this town and see another town?

[00:11:42] Yeah, I think to some extent it was again, my family who kept me here. My dad kind of said to me, Look, I’ll buy you a car and we’ll we’ll get, you know, you can do what you want and try to stay in a way. And I thought, you know what? That doesn’t sound too bad in a way. And I think, you know, for for everyone university is what you make of it. But I enjoyed my time at uni. I made some really, really good friends. I’m not going to lie. It was stressful, but I think it was stressful for everyone. It was dentistry, but it was yeah. It was a it was a difficult journey to become a dentist, but I’m proud of my achievements.

[00:12:21] So you you’re 34 now. That means you qualified something like ten years ago. 11 years ago. Yeah, that sort of thing. And so in that 11 years, you, you’ve been an associate. Have you not thought about practise ownership in that time?

[00:12:37] I have. And there were several occasions where I came close to buying a practise. On one occasion it was the vendor who bailed out on me on the last minute kind of thing. So there’s been a few times, but I think with me personally getting married and having children or the priorities and responsibilities financially started to take over and the practise became a bit lower on priority. It’s something that I still aspire to become a practise owner. It’s something that I am actively looking to do. But it’s like with anything, when more responsibilities take over, you start having other priorities.

[00:13:15] Yeah. By the way, it’s not. It’s not a competition, right? It’s not. It’s not like getting there before this time or losing this many years or whatever. And, you know, our conversation about associates, which I really want to talk about, because I don’t think it’s it’s it’s have enough of a voice out there. It’s interesting because the way it’s set up right now, particularly in the system, I feel your principal is getting most of the gain and the associates getting less of the gain. And then, of course, these days there’s a shortage of associates and, you know, there’s that whole thing. But then the kind of the unwritten contract, the unwritten deal is eventually one day you’ll become a principal and then you can get there. But it kind of completely ignores the fact that there’s loads of dentists who don’t want to be principals. Never, you know, there’s there’s loads of people who want to be a mother and not not own a practise. There’s loads of people who just don’t want to own a business, you know, and so they’re left as being associates for the whole of their career. And if associates get this lesser deal because the contract is one day you’ll be a principal and they’re never going to be a principal. We’ve got let’s not forget the pickiest part of the profession as far as numbers is associates. Tell me tell me what you think about that.

[00:14:35] Yeah. I mean, I think things have actually changed rapidly, I would say, over the last ten or 15 years in terms of that. I think back in the days there was this system of you become an associate, you worked for so many years and you might be offered a partnership or or kind of, you know, you took over the practise of whoever, whoever owned the practise and things. But I think associates themselves are now upskilling, diversifying, and I think the opportunities are huge. There’s a huge potential in terms of income for associates, depending on what type of dentistry they do. And in terms of I think the opportunities are vast and things have changed rapidly in terms of the range of treatments dentists offer. And we’re kind of as you know, we’re in that Instagram kind of generation where even the younger guys who have come across very, very ambitious, very, very different to how perhaps I was taught at dentist, how I was taught dentistry. And I think I think it’s a great time to actually be a dentist because I think the opportunities are huge.

[00:15:40] Yeah, yeah, you’re right. I mean, we’ve had people on this show, you know, I kind of call them super associates who’ve got their own. It’s not their own actual list of patients, but they could walk into any practise and, you know, they’ll be full, full, completely full because of their own social media or whatever. So that that is true. Tell me tell me about your practise when you first qualified. Where did you first work? Who was your first boss?

[00:16:05] I first actually worked for a small corporate, and it was probably one of my most enjoyable practise that I worked at because there was a good range of dentists with a very, very big surgery. I think it was seven or eight surgery practise and there were sort of four or five NHS dentists. And then upstairs there were private dentists and it kind of it was, it was sort of geared towards being able to transition towards doing private dentistry as well as you could pick and choose. So I really enjoyed that first, my first ever job because it was it was a place where there was some mentoring going on, there was some coaching going on, there was some kind of it was just a nice atmosphere. It’s quite a laid back kind of atmosphere as well. The staff were really friendly and yeah, I would say my first job I really, really enjoyed.

[00:16:59] So is that when you say corporate? Was it one guy owned for practises or was it bigger than that?

[00:17:04] Yeah, I mean, I think they’ve got more that probably got about ten or 12 practises now and they still do exist. But yeah.

[00:17:12] Was that all them as well?

[00:17:14] No, no, that was actually in Blackburn so it was quite.

[00:17:17] Ip quite far.

[00:17:18] Yeah. Yeah. So that was that was actually my first job. But I think distance wise and commute wise and I suppose various other things got in the way and then yeah, obviously I decide to, to, to leave.

[00:17:31] How would you say that?

[00:17:34] My first job actually was only. It was a year. Yeah. Yeah. No, no. That was after. I thought we were talking about the first job after that.

[00:17:42] Yeah, but talk about your boss, because I think it’s quite a yeah, your first boss is actually a massive influence.

[00:17:49] Yeah. Yeah. I mean my first actual position was, was actually in Liverpool, it was in a place called Highton. Liverpool. And it’s kind of probably one of the rougher parts of, of Liverpool. So it was kind of a bit of a shock in a way. And I think yeah, it was, it was okay. I felt I learnt more outside of it than I did actually in VTI. But it also really very much depends on I suppose, your trainer as well as the environment as well as different things. But yeah, it was, it was, it was okay but I felt like I learnt more in that other year afterwards.

[00:18:26] Yeah. So and where are you working now? How long have you been there?

[00:18:31] My current practise have been there just under a year.

[00:18:35] Oh, really? Oh, really? Yeah. So where else have you worked apart from these too?

[00:18:40] So, yeah. I mean, I spent a few years for a company called Rabbit and Ray. They’re quite. I know, I know them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, right. Okay. I mean, obviously, I think they’re sold now to dental partners who have now also sold on, from what I understand. But what impressed me about Robert and Ray was they did things properly in terms of policies, procedures. They wanted everything to the the gold standard. And yeah, you know, I it’s definitely a company that I think of fondly. And there was a lot of opportunities in terms of support mechanisms in place and they had the clinical director you could get support from if you need any help with patients and things like that. So yeah, I worked for them for three years and then I’ve worked for an independent practise for for for nearly, nearly five years. Just under five years.

[00:19:28] Was rough and Rea Oldham was up the Bolton I went to the.

[00:19:31] Bolton that was in Burnley. Yeah. The Baltimore is their flagship one and that’s where they have like training days and things like that. Yeah, yeah. Really, really nice the way they did that. But yeah, it was again, it was great because you could network with other dentists, you know, there was a lot of support there in terms of, in terms of developing your dentistry, in terms of developing you. And I think they also had some urgent care kind of contracts as well. So you could earn some additional money by by doing that as well.

[00:20:00] All right. You said, you know, a pretty standard sort of situation as far as the work that you’ve done and the jobs you’ve done. So now you’re a coach. So how did this happen? What was what was the transition?

[00:20:14] So my transition into being a coach actually happened in the last 12 to 18 months, really. And, you know, I think the pandemic’s had a lot of impact on a lot of people. It made me really re-evaluate my own life. I also got COVID and, you know, obviously had some after effects of that as well. And there was issues with regards to pay as well during the pandemic at the practise that I was at and like a lot of associates, you know, I, you know, we were left in limbo and there was no clarity or help or support from people with regards to pay. And I was in a situation where I just recently purchased a house. There’s a lot of financial pressure. I had two children at the time as well. So money was was tight and there was a lot of uncertainty as well. So it was quite kind of there was a lot of if you are a spouse of various things going on at the same time and obviously we all suffer from, I suppose, mental health issues. And I myself, you know, I’m I’m open to it admitting that obviously I’ve suffered from anxiety in the past, stress in the past, burnout and, you know, sought help from various different types of people like therapists. I’ve even been to see a hypnotherapist to help me with with things like that. But when I got coaching, it kind of completely transformed my whole life in a way. And my whole way of thinking and coaching for the first time I felt was fixing things, whereas things like therapy and counselling, I feel like they just papered over the cracks and it was one of those that it was like, if you needed help, you know, or you went through a bit of a tough patch, you might reach out for some help. So I’ve always been kind of into being in tune with with my body and my physical health as well as mental health and making sure that, you know, it’s not kind of, you know, affecting my performance.

[00:22:08] So so you’re saying that the coaching was the first thing that helped you, really helped you move the needle as far as stress and anxiety? Is that what you’re saying?

[00:22:19] Yeah, yeah, definitely. It absolutely changed the way I viewed the world. It transformed.

[00:22:26] And so so was that kind of like the mindset change?

[00:22:31] I think coaching is far more complex because I think the thing is a lot of the other types of therapy focus from the past and delving into the past and what a person really wants when they’re in difficulty or struggling is actually wants to move out of that situation or. Pull themselves out of that situation. And I feel like coaching is a very forward thinking kind of process.

[00:22:56] Forward looking.

[00:22:57] Right forward looking, forward thinking. Forward and sort of drive driving, kind of moving you from a particular place where you are mentally. And I think that’s what you really want rather than just just sort of putting it in a box in a way and hoping it will go away because it’s still there in a way. Whereas, whereas coaching completely transformed my relationships, transformed the way I think, transformed me as a person as well as kind of made me become an entrepreneur in a way, and sort of take risks and sort of really sort of, you know, have a view life in a completely different way. And the way, you know, and even the move towards being on social media was something very new to me in a way. It wasn’t something that the old Mudassar would would do in a way. And that’s what I’m saying, that coaching really, really changed the way I perceive things. And I feel like so much more stronger, so much more resilient, so much more positive, so much more kind of energetic. And I think after going on my coaching journey and being coach and then getting a formal qualification in coaching and meeting people outside dentistry, that was really what really sort of completely changed the way I think, because it sort of showed me that the life of a dentist, I feel like it’s very, very sheltered in a way. We go usually to the same place of work, we do the same thing every single day. And for me, there’s not a lot of learning that goes on. You’re kind of just doing your work and you’re probably staying at the same level. And, you know, I felt like when I met people outside dentistry, the way they think, how they want to help people grow and become better and improve, that’s what coaching does. And I think that’s that’s when it opened my eyes and I thought, you know what? It’s a concept that I suppose I didn’t know existed really in dentistry, and it probably isn’t that widely used yet, but it’s something that I feel like would completely change dentistry if it was used correctly.

[00:25:03] Well. Do you remember a moment where something clicked in your mind? Because it’s not. It’s a very short period of time to go through such a massive change. And was it was it was was it gradual or was it something your coach said or was it. What was.

[00:25:20] It? I think I think it was it was just meeting these different personalities. And these were people who owned multiple businesses who were who were millionaires, who were weighing sort of almost close to retirement, but still worried about their legacies, still worried about wanting to give more. And I thought I’ve never even thought about these things as a dentist. And you probably never do. You just spend your life doing what you what everyone expects you to do, continuing your job, trying to earn money, trying to support your family and trying to enjoy your life. You don’t really think about what is your purpose here? What is actually your dream? Who are you? And these are kind of questions that I find myself asking. Like, you know, you really need to understand your own psychology or your own sort of narrative that you’re telling, know the way you’re talking to yourself and and these things completely sort of, you know, I was completely unaware of it. And I think the conversation I had with these kind of people and then being coached as well. You know, and that’s the bit that I love about coaching, being on this coaching journey with people and then sort of coming to the realisation themselves and having that lightbulb moment. I didn’t think that maybe I could do that and then they go on and do that and do whatever they, you know, that came, that came to the head during that coaching session. For me, the fact that they’ll, they’ll remember that for the rest of their life and that’s something that that really sort of drives me, the fact that you can sort of turn on a switch that was probably flicked they turned off by accident or close. It might be that they’ve lost motivation. It may be that life just completely killed any any growth in them. And I think being able to turn on that switch or being able to get them to a place where they never thought is for me the the amazing reward that you get from coaching.

[00:27:11] Sounds great. So tell me then in a, shall we say in a sentence, you know, what is what is your purpose? Is it that is it spreading this good news?

[00:27:22] My my purpose is to serve people, be able to coach people. But I think my bigger purpose is to sort of show the dental world that coaching has massive benefits. If you get the right coaching and you get the right coach, there’s huge potential for you in terms of growth. And I feel like as a profession, we should really open our eyes to opportunities and possibilities and sort of get away from the doom and gloom. Because I think dentistry is a fantastic career, it’s a fantastic profession and it’s got a limited potential. You can do absolutely anything you want. You’ve got a guaranteed job. There’s probably I don’t think there’s any dentists out there that would be struggling with a job as long as they’ve got the right kind of paperwork. There’s huge demand from patients for work. I just think that how many jobs can you say that you get? All that. And most dentists, I would say earn upwards of 50 K at least. You know, I don’t see many, many kind of jobs out there that can guarantee that kind of lifestyle or that kind of income.

[00:28:36] And yet. We’re getting loads of people wanting to leave the profession.

[00:28:42] Yeah. And that’s the question we ourselves have to question. Why? And what is the reason for this? And how can we stop this? And what things can we put in place to to support these people who are in this predicament, who want to leave the profession? And I think we need to start caring for each other. And that’s that’s for me, that’s that’s part of my purpose. I genuinely care for my profession. I genuinely care for my fellow colleagues. I genuinely want the best for them. And that’s where my, my, my drive comes in terms of helping and wanting to serve as many as many people. But there’s still something even my coach said. Why do you always talk about dentistry? Because I think for me, I’ve gone through struggles within dentistry. I’ve gone through painful periods, I’ve gone through suffering, I’ve gone through mistreatment, I’ve gone through, you know, lots of lots of hardships and come out through the other end still with an upbeat, positive attitude and still think that I’m definitely not the only one. And especially coaching different people, even people who are hugely successful, it’s amazing some of the things that they they sort of highlight. Some are some dentists, you know, really high grossing dentists. They’ve been taking antidepressants since they were 18. They’ve never got that problem fixed, even though they might appear to be hugely successful. And that’s the thing that we need to really think about self care, think about caring for each other, think about what steps we can do to support each of the dentistry itself is physically and psychologically has a lot of health implications, and those are things that really need to be managed before it’s too late.

[00:30:36] So look, I’ve never been properly coached. I mean, I’ve spoken to a few coaches in my time. But is it that when you’re talking to people and you say, what’s your purpose? That mainly most people say a similar thing about connexion and impact and all of that, or is it that people say lots of different things?

[00:30:58] I think, you know, as coaches, especially with the way I’ve been trained, there’s various tools that we use to unlock you. So if I said to you, what’s your purpose? You’d probably, like, spend. I’d be, I’m not sure really an Ari for a long time kind of thing. So, so, so. And that’s the thing. How do you unlock what’s inside a person? To me, one of the things that’s very commonly used amongst coaches or one thing that I use is something called The Wheel of Life, and that’s just like looking at every aspect of your life and you basically rating it. I mean, these are things that you can sort of then have conversations about. So whether it might be your career and your rating as a for whether it might be personal or romance, you might be rating as as as something high or low your financial whereas these are these are basic human needs. We all want and have the same you know, everyone’s probably heard of the Maslow’s hierarchy. We all have the same basic human means, even even even though we’re dentists, we’re still humans, we still, you know, still perform the same way. And that’s the thing. That’s the thing we’ve got to sort of so I use tools to unlock and there’s always something in the closet that someone’s kept hidden from someone or kept away. And that’s the thing about coaching. I think it’s important to have that kind of trust is really, really important, having that non-judgmental, kind of confidential relationship with your coaches and for them to understand that you’re there to get them performing at peak level, you just want the best for them. And anyone who’s been coached by me will vouch that I will leave no stone unturned. I will do absolutely everything to make sure that they succeed in life and make sure that I can I can remove that obstacle, remove those fears, and get them sort of lying, really.

[00:32:56] So but in the training, is there something that says, hey, as you’re asking people about their lives and you said, oh, you find these skeletons in people’s cupboards? When I say skeleton, it’s like something that’s blocking them. Something they’re scared of something. Yeah. Is there something that says, hey, did you suddenly uncover something terrible and now it’s out of your remit and they need to go see a counsellor? Or how does it work?

[00:33:19] Yeah, I mean, sometimes it can, can can be like that. If you think there’s something that you think, for example, somebody’s feeling suicidal, for example, that’s something that a coach would struggle to. You may have to signpost to someone else, but it all depends on on how comfortable you feel. I mean, with myself it’s been varying kind of issues. Some vary from grief, from dealing with grief and the loss of a loved one to, you know, and also my client base is quite varied as well. It can be simple things about whether whether somebody should deserve a pay rise or not or whether we should fund, you know, expenses for this for a director or something. And, you know, you think that and then there’s other people on the decision committee who who perhaps oppose it. And, you know, you’re kind of sort of delving on whether it’s the right thing for the business or not and whether this person might leave. So I think I think I find those kind of situations interesting because it sort of taps into your emotional intelligence and sort of you sort of weighing up the pros and cons and doing a full 360 before you’re making decisions. But yeah, my, my client base is quite varied in terms of so it’s not the dentist, I would say it’s 8020 actually. I think dentists themselves are very hesitant about coaching and there is a lot of stigma attached to mental health or or accepting there’s a problem. And I don’t think there’s a lot out there for dentists to reach out and get help.

[00:34:56] We’re doing a mental health kind of month thing and licencing and talking to dentists. There’s a lot more mental health issues out there than I realised. It’s I don’t know, is it, is it that more people are talking about it now? There always was, but people weren’t talking about it or people were turning to drink or drugs or whatever it was, and now people are talking about it or is there more stress now? I can’t believe there’s more stress now than there was, you know, in the sixties or something.

[00:35:28] I think there is I think we’ve all lived in lived through this pandemic. And pandemic itself has caused psychological trauma, whether that’s directly or indirectly listening to the news, listening to the catastrophizing that goes on in the media. I mean, you know, there’s probably nobody who’s who can say, I’ve not been affected by the pandemic. We all have in some way. And I do think that the mental health sort of is probably a bigger problem than the COVID 19 itself. And I think nowadays, yeah, we’re more open about it and we’re more sort of thing. But I think it’s, it’s, there’s just even even the NHS or generally there’s just not enough help out there for people. And, you know, it’s, it’s a lonely place for, especially for dentists.

[00:36:20] Well, I want you to give me an example. The idea of you said you’ve been through a lot in your career. I want you give me an example of what things you went through, how you were taking them before, and how you would have taken them. You know, now with your sort of new tool kit that you seem to have, what are the things you went through that you know, that really hurt?

[00:36:43] I think I think one things that we find difficult, especially, you know, NHS dentists will definitely know about this, but patients are sort of kicking off or demanding things or being confrontational. I generally, you know, I find that kind of behaviour is very difficult to deal with, especially people who are very demanding and say, you know, I know my rights, I deserve that, you know, I should have all that treatment on a band or a band. Three And those kind of situation would kind of stress you out because you’re worried that they might end up be the point in a complaint going to the NHS. And we all know that when, when a complaint arises or anything like that, you know, the mental, even though even though you know you’ve not done anything wrong, it can have massive health implications on your mental health. Just use worrying and stressing about that patient. And I think previously, you know, a lot of the time you’d worry about things that would never happen even you know, it might it might be that, you know, you struggle with an extraction. You end up having to refer and you’re worried about them getting seen. And even though you know that you did everything you could to prevent that from happening, but these these are common sort of situations that can arise.

[00:37:53] But you spend a lot of time. Worrying and stressing. And the thing is, there’s nobody who will understand that because because it’s all in your head and you’re kind of almost building up that tension and that anxiety until it’s over kind of thing. And I’ve changed myself in, I would say, now where? I don’t fear patients anymore. And in fact, because I think, you know, what coaching teaches you is, you know, where there’s difficulty or suffering leading to that because that’s when you grow. If you can deal with a challenging or difficult patient, you can deal with anyone. And for me, I actually now actively want to see those problematic patients that nobody wants to see, because I think that the main problem is, is that it’s communication. And as long as you’re doing the best for that patient and they’re not making outrageous demands, you can quite easily manage that situation. So I’m far more confident in dealing with with those patients, so much so that I want to deal with those patients because I feel like if I can deal with them, I can deal with anyone.

[00:39:01] How interesting. How interesting. It’s funny because I quite like complaints myself when if someone complains about enlighten, it’s by the way, very rare. But when I get when I get a complaint, I quite like dealing with it, not because, oh, I’m the boss and I want them to know I’m the boss, but for that same reason that, you know, I feel like I can fix it. You know, I’m I want to enjoy fixing it. It’s kind of the the way the way I think about it. But there is a big difference between those two situations, isn’t it? The pre coaching you and the post coaching you where the pre coaching you would catastrophize this thing and run it through your head, worry about possible consequences and the post coaching use is looking at solutions and and sort of almost like treating treating it as fun and I find fun is such a great word. You know the way I play that game with my kids when they don’t want to do something and say, well, whatever you do, we’ll do this thing in any way that you think would be fun. And suddenly they come up with all sorts of solutions, then they to yeah. The way to do that thing. I’m your what you call them coaches. Customers? Yeah. Yeah. Coaches. Your coaches that come to you now? Give me some of the standard things that they’re hitting sort of roadblocks that the the you know in dentistry it would be patient complains of pericarditis play pain upper right quadrant or lower left quadrant for pericarditis what where do they how do they present? Is the question I’m asking.

[00:40:42] Again, are we talking dental dental kind of client, some kind of people who are facing complaints or even GDC investigations and need some support with that aspect of of it, because it’s kind of become overwhelming for them. So much suffering from burnout and mental health and anxiety and so from panic attacks. That’s quite a common kind of situation. Some are relying on antidepressants. And I think that the problem in dentistry, I feel, and even myself used to, is fear. And where there’s fear, there’s no growth that happens because you’re scared. You don’t want to touch your. I mean, I’ve heard clients say I want to reduce my clinical duties because there’s less chance of a complaint or there’s a less chance of this. And you’re thinking, really? Is that is that really? I’m not so sure. Is it about volume or or or is it about performance or is it about you know, there’s some people who will see happily see loads of patients every single day and get no complaints. And there’ll be some that see a lot less and work part time and get loads. You know what I mean? Is it really is it really about how much clinical time? But I think more and more I’ve sort of I used to actually back in the days, I suppose what they call it, Boston Ash. So I used to do loads and loads of Udas every single year and it used to be sometimes six days a week and you know, it was kind of you’re young and you just need to keep going kind of thing. And I think as I’ve got older I’ve kind of realised that too much clinical dentistry can be damaging to your health both mentally and psychologically. So I’ve kind of got to a point where I do part time dentistry, whether that’s four days or three days a week, because I think you kind of, you know, you’re definitely sort of from burnout if you were doing five days.

[00:42:37] For sure. I mean, I’m a big fan of four days a week as a general for everybody in dentistry, but three days a week is better and two days a week is very good, very good. Two days a week. It’s interesting. I’ve done it. I did it myself for a long time where you kind of feel like, I think you need another job, you need, you know, you need a side gig then. Alright, so I had Enlightened, you’ve got this coaching thing, but two days a week of dentistry is interesting because you kind of it’s more like a hobby than a job, but you’re still in it, you know you’re still in it. One day a week’s a disaster. I did. I did that for a long time. And it’s not just not enough. The rhythm isn’t there enough for you to care enough to give.

[00:43:21] In two days, just to some extent can can do that as well. Because I think, like you said, with dentistry, it’s it’s it’s like, you know, you’ve got to practise and you’ve got to do it every single day to get better at it. But if you.

[00:43:32] Do this.

[00:43:33] Week to week.

[00:43:34] And two days, you know, maybe it’s different. People do different things. But like what I would say is, you know, six days a week, it’s it’s all well and good if you never want to progress in your career. Because if you work six days a week, like a lot of people do, by the way, you haven’t got time to think outside of that. What you’re doing. Of course, you know, let’s not generalise. There’s some people who do six days a week and they’ll manage everything else as well. But then this stuff that you’re talking about comes up panic attacks, mental health problems. I mean, one thing I’ll tell you for sure, there would be no enlighten if I was working five days a week as a as an associate. It was that four days a week. And then that other day where I had the chance to think, what do I want to do with my life? Ben, tell me this. Your qualifications. What are they? I mean, you said. You said. Let’s start with these coaches have a bad name. And I agree with you. It’s not it’s not necessarily a bad thing. But you get you get this feeling of, you know, is it real, isn’t it? Are people ripping people off? And then and then you’ve got I see people transformations like yours here, where someone’s just found their purpose in life completely. And that’s worth $1,000,000. Right? So give me give me some understanding of the qualifications and your position on, you know, the way coaches are perceived.

[00:45:05] So yeah, the coaching that I’ve done is in executive coaching and it’s really seven accreditation, which is the highest level approved by the International Coaching Federation. I also, by the way, I’ve not mentioned this, I’m also doing a part time in medical law and ethics, and I’m also undergoing some expert witness training with with someone. So that was an area that I kind of found interesting as well and things. So yeah, so the qualification I’ve got is that I’m doing is the alum seven in executive coaching.

[00:45:38] But yeah, expand on it. What is it.

[00:45:41] So, so basically it’s executive coaching, so it’s actually coaching people in senior positions within an organisation because coaching isn’t just I think people see coaching perhaps what life coaches do, people see coaching in a different sort of have their own perceptions of what coaching is, but coaching is actually the most effective leadership style and it’s what top companies use and it’s what corporates use to make decisions. So my coaching qualification is coaching people in at a senior level. So these are board of directors, these are people who are senior managers, these are people who are making important decisions for the company. And coaching is is actually a philosophy. So it’s about empowering people, motivating people, inspiring people. And it’s all about performance and maximising the potential of a person or an organisation. And that can kind of massively impact various things like productivity, like turnover, like revenue. So I think coaching has a huge place and it’s very, very widely used in the business world.

[00:46:58] And so what is the sort of the rhythm? How many times do I get to see you if I if you’re my coach and how how.

[00:47:06] Does it work? I think, yeah. So so the way I generally do is I always have a complimentary call to kind of obviously open up and sort of find out or reach out to the people that want to have a little chat about what they do. But I also think and I think it’s very important to have a sort of what we call a chemistry meeting. It’s very, very common amongst people who do true coaching because there has to be that chemistry between the coach and the coach. And, you know, there’s certain people that might just put you off straight away. And it might be that either you as a coach feel like, you know what, it’s like a private patient coming in to see you. Can, you know, the ones that have over the top expectations, you’re going to be like, I’m sorry, but I can’t. I don’t I don’t think I can help you or I don’t think I can. So I think it’s always important to have that chemistry meeting and see what the expectations of the coach is, as well as your own limitations and see whether actually can you can you help this person or not? And for me, it’s about being being ethical as well. So I don’t try to sell people something that’s a fantasy in a way, you know, telling them, you know what, I’m going to make you a millionaire because because I just don’t think that that especially people, for example, dentists and people, you know, they’re hugely intelligent people then, you know, they know that there’s no quick way to become a millionaire. It takes time and it takes steps to be put in place. But you’ve got to sort of almost open your door, open that door of opportunities and like yourself, yourself, you realise that, yeah, I needed to sacrifice my dentistry to create your business, but you know that in the longer term that’s what you wanted and you made it happen. But in the short term there was probably time you think, Gosh, I’ve given up my dentistry, I’m not really making the money. I thought with this and I’m sure right at the.

[00:48:58] Start, your.

[00:48:58] Entrepreneur journey, it’s a very, very lonely kind of journey. And those those are the kind of people that I like to help with, you know, the ones that are at the start where they start doubting their own decisions, they start doubting what they’re doing, they start kind of and most people then they end up giving up on their sort of and they’re probably very close to succeeding.

[00:49:19] Yeah. Yeah. Because the line between success and failure is very, very, very thin, you know?

[00:49:24] Yeah, yeah. But you have to fail to learn and be successful. And the most successful people, if you look at them, they’ve failed at so many different businesses before they became successful and failure. And that’s the thing about I would like to also add as part of obviously dentist listening is failure is the best thing because that’s when you’re going to learn. That’s when the best thing that happens to you. And that’s why I look back at some of my difficulties that I alluded to. It was the best thing that happened to me because I wouldn’t be here on this podcast talking to you and sort of hopefully influencing dentistry if I didn’t have all the issues that happen to me. And that’s the amazing thing about life that you can, you know, when you go in. Through difficulties. You know, you’re kind of looking for a quick fix solution. You’re trying to get out of that problem. But what you don’t realise is that problem was the best thing that ever happened to you. And you know, sometimes you get put in a situation that you never expected or wanted, but there’s always a reason for that and there’s always a positive kind of outcome to it. And I think that’s the difficulty of changing your mindset towards that growth mindset and thinking even if even if you feel like that at the moment. Think about the bigger picture. Think about the long game.

[00:50:36] Well, that leads us nicely onto my favourite part of this show, the the darker part of this where you tell us your actually let’s start with your your best day as a dentist, your best moment, and then tell me your darkest day, your biggest errors.

[00:50:58] I enjoy dentistry, I think every single day, to be honest with you. I’ve started to appreciate the people around me, appreciate the patients. I’m grateful to be able to serve those patients. And practising gratefulness is something that again is something new that I’ve learnt and it’s absolutely amazing that I feel honoured and grateful that I can help my patients. And, and I love the I would say 99% of them is please and thank you. Thank you for that. And one thing I want all dentists to think about is that the patients you see, you might have a ten or 15 minute window of that of their life. You don’t know where they’ve been before, what’s going on in their personal life. If you can make that patient feel special during those 15 minutes of even a check-up and even you know that that for them is amazing. And they will talk about that to their family, their friends and everyone. And I think just being able to understand and stand in the shoes of the patient and practise empathy is something a skill in itself. Being able to understand that a lot of the patients, even when they show aggression, the aggression is coming from fear, that the aggression is coming from the fact that they’re perhaps scared to see you most of the time.

[00:52:20] And people behave strangely when, when, when. And you might misinterpret that that aggression as something else. And being able to understand their body language and understand where they’re coming from, I think is a skill in itself. But for me, it’s just being able to to be part of that patient’s journey and then leaving with a smile on their face. And, you know, you might not feel like you’ve done anything. But to me, I spend now a lot more time talking to them, making them feel special. And it might just it might just be something simple by asking them how their family is doing, how are they doing, how are they coping? And maybe especially the elderly, it may be the only person they’ve seen for a whole week sometimes. And those conversations are like gold dust for people. So yeah, I kind of enjoy that aspect of, of dentistry.

[00:53:12] It’s funny, when I stopped being a dentist, that was the piece I missed the most by a long, long way. I certainly didn’t miss the injections and drilling and all of that, but I wasn’t the guy who hated that stuff. I was quite into my, you know, at the time, cutting a lot of veneers and all that. But the bit I missed was that interaction and I was I was in private lens, cheap throughout the whole thing. But in private dentistry you got to have those conversations anyway. And so you go into it with, Oh, what? I’m to, I’m going to be a nice guy and I’m going to be. But then within that, you go from a child who’s trying to be a nice guy because he knows he’s heard. That’s what’s the right thing to do to building real relationships with real people, finding out and what you said there about the you know, it’s that famous thing. I get to do this instead of I’ve got to do this kind of way of looking at your life and gratitude. You still haven’t told me. What’s your hardest day, though? What’s your darkest day? Your biggest mistake? It doesn’t have be the worst, although just just give me some give me some of that people can learn from.

[00:54:16] Something happened very early on in my career. I think it was my first obviously job after it was a it was a patient who wanted to look like Cheryl Cole because back then Cheryl Cole was the big thing and wanted veneers. And I was there a young dentist thinking, you know what, I’ll be a hero and I can I can sort this out. And she brought loads of printouts of what Cheryl Cole looked like. And over the.

[00:54:37] Years, was she anything like Cheryl Cole or.

[00:54:39] Not? No, I don’t think so. But I think she’d need a lot more than in years to look like Cheryl Cole. But.

[00:54:46] But, yeah, yeah.

[00:54:50] So, so, so. Anyway, I was trying to be a hero, and it was just before Christmas. And I thought, you know, Well, get in there, I’m going to do this private case. And the problem was that we put the train videos in. And they looked amazing. And to try and cement. The only problem was they were slightly darker than her other teeth that she’d had whitening done on them. And, you know, in my head, I was like, look, we need to send these back because they’re not right. And you know what? These aren’t right. And the patient spent half an hour or whatever loving them and whatever. And for some silly reason, she then decided, Just put them on. I really love them. And I naively decided, okay, fine, you know what? I’ll show you, show. You really want that? And this was like very early on in career, you know, you don’t know. And I ended up cementing them for her. And then obviously over Christmas, the email comes that I don’t like the way my body is look, because they’re not the right colour and blah, blah, blah and stuff. And in the end we had to sort them out in January, but it was one of those that in hindsight I shouldn’t have been railroaded by the patient in terms of doing that. And it was all right and we sorted it out in the end. But I think now I’m far more sort of cautious about people like that who have perhaps unrealistic expectations, as well as sort of as well as being able to say no, because I think that’s a difficult thing to do, especially when especially when patients can sort of convince you otherwise because you think, you know, this is what they want kind of thing.

[00:56:27] But did it go I mean, did it go wrong beyond that? So you said, okay, I’m going to I’m going to change these veneers for you.

[00:56:33] I think for me, it was the fact that the labs were closed. So it was it was first time, obviously, I’d received an email from a patient saying, you know, I’m not happy and you didn’t know where it was going to go. So there was a good two or three weeks.

[00:56:44] You stressed yourself about that.

[00:56:46] In and back and stressed yourself out. And then obviously we sorted it out in January. But there was you know, there was that kind of yeah, yeah. It was that dramatic email. You know, my teeth are horrible for Christmas, blah, blah, blah and stuff like that. So it was kind of stressful for you because you thought it was time off for you, but it was two weeks of stress and worry to get the patient back in and get that get them sort it kind of thing in Indian. But obviously we saw it out, but it was kind of through that. I kind of learnt that, you know, you don’t need to be a hero and you really need to assess every case on its merit kind of thing.

[00:57:20] I mean, cosmetic dentistry has got that aspect in it, doesn’t it, where it’s opinion based? A lot of it. And I used to tell I used to tell patients that you’re going to go off and even though you love them yourself, someone else is not going to love them. I used to warn them about that and it actually helped a lot because, you know, you’ve got you’ve got in the patient’s head sometimes they’ve saved up for a long time to pay for these things and they’ve put a lot of emphasis on what their life’s going to be like later. And then if a loved one says they’re not great, it’s such a terrible situation for the patient because, you know, I’ve saved up for it. I’ve gone to the dentist, I’ve done all this and someone’s telling me they’re not great. It can cause problems for sure and cause problems for sure. What about your best day? When did you feel like, Wow, I love my job every day.

[00:58:13] I would say every day after after I suppose after being coached and having my coaching and I’m enjoying my dentistry now and I’m kind of, I think being that sort of relaxed mindset and being able to sort of, you know, you’ve done it for a while, you’re kind of confident with doing most things. And now I look forward to the day I enjoy going into work. I enjoy seeing staff, enjoy seeing the patients. I suppose you know, the problem that a lot of dentists as well that they make is they focus on the clinical aspect of it all the time. And you’ve got to kind of almost, you know, you’re thinking about the injection and then you’re thinking about what I’m going to do next and what I’m going to do, what shape I’m going to, you know, prep that tooth or whatever. But the patient isn’t really interested in all that. And I think now I’m far more considerate of that and far more kind of. For me, it’s all about the patient experience. It’s all about making the dentistry as enjoyable for them because having relaxed, happy patients makes you happy and relaxed and you can perform at an optimum level that way as well. But yeah, I’m enjoying my dentistry now.

[00:59:25] And but you do you actually have teams in the NHS to, to have those conversations. And you know, because I remember I used to, I used to think to myself I’m going to have a ten minute conversation before any procedure and the ten minute conversation after any procedure I kind of I was pushing it a bit too far, I think it was, but it worked like hell. It really worked in terms of people would refer patients to me all the time about I’ve heard you’re brilliant. But it was, you know, someone walks in and says, I’ve heard your brilliant. Yeah. I mean, you’ve you’re sold that you’ve already sold whatever you’re going to say to them. And I wasn’t the best. I was a young dentist, you know, not not the best dentist in the world at all. But my previous guest, Na Hutchinson, mentioned and we’ve all come across them. Right. The dentist who not the best dentist in the world, but patients think they’re amazing. I might have been I might have been that. And then the opposite. The dentists are just technically amazing, but they don’t have that patient experience side fixed and dentist patients don’t get it. So patients don’t get it. What do you think?

[01:00:37] Yeah, I think, I think we’re all got a blend of both haven’t we, in terms of, you know, some dentists are really, really good clinically. But then like you said and I think there’s there’s nothing I suppose there’s no hard and fast rule. It depends on on yourself, you know what I mean. You know, again, it depends on your personality. Like, again, this is something that obviously coaching as well teaches you that there’s people who are, for example, of dominant personality or dominant characters and we’ve come across them. And if you if you have those kind of people, for example, on reception, for example, and this is what I’m saying about the importance of having the right people in the right places. If you’ve got a dominant character on reception, the person going to say, You know what, we’ve got no appointment, see you later by kind of thing. You don’t want that kind of person on reception. This is why I’m saying that you’ve got to understand that, whereas having somebody like that as a manager completely perhaps changes the dynamics of things. And that’s why I think even even dentistry, we’re all we’ve all these 16 different types of personalities out there, we’re all very, very different in the way we think and the way we analyse things, the way we see things. So our people, people orientated people, so my task orientated people, so there’s different types of people. It depends on what you see as what you enjoy being and what your philosophy of of dentistry. And I don’t think there’s any hard and fast rule about that. I think everyone should do dentistry the way they the way they enjoy it. But obviously, if it’s a the impact of affecting patient care, then that’s when that that’s when I would argue that obviously that should be your core value or that should be the thing that you put at the centre of of importance.

[01:02:15] Definitely, definitely. But by the way, for anyone who hasn’t seen it, there is a website called 16 personalities dot com and it asks very simple questions and then gives this detailed thing about the kind of person you are. And we our whole team went through that process and it’s so amazing how accurate it is by asking you these very simple things. Now, I actually have anyone who’s applying for a job do that first so that I can just figure out who it is I’m in front of what other little hacks are there in this sort of way.

[01:02:50] I mean, these form part of psychometric testing and these are very, very commonly used. And if you look at the top companies in the world, there’s so many different kind of tests and ways your Thomas pay is is another one what is it people may have heard of Thomas pay just like your personality profiling and obviously we have a work. Kind of sort of trait. And we have a mask, work mask and a home kind of mask, and there’s lots of in-depth kind of testing that you can do. And the surprisingly accurate that’s what I find really, really kind of how did they know that and how do you work out that? And people can be very kind of, you know, sort of they don’t mean anything kind of thing. But I think for me, when I when I’ve had mine done and done other people, it’s surprising how accurate they are and how you can almost predict people’s behaviours, how they’re going to think. And and that’s what I sort of find interesting, how we’re all wired up differently and how we, we think differently and, and different people require different skill sets to sort of connect or engage with them. And I think that’s the important thing to be able to understand that we are all wired differently and we all have different personality traits.

[01:04:07] You should make your life’s work. 16 Dentists dot com ask ask 30 questions and say this is the dentist you are.

[01:04:19] Yeah definitely. That’s something to someone.

[01:04:21] Needs to do that I consider.

[01:04:23] Yeah yeah yeah definitely. That’s something to consider.

[01:04:27] We’re coming to the end. But I want you to discuss about the group. I’m not a fan. I’m not a fan. Self-admitted, we were just talking about as far as the most I know about football is Sir Alex Ferguson and Renaldo. So but but I know people I mean, I’ve got a real problem. My best friends from school every time we meet is because there’s a big football game on and I’m like, Why the hell are we meeting if we’re watching the football? But for them, it’s like so important in that in that sort of minute I sort of try and ask some questions and find out. But tell me, what does football mean to you? Who do you support? What does the group mean to you? I mean, running a group is quite difficult. I run a couple of groups. Is it has it gone off by itself now or do you still need to do work on it?

[01:05:18] I think I instilled the the main contributor to the group.

[01:05:22] Which is. Which is correct. That’s the way it should be, dude.

[01:05:25] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I suppose I’m the leader. I’m the coach and the person who but again, this was part of my coaching journey with my coach because we were trying to unlock what what do you actually love? What do you enjoy, what’s your hobby? And football is one of those things that I have always loved from a very, very young age, playing as well as watching. And Manchester United is, is, is, is my club. And I absolutely love it. And it’s for me, it’s, it gives me that release from everyday life. It gives me that release from, you know, just generally I just love the emotions that that brings you and the excitement and yeah, so, so I wanted to sort of for me it was more a sense of, I’ll be honest, I was a bit of a loner for a long time and I didn’t know many dentists and I didn’t know many people. So I thought myself, How do I talk to people without talking to people? In a way, it’s almost like you’re trying to find a topic that you really enjoy, but you might have something in common. And I think if you randomly message someone, they’re going to be like, Who’s this dude asking me about whatever kind of thing? Yeah. So it was more a sense of like, I want to engage with like minded people who have the same passion or similar passion to me, but I also for me.

[01:06:43] So for me it was a way of engaging with people and engaging with dentists in particular, and sort of being able to, I suppose, build connexions with people. Because when you can relate to people, whether it’s through football or whether it’s some other kind of thing, it’s, it’s, it’s not as as awkward or as kind of thingy. You know, people are happy to talk about football in the group and you might not be talking directly to you. So for me, it was a way to network, a way to engage with dentists and sort of be able to use my passion in a positive way. And, you know, a lot of people comment about my group being inspiring, motivating. I try not to make it like other fan groups where it’s just one fan group calling the other and that the other. And there is some of that that goes on. But I try to show that football can actually unite people, can actually bring people together. You might support a different team, but you’re still humans at the end of the day. And there’s so many football stories that I, I try to share with people just to try and inspire them or motivate them and show that football can be a force of good.

[01:07:50] Yeah. How come you’re not an Oldham fan? Because they weren’t winning when you were when you were a kid.

[01:07:56] Right. In fact, they’re completely out of the league now. Completely rare. Yeah. Yeah. They got completely relegated out of the league this year, but I’ve never really been an older sort of fan or anything. I’ve always I’ve just grown up with Manchester United. I’ve always been a United fan.

[01:08:14] Cause you have. So, listen, what’s your view? It’s interesting what you said about uniting people. Yeah, we’ve got a very divided profession. What’s what’s your view on how we can unite the profession? Because it’s amazing how much we we sort of back bite and and you know you’ve got the different organisations that represent us and even them they’re divided right. You’ve got the media on one side or the back and bap types on the other side. Now this associates kind of British action group thing that’s come along and what would you say? How can we unite? Because I remember as a youngster, I remember just thinking, hey, man, we should all be together. We should all love each other. You know, we’re one profession and all that. But now, now that I’ve been in it a while, it’s just, you know, it doesn’t seem like it’s getting anywhere nearer to United.

[01:09:09] Yeah, I agree with that. And I think it’s becoming more and more divided. In fact, one thing again from my coaching experience and I think generally in life and if you look at every aspect of life or even business or anywhere, the person that matters the most are the leaders. They’re the people at the top that are influencing change at the bottom. And I think in times like this, we need to have strong leadership. We need to have strong leaders that represent the profession as a whole. Once you get strong, influential leaders, you then start seeing changes within a profession, within a business organisation, within any setting. And I think that’s where dentistry I feel really falls down on in terms of strong leadership in these challenging times.

[01:10:04] When you say strong, you mean quality.

[01:10:07] Well, what I mean is, I mean, who is dictating what’s happening within the profession? Which organisation can say that? I represent every single dentist that’s out there, which I don’t see any I don’t see any organisation out there that that represents the best interest of every single dentist out there. And that’s where I think we’re lacking because, because there is no organisation like that, there is no unity, there is no leader, because we’ve all created our own little division, our own little organisations who are all have different agendas. Then how do you get unity? Because you’ve all got different agendas and you’re all creating your own little sub communities. And this is why I feel like either certain organisations like the BDA need to reform and look at, you know, look at their performance during the pandemic and look at things that they did and sort of, you know, that’s what good businesses do. That’s what good leaders do. They reflect back and see, well, did we actually make the right decisions? Did we support, for example, private dentistry during the pandemic? Did we support associates during the pandemic? Are we acting in the best interests in terms of the NHS contract? Who are who are we acting in the best interest of our be conflicted in terms of where we’re being funded from? You know, these are important questions and that’s what coaching does is is ask these kind of questions to sort of really bring about change. And I feel well.

[01:11:37] Before.

[01:11:37] Before we.

[01:11:38] Before we got on this answer, some of those questions go on.

[01:11:41] Which question in particular?

[01:11:44] Are the ones you just asked.

[01:11:46] I mean, these are questions that I feel like me, myself, I’m not in that influential position.

[01:11:52] What’s your opinion? What’s your opinion?

[01:11:54] My opinion is that I think there needs to be an organisation.

[01:11:59] I don’t know whether it’s what’s your position on it? Does the BDA represent private dentists or did they represent private dentists in the pandemic?

[01:12:09] I think that the answer is definitely, most definitely not, because the media is very much nature centred. It’s very much practise owner centred. And even the contracts that they draw for associates are very much in favour of practise owners. Now these, these, these are inequalities. Even though you mentioned at the start there’s more associates than there are practise owners. So so so these inequalities kind of then pan out with, with, with the issues that associates then then face. And these these are these are things that.

[01:12:41] We need to. But also, at the same time, let’s give them their dues. What did they do right?

[01:12:48] And again, I feel like obviously they’re an organisation that, you know.

[01:12:54] Specific pandemic wise, but I mean that 80%, I mean they negotiated that didn’t they. And that’s that saved a bunch of associates, skins as well as principal skins. In the end.

[01:13:06] I don’t know about associates, I don’t think that they didn’t go far enough in terms of their guidance. For example, the NHS we recommend and then the associates that were in trouble, a lot of them, they turned away because they wanted more money from them and they turned them away and those are the people that will never join them again because they know that it was during that tough time that they pretty much threw them under the bus and they’ll argue that they didn’t. But at the end of the day, these were shocking stories where people lost their jobs overnight, where people were really, really mistreated. And those are times when you need organisations like the PGA to step up and say, Hold on, mate, we’re not accepting that kind of behaviour, even though you might be a practitioner or you might have a contract. But these these people have families to support. These people have you know, we’ve we’ve guaranteed your contract. And out of that, you need to show goodwill and be able to pay your associates properly.

[01:14:04] But what did you expect those do you expect the BDA to do?

[01:14:08] To to almost. Well, I would say they can’t legally enforce it, unfortunately, but I feel like they’ve still not been vocal enough. And to be honest with you, if I would say I would go as far as if a practise owner has been demonstrated to not follow NHS advice and pay an associate correctly, then they should no longer be allowed to be part of the BDA. Why should they be part of the BDA? Because you’re going against the principles and the guidance of this organisation that are so called there to represent us in negotiating fair deals. And that’s why that’s why I say that, yeah, you can’t do that. But you can either you can single them out and say, by the way, you know, this many practises didn’t do this or and B, you could, you could say, look, you didn’t follow our guidance. You don’t follow our rules. I’m sorry, but we don’t want you part of our organisation and that’s I know that’s more than enough to show that we’re on your side. Yeah. And that’s, that’s what we wanted as a society. We wanted the BDA to say, look, we can’t, we can’t get you your money, we can’t make them do anything. But what we can do is we’re not going to allow them to be part of our part of our organisation because they’ve not followed our guidance or our advice.

[01:15:22] And you’re right, even though even though practically, you know, someone would have just left the BDA and a story for because of that, that would send a signal out, a stronger signal out that, you know, pay your associates. Right.

[01:15:34] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I think that.

[01:15:36] The vast majority did get paid and I know. I know several. You’re not the first to tell me about people who didn’t get paid, because I know several who didn’t get paid as well. And I know some principals who used actually that excuse of it’s advice. It’s not it’s not law.

[01:15:52] I think they did get paid, but I think there was no consensus in terms of how much they should get paid, what they should get paid and things like that. And there’s a will, there’s a way. And I think some practise on is abused abused the system.

[01:16:07] But again, how do we fix this? Because, you know, there is no overarching organisation. Are you suggesting we make one?

[01:16:14] I’m either suggesting that the that somebody like the BDA reform and act more like the BMA. You know if you look at the way the BMA they support their doctors with the with any issues they face including you know it’s almost so even in cases where they’ve had to go to the GMC and they’ve challenged them about cases for doctors and things like that, I don’t see the BDA helping, you know, people who are under investigations. I don’t see the BDA really reaching out for the vulnerable people in our profession. And the vulnerable people, for me is, you know, includes associates include, you know, include people who who need help.

[01:16:54] Yeah. I think part of the reason for it, though, is that, you know, dentists are fiercely independent, you know, practise owners. They that sort of being a small business owner thing means that you are independent. You can make whatever move you want as opposed to doctors, many of them aligned with massive organisations, hospitals, GP practises and so forth. And what that ends up creating is a situation of lots of independent minded people who aren’t united in the same way as doctors are. By the way, I don’t know if we get really get into it is is the BMA as good as we say or.

[01:17:34] I think a lot of, I don’t know, just very, very, very kind of highly of the BMA and they would say that they yeah they would really but I’m not sure you would say the same about dentists talking about the BDA. If you if you did a survey about how many dentists are actually registered with the BDA compared to as a percentage of the whole country, it’d be interesting to see how many dentists are engaging with the BDA or how many dentists also support the BDA in terms of or feel like they’re an organisation that supports them. It would be interesting to to to find out those kind of figures.

[01:18:08] I think whatever the figure is, it’s a declining figure, that’s for sure. Yeah, but it is a shame. I mean I, I’m, I left the BDA years and years and years after I stopped being a dentist. But when I did leave, it was on purpose. It wasn’t, it wasn’t like I didn’t want to pay the subs or something. It was that it was what you said about communication. I just found their communication so, so incorrect. And, you know, when you when you when when you feel like, by the way, I wasn’t even a dentist at the time, but but I can understand why this BPD and things came about because when you feel like the association that’s supposed to be representing you is actually working against you, that’s that’s when you start, that’s when you start creating new organisations, you know, same thing with Chaz’s group, the British Dental Action Group.

[01:19:06] Yeah, yeah.

[01:19:07] It’s interesting, but well we always end it on the same questions. You’re. On your deathbed. Let’s hope you’re very, very old. But at this point, you’ve got your friends and family, your loved ones around you. What are three bits of advice you would leave them?

[01:19:30] Oh, that’s a difficult one. I think, number one, I live your life with no regrets. Make every every moment count and live it as though it’s your last day. And that would be my number one piece of advice. I think the second thing would be to build deep, meaningful relationships, whether that’s with your family, whether that’s with your friends, whether that’s with your colleagues, and build a legacy. You want people to talk about how amazing you are wherever you go. Leave those footprints behind for people to remember you in a in a good way. And I think the third thing would be to serve humanity, something that I feel really, really passionate about. And I think it’s important to always encompass and serve other people, whether that’s through charity work, whether that’s through volunteering, whatever that may be, always encompass that in your life because I feel like there is a sense of the more you help people, the more good it will draw in your life. And I genuinely believe that.

[01:20:38] It’s very achievement. It’s very, very true. How much of your belief system is not dictated by, but informed by your religious side?

[01:20:51] I would describe myself as a somewhat religious. Obviously I’m a muslim and yeah, I would say that I feel like religion itself gives people a moral compass. And all all religions teach people to be good human beings. And that’s why I think religion should play a part in everyone’s life. It doesn’t matter what what religion you you follow, but it teaches you to be a good human being and it teaches you life skills. And those you know, even some of my sort of coaching philosophies and ideas do loosely stem from a religious point of view as well. But I feel that religion has a really, really good purpose because it gives people a purpose for their life, and there is a purpose for why they’re here.

[01:21:45] He’s. And give me. Our final final question. Some fancy dinner party. Three guests. Dead or alive. Who would you want?

[01:22:01] So I think you mentioned two because we discussed two of them anyway, coming from Alex.

[01:22:06] Ferguson.

[01:22:06] Football, sir. Alex Ferguson. Yeah.

[01:22:10] Of course. There’s a manchester United guy. Yeah.

[01:22:13] And as a coach. As a coach as well. Have you read his book?

[01:22:17] Have you read his book?

[01:22:18] Absolutely. Yeah, I’ve read his book. But you also made a documentary on Amazon. That’s really interesting as well about his life, that that is a really good it’s amazing.

[01:22:27] The number of people who mention Alex Ferguson outside of football that, you know, like the business people, people who’ve who’ve made it and got giant organisations and they say, oh Alex Ferguson, it’s made me who, who does not care about football one little bit. I want to read his book and figure out what is it about, is it the way he talks to his team and motivates them and all of that? So give me put it for me in 10 seconds. What is it about him? That’s amazing.

[01:22:54] I think it’s the fact that you could influence some people who basically made Manchester United as a club and being able to influence people who are very average and make them into world class kind of players and just being able to influence and impact a team in the way you did.

[01:23:12] Your second one.

[01:23:13] Ronaldo Yeah, Cristiano Ronaldo. For me, he’s the greatest player ever. But I think for me it’s more his discipline, his desire, his determination to be the best in the world and the sacrifices he makes even now to perform at top level. He’s a he’s a winner. He’s a winner. He’s a determined winner. And he’s somebody who will will absolutely everything into every single game and even is off the pitch kind of habits. And the way he looks after himself, you know, means he can perform even now at the age of 37 is phenomenal player. Definitely. Yeah, you’re kidding. Absolutely. Yeah.

[01:23:57] Wow. Normally they’ve burnt out by 37 on a.

[01:24:01] Exactly. Exactly. But this guy has really looked after himself and doesn’t look out of place at all playing in.

[01:24:07] Is he still does he still top level must be right. Yes or no.

[01:24:11] Please regularly for my money and I it as well.

[01:24:15] So the third guest.

[01:24:18] The third guest maybe somebody had made some people may not have heard of him, but it’s called Abdul Sattar Edhi. He’s a philanthropist who’s passed away actually now, but he created the largest volunteer organisation of ambulances in Pakistan and well in the world, actually. And he’s basically a humanitarian and he basically served the poor and needy and spent his life dedicating himself towards that. And that’s something that I feel really strongly about, people who who sort of do that kind of thing.

[01:24:54] I’ve just I’ve just pulled him up on my other screen. Who found the world’s largest volunteer ambulance network.

[01:25:03] Yeah.

[01:25:03] Yeah. Along with homeless shelters, animal shelters, rehabilitations. And what a great guy. What an interesting guy. I’m going to I’m going to go on a on a Wikipedia. On a Wikipedia on him. You know, I got a Wikipedia sort of mouse hole. Just keep on going. Who was his dad? And that gets me really good. Excellent. But him. Him and Ronaldo and Ferguson and you at a dinner party. It’s going to be a good one. Certainly be interesting with him. He’s got a good beard, but he’s got a good, good. Yeah, well, but it’s been a real pleasure to have you on.

[01:25:40] Yeah. Thank you very much for having me on the show. I think it’s a prestigious thing to actually be on this show. There’s been some there’s been so many great people who’ve been on this show. And for me, I feel really honoured to to be invited on and be able to hopefully change and transform and hopefully have a positive impact. And this may resonate with some people and they may end up thinking, you know what, we do need to change as a profession. We do need things to improve and we do need better leaders who can sort of drive dentistry forward.

[01:26:13] Definitely. But definitely, if someone if someone’s going through a hard time in dentistry and they want to reach out to you, what’s the best way to get to you? Is it on.

[01:26:22] Facebook? Yeah, I’m quite active on Facebook. Obviously, I’ve got a website. It’s very easy to remember. It’s Mudassar Hussain dot com. So my company’s Clarity Coaching International and obviously there’s a form there that they can fill in active on Instagram as well. I’m active on LinkedIn as well. So yeah, if anyone needs any help advice, just want to chat. I’m happy to do that because you know, I’m here to help people and that’s my purpose.

[01:26:51] It’s the one thing that’s come through with with you that I’ve we’ve had a couple of other conversations and and and it’s, you know, people hear coach and they hear, Oh, he’s going to make all my money and all that. And and one thing I’ve noticed with you is you’re a lot less interested in the finance side of dentistry. You’re kind of purpose led is if you were a company, I would say you’re a purpose led company, you know, and purpose led is always the best way. It always is.

[01:27:21] When you enjoy what you do and you love what you do, life becomes easier. And that’s the thing. You’ve got to sort of I think your passion, you know, what you’re passionate about is something that you should really do as well. Follow your passion.

[01:27:32] Absolutely, man. Thank you so much for doing this, buddy.

[01:27:35] Thank you so much for having me on the show.

[01:27:38] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav. Solanki.

[01:27:54] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

[01:28:09] If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it, too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks.

[01:28:19] And don’t forget our six star rating.

 

Foodies are in for a treat this week as we sit down to chat with dentist and Masterchef contestant Rishi Nanavati. 

It’s not just Masterchef judges who were impressed with Rishi’s fusion dishes—they also struck a culinary chord with fellow vegetarian and Indian food lover, Prav.

Rishi takes us through his Masterchef appearance dish-by-dish, revealing how it felt to go head-to-head with eight other hopefuls.

Rishi also talks about his favourite dishes, plans for the future and why dentistry may now take a backseat to a kitchen career.

Bon appetit!

 

00.53 – Starting with cooking

05.53 – Favourite foods

07.34 – Backstory

12.14 – University life

18.35 – Being veggie

21.40 – Masterchef shortlisting

29.17 – Competing on Masterchef

33.52 – The dishes

42.26 – Instagram

44.03 – Back to Masterchef

47.53 – Finding time for dentistry

50.51 – Future plans

54.24 – Following Rishi’s recipes

55.08 – Fave foods and places

01.00.02 – Last days and legacy

01.01.20 – Fantasy dinner party

 

About Rishi Nanavati

Rishi Nanavati practices at Vogue Dental Care in Luton. A keen chef, Rishi was among nine hopefuls hoping to impress judges on Masterchef 2022. 

He blogs and writes about food and recipes at www.dishbyrish.co.uk and can be found on Instagram as @dish_by_rish. 

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

[00:00:48] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

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

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

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

[00:02:21] Oh, yeah.

[00:02:23] What have you.

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

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

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

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

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

[00:03:57] And.

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

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

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

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

[00:05:51] Just.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:09:50] Yeah.

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

[00:10:47] Yes. No.

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

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

[00:12:18] And the other.

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

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

[00:13:04] Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:17:25] Oh, yes, don’t.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:24:24] Yeah, they.

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

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

[00:24:41] Yeah.

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

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

[00:26:25] Interesting one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:28:56] Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

[00:33:24] Yeah.

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

[00:34:33] You know.

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

[00:34:53] Yeah.

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

[00:35:01] Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:40:21] Yeah. Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:47:26] Yeah.

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

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

[00:47:52] Right ideologically.

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

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

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

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

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

[00:51:24] For selling out.

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

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

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

[00:54:43] Mendelson.

[00:54:44] Mendelson, yeah.

[00:54:45] Just passed away.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:57:30] Yeah, they.

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

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

[00:57:47] Right.

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

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

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

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

[00:58:11] It’s a dump.

[00:58:12] Yeah.

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

[00:59:15] Was.

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

[00:59:42] We had interviews.

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

[01:00:21] Hassle on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:05:51] Oh, yeah.

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

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

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

[01:06:33] Yes, I.

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

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

[01:07:03] Yeah, absolutely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:08:37] Lots of them.

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

[01:08:52] No.

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

[01:10:32] To the building.

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

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

[01:11:21] Yeah, it’s.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:15:31] So, yeah, it’s.

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

[01:15:44] Yeah, I.

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

[01:15:46] Yeah.

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

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

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

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

[01:17:59] Resourceful.

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

[01:18:24] And the great.

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

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

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

[01:20:56] Yeah.

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

[01:21:51] Yes.

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

[01:22:07] But.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:26:07] Wow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:29:23] There were dentists.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:40:08] Nervous escalating things.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:44:12] Bad decisions.

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

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

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

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

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

[01:48:23] Question.

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

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

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

[01:49:06] Voice.

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

[01:49:45] Yeah.

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

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

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

[01:50:40] To.

[01:50:41] Contribute.

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

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

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

[01:51:07] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav. Solanki.

[01:51:23] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

[01:51:37] If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it, too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks. And don’t forget our six star rating.

 

In this week’s extended episode, Prav sits down to chat with one of the profession’s larger than life characters, Amit Patel.

In a wide-ranging conversation recorded shortly before the Association of Dental Implantology (ADI) Team Congress in Manchester, ADI president Amit reveals how and why a specialist periodontist now leads the association.

Amit also chats about real-life Vs online networking, imposter syndrome and why skydiving is now his preferred method of relaxation.

Enjoy!    

In This Episode

01.22 – Sartorial style

03.37 – Backstory

08.16 – Social media and real-life networking

19.28 – Confidence and imposter syndrome

31.17 – Political correctness

35.21 – School life and deciding on dentistry

45.32 – Dental school

56.52 – Specialism and practice ownership

59.41 – Connecting with experts

01.03.30 – Practice ownership and mindset

01.16.01 – Blackbox thinking

01.21.57 – Treatment longevity

01.36.17 – The Association of Dental Implantology

01.50.29 – Skydiving

02.00.40 – Last days and legacy

02.03.08 – Fantasy dinner party

About Amit Patel

Dr Amit Patel is the president of the Association for Dental Implantology. He graduated from the University of Liverpool in 1997 and gained membership of the Royal Faculty of Dental Surgeons in 2000.

He went on gain a master’s in periodontology and clinical dentistry at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Dental Institute.

He is a specialist in periodontics and an honorary clinical lecturer at the University of Birmingham Dental School.

Amit is an ambassador for the Clean Implant Foundation, which aims to establish a science-based quality benchmark for implants.

In 2018, he was voted one of dentistry’s 50 most influential figures.

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

[00:00:57] Yeah, no.

[00:01:04] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

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

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

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

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

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

[00:02:35] Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:05:21] They weren’t fussed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:11:53] Yeah.

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

[00:12:08] I remember you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:21:17] Not you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:26:53] Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:34:11] Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:40:37] Wow.

[00:40:38] Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:48:11] No.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:56:14] Exactly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:02:51] Persistent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:14:00] Of course.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:24:19] Really interesting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:29:23] Okay.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:36:16] Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:51:15] Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:55:21] That’s bonkers.

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

[01:55:42] And.

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

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

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

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

[01:57:01] This is all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:59:40] Really? Really.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[02:05:10] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav. Solanki.

[02:05:26] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it. If you did get some value.

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

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

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

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

Niall Hutchinson’s red wine social media posts are designed to provoke discussion on some of dentistry’s thorniest topics.

So get ready for a robust and full-bodied discussion as Payman chats with one of dentistry’s most outspoken and engaging characters.

Niall and Payman take crack open a red to take on everything from the saturated dental courses market to NHS dentistry, the role of corporates, and much more.

Cheers!

 

In This Episode

01.44 – Red wine

07.31 – CPD and profitability

26.28 – NHS – the second coming?

36.23 – Skills Vs soft skills

39.42 – Going private

44.13 – Price increases

47.28 – Corporates – a force for good?

57.50 – A little backstory

01.03.58 – Staying engaged

01.07.51 – Specialism Vs generalism

01.11.38 – Invisalign

01.15.47 – Business secrets

01.24.29 – Choosing associates

01.28.29 – The labour market

01.30.24 – Black box thinking

01.40.55 – Best and worst days

01.45.15 – Fantasy dinner party

01.48.13 – Last days and legacy 

 

About Niall Hutchinson

Dr Niall Hutchinson qualified from Queen’s University Belfast in 1987 and spent four years as an associate in Northern Ireland before moving to the UK.

He is the owner and clinical director of Cherry Tree Dental Care, near Wantage, Oxford

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

[00:00:48] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

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

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

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

[00:02:21] Oh, yeah.

[00:02:23] What have you.

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

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

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

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

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

[00:03:57] And.

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

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

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

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

[00:05:51] Just.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:09:50] Yeah.

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

[00:10:47] Yes. No.

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

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

[00:12:18] And the other.

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

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

[00:13:04] Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:17:25] Oh, yes, don’t.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:24:24] Yeah, they.

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

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

[00:24:41] Yeah.

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

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

[00:26:25] Interesting one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:28:56] Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

[00:33:24] Yeah.

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

[00:34:33] You know.

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

[00:34:53] Yeah.

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

[00:35:01] Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:40:21] Yeah. Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:47:26] Yeah.

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

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

[00:47:52] Right ideologically.

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

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

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

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

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

[00:51:24] For selling out.

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

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

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

[00:54:43] Mendelson.

[00:54:44] Mendelson, yeah.

[00:54:45] Just passed away.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:57:30] Yeah, they.

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

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

[00:57:47] Right.

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

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

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

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

[00:58:11] It’s a dump.

[00:58:12] Yeah.

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

[00:59:15] Was.

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

[00:59:42] We had interviews.

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

[01:00:21] Hassle on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:05:51] Oh, yeah.

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

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

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

[01:06:33] Yes, I.

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

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

[01:07:03] Yeah, absolutely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:08:37] Lots of them.

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

[01:08:52] No.

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

[01:10:32] To the building.

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

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

[01:11:21] Yeah, it’s.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:15:31] So, yeah, it’s.

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

[01:15:44] Yeah, I.

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

[01:15:46] Yeah.

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

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

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

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

[01:17:59] Resourceful.

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

[01:18:24] And the great.

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

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

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

[01:20:56] Yeah.

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

[01:21:51] Yes.

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

[01:22:07] But.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:26:07] Wow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:29:23] There were dentists.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:40:08] Nervous escalating things.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:44:12] Bad decisions.

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

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

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

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

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

[01:48:23] Question.

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

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

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

[01:49:06] Voice.

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

[01:49:45] Yeah.

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

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

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

[01:50:40] To.

[01:50:41] Contribute.

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

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

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

[01:51:07] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav. Solanki.

[01:51:23] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

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