Category: Podcast

Milad Shadrooh: I wrote out the logo and then I went to my dad. I was like, “Dad, I’m going to do this thing with the music and dentistry and I’ve got this idea, rapping dentists, what’d you think?” And I showed him the logo. Genuinely, he looked at me and went, “Raping dentists, what is this?” I was like, “Dad, it’s rapping!”

Intro Voice: 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.

Payman: So, Milad, great to have you. Thanks for coming.

Milad Shadrooh: Thanks guys. Thanks for having me.

Payman: I know you’re busy as hell right now.

Milad Shadrooh: It’s all good, bruv.

Payman: So the thing that’s been going on with you, we’ll get to how you became the singing dentist. But just give us a quick 30 second sort of summary of where did you grow up? What were you like as a kid? When did you decide to become a dentist?

Milad Shadrooh: Oh wow. Okay. So I was born in Iran, in Tehran, and we did this thing as kids, you put your baby on the floor and put loads of stuff in front of them and then see what the baby plays with. And then the thing the baby plays with the most is what they’re destined to become. And I basically played with a syringe. It didn’t have a needle on it, I just want to highlight that. But yeah, basically I kept blowing the air out the syringe. I thought that was pretty cool. So mom and dad, “Boy, he’s a doctor.” So, they basically inspired me to go into medicine or dentistry or whatever. And then when it was time to make a choice, I did work experience. Didn’t think medicine was for me, so that’s why dentistry happened. But yeah, I was born in Iran. We came to the UK when I was five, 1986, during the war with Iraq. And then yeah, just raised in London.

Payman: Do you remember when you arrived in Britain?

Milad Shadrooh: Bits, I do. Yeah, I do. So my uncle and my aunt were already here. My mom and dad were educated here as well. So a pre-revolution in Iran, it was very common for people to come to the UK, go abroad and be educated. So we had an affinity to the UK already, and my uncle and aunt were already here. So yeah, we came here. I remember it.

Payman: What do you remember the most?

Milad Shadrooh: Initially, not speaking English and finding it hard to communicate. But very quickly, as kids, you pick up the language so quickly, right? And I remember very well, my mom and dad constantly telling me, “Speak English, speak English.” And then when my English became too good, they were like, “Speak Farsi, speak Farsi.” So they didn’t want me to forget the heritage, right? So yeah, it was good, man. I had a great childhood. I’m an only child. So no brothers or sisters.

Payman: Where did you move to when you came here?

Milad Shadrooh: So we first came to the North, so Hendon, which is where my aunt was established. And then from Hendon, we got set up in South Kensington. So the other end of the world. And I went to school in Kensington, Earl’s Court. Went around there, and then my secondary school was in Battersea. So always been South, Southwest, basically. And then for uni, I went to Royal London. So then I moved to East, and that was eyeopening, blimey. Whitechapel was interesting part of town.

Payman: The first day when you see Whitechapel Market. It’s a bit of a surprise, really.

Milad Shadrooh: I mean, I remember going for the interview, or the open day or whatever. And you walk out the station, you’re like, “Blimey. This is where I’ve got to come for the next five years.”

Payman: Prav, do you know?

Prav: No.

Payman: It’s like, I don’t know, the first time you go to Bradford or something. It’s not even that. It’s just a very busy market, selling spices, and-

Milad Shadrooh: Cloth.

Prav: Oh, right, like that, is it?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, literally. Yeah you can get anything pretty much down at Whitechapel.

Payman: You could be anywhere. It’s a funny thing. I had exactly the same experience. Went for my interview, and I thought, “What’s going on here?” But then I used to visit there a lot and it’s actually very cool area.

Milad Shadrooh: I like it, man. And you know what? All of that area’s changed so much. Like the East of London has changed so much. But Whitechapel high street, still the same, bruv. From the minute you go to the high street until you leave, literally the same. The shops either side might have changed, but the market is still the same. It’s still, so it’s nice. It’s kind of retained that thing. So yeah. That’s it.

Payman: How were you in dental school?

Milad Shadrooh: How was I in dental school? I was cool, man. I did my work, did well. I was always busy, active, kind of outside of that. So I was still doing the music stuff, which I guess we’ll talk about. But yeah, I’d be performing, I’d be MCing, I’d be going back to South and doing what I was doing and then coming back to East and yeah, it was good man. Had couple of good friends. I would knuckle down proper when it was time to study. So I would purposefully not shave so that I wouldn’t be tempted to step out. So I’d make myself look hideous. So I wouldn’t … I’d just be like, “Oh, should I go out tonight?” And look myself in the mirror and think, “Nah, bruv. You’re not leaving.”

Prav: And so, were you a clever student. Were you one of these people who were at school, were you super-gifted, super-talented in that sense? Or were you grafter?

Milad Shadrooh: I would say I was intelligent, but I’d have to apply myself as well. But anything I applied myself to I’d smash it. I was probably one of them annoying kids, I think, for other people. Like if any sports, I was good at any sport, not excellent at one, I was just sick at everything. So if it was tennis day-to-day, I’d be sick at tennis. If it was football, I’d be good at football. So, and studying-wise, I was kind of good at sciences, maths. I did all right in English. Like my GCSEs, I pretty much got all A’s and a couple of A stars.

Payman: obsessive personality?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. Massively. I’ve realised that now.

Payman: Did you get into things really big?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, yeah. Big time, but then I’ll get into it crazy. I’ll buy everything that I need. I’ll do it full blown and then just kind of stop. And I forget about it for like a year and then go back into it again. I’ve been like that with everything. With martial arts, I’ve been like that. With football, I’ve been like that. With music. Music is the only thing that’s been constant though. It comes in peaks and troughs, but it never goes away.

Payman: So when did you first DJ, was that during school or university or…?

Milad Shadrooh: So, yeah. So the rapping probably started first. I used to basically sing along, right? Rap records would be on and I’d kind of just rap along and learn the words and I was always really good at it. And I remember, so growing up, Michael Jackson was the massive influence, right? Because we’re talking about eighties. So the Bad album was the first album I properly remember listening to learning all the lyrics to. And then Thriller, but Thriller prior to that is what I used to kind of watch and dance through and all the rest of it. So Michael Jackson was a big black influence with the musical aspect of performing and kind of being that superstar kind of icon level. And then rap, I just started listening to randomly and just kind of got into that. And I’d just rap along.

Prav: Gangster Rap or…?

Payman: Eminem?

Milad Shadrooh: No, oh, this was years before Eminem.

Prav: Public Enemy?

Milad Shadrooh: NWA.

Prav: NWA.

Milad Shadrooh: NWA was the first kind of thing. Snoop Dogg Doggystyle was the first album I actually bought with my own money on tape, cassette tape kids.

Payman: What was yours? Mine was Prince 1984, well, Purple Rain.

Prav: I think mine was-

Milad Shadrooh: Purple Rain, great album.

Prav: Ice-T. O.G.

Milad Shadrooh: Okay. Nice.

Prav: That was the first one I bought. Yeah. I remember sticking them in my car and playing them, turning up the bass tube.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, yeah. And we’ve all been there. So yeah. And I’ll just rap along. And actually the first proper performance I did was at a talent show in the first year of secondary school. So we’re talking ’91, I guess. I was 10 and I performed Informer. Do you remember the song?

Payman: Yeah.

Prav: Yeah.

Milad Shadrooh: Informer , you know say Daddy me Snow me, I go blame A licky boom-boom down. I’d have no idea what I was saying, but I just mimicked the words, right? And I had a friend of mine doing a beatbox, so we were on stage. He was beatboxing and I was doing that and we smashed it and I fought, you know what, and the whole school in front of a whole school. And I was like, this is what I want to do, man. This is awesome.

Payman: Were you the class clown as well.

Milad Shadrooh: Always. Yeah. Always. But, but here’s the thing, teachers used to love me. I was like teacher’s pet/clown. It was great.

Payman: I can see that.

Prav: Taking yourself back to that first performance. Were you nervous? Were you anxious? Were you super-confident, I’m going to go out there and just deliver a hell of a performance?

Milad Shadrooh: Always that. Yeah. Yeah. So my dad’s a musician and I’m so in Iranian music, he’s done a lot of stuff and produce stuff for other people. Then he used to play keyboards basically. So any Iranian concert, did you used to go to Iranian concerts back in the day?

Payman: I have been.

Milad Shadrooh: So like, Hammersmith palais, all them things. And my dad would have been Blinkies with all the biggest stars. So we’ve always had a studio in the house and I used to watch him doing and I’d go and kind of copy and learn how to make music and learn the structure of music and stuff just from my dad. So I’d always be at all the concerts. I’d always be at the cabarets, every dinner party, there’d be music, I’d be playing dombak, which is like Iranian drums or something, or I’d be dancing. And so, being on stage and watching that was always kind of normal. So I wouldn’t get nervous. I get excited to get out there and perform and things. So that’s where it kind of started. And I just carried on doing it. And then at that time, jungle music then started becoming popular, right? And MCing to jungle is incredibly fast, but I could always spit really fast. So I started doing that. And I start doing under-18 club nights, which would like start at 3:00 in the afternoon. I finish at 7:00 PM, in clubs, essentially.

Milad Shadrooh: So I’d be MCing in under-18 raves, and you would have to be sort of under-18 to go. House parties, I’d always be the guy on the mic, spitting bars.

Prav: So when you’re spitting or MCing or whatever that terminology is, are you just making stuff up on the spot or are you prep?

Milad Shadrooh: So two ways. Yeah. So there’s kind of, there’s like different aspects. So there’s the hosting side where all you’re doing is just, “Who’s having a good time, the ladies looking good,” or whatever stuff. So just trying to hype people up and get them ready. And that’s the hosting side doing shout outs and bigging people up. Then there’s like free-styling where you just make stuff up on the spot. And you kind of, you talk about the girl in the red dress or you talk about guys to my side or whatever, right? Then there’s bars, which you’ve written you’ve pre-written.

Prav: Got ya.

Milad Shadrooh: So, you’ve kind of got to be able to do a bit of all three of them to be a really good MC. So, majority of is written though. So, and then you just choose what to do and you got to know the music. So, you know when the beats about to drop, so you come in at the right time, you got to know when the vocals and the music starts, so you stop rapping, because it’s horrible, if you’re spitting over someone else’s rapping already, right? It’s just terrible. So you to have a good understanding of music and the actual songs themselves. So yeah, it was yeah man, I still love doing it. It was something I’ve… I just write lyrics all the time. I’ve still got all my old lyrics books, all of them.

Prav: What’s the first thing that you wrote?

Milad Shadrooh: My first lyric I wrote?

Prav: Yeah.

Milad Shadrooh: It was probably some really like profane horrible thing that I was listening to Snoop Dogg at a time. And so, it was probably just-

Prav: Rude.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, probably. Probably about girls and something rude, because I would have been about 12, right?

Prav: And all the influence from those lyrics as well, right?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, but I never used to swear. I’ve never been a swearer, because I just felt like it’s good for everyone to be able to appreciate your music and kind of, I just never really swore in any songs really.

Payman: So you get to dental school. You’re this cool rapper MC guy. How did you fit in with the…?

Milad Shadrooh: I feel all right? Because I was a Londoner as well, right? So, going to school in London, there was a lot of people also from London, but also from North and everywhere else, right? So, it was all right, man. I kind of, I still, I didn’t do the halls thing. I think if you come to uni and you go halls, you establish a really close network of friends, right? Because you’re living in the same place. But because I was from London, I didn’t get halls.

Payman: You stayed at home.

Milad Shadrooh: Well, my home was Putney at the time, right? So Putney to Whitechapel is like an hour and a half, two hours. It’s a long one. But had a friend of mine from secondary school, he got into the same uni. So he went to Queen Mary’s, he was doing maths and he was living in Oxford at the time. So he got halls. But the only halls left was like a married couple room.

Payman: With a double bed.

Milad Shadrooh: He was like, “Mil, do you want to come with me?” I was like, “Brother I’m there 100%.” So, it was like a house, right? So we went in the halls, but it was a house, the married couple room upstairs. So me and him had a double bed. So basically, for year one, yeah, in freshers, it was jokes. It was so much fun though, I had that year, it was, we bought decks. So he was a DJ. So we had decks in our room. We used to throw parties in our room all the time. And it was literally on the same road as the nightclub at a uni. So after parties were always happening in our… It was just, it was a great year man.

Payman: Amazing.

Milad Shadrooh: It was good times. Yeah, I got halls that first year and then year two, three, four, I lived in Redbridge, which is kind of on the way to Ilford, like even more Essex. And then I discovered Essex life, because at the time I was MCing, so I’d do clubs in Basildon and Romford than Ilford and Gants Hill and mad places I’d never knew existed.

Prav: How’d you go about getting those gigs? So you said I was MCing here, there and everywhere. Did people pick you up or…?

Milad Shadrooh: So my first ever proper garage MCing, so then garage music came in. That was like, when I kind of re-honed my skill and really became a proper MC. So that was in 1998, December ’98. I had some friends that were just at that time you could literally do club nights, right? It was easy, you’d go to the main club, you’d hire out the club on a night, you’d paid them some money or whatever, and you just booked the DJs. So DJ EZ, he’s probably the best, I think, pound for pound DJ ever, top five world-class he was the guy in garage. But you could book him for like 300 quid for an hour, 400 quid at the time. You’d just call him up and say, “I want to book you, are all right?” So, I’ve MC-ed with the biggest people in garage, because at the time my friends were putting on nights. So the first ever night was a Gass Club, which was very famous, like garage club in Leicester Square, December, 1998. Yeah, that was my first gig.

Payman: So would you run that club night or would you be MC-ing at the…?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, I was booked. Yeah, so it was my friends doing it and I got 100 pounds for an hour, which is awesome, man. I was 18 at the time. I was just 17 actually, just turning 18. So it was awesome. And then from there you just kind of start getting a name for yourself and people hear about you and there were booking agents and stuff. But I got onto radio. So pirate radio was a big thing in the garage scene and there was a massive station in South London called Delight FM. That was the one. Every, so North, South, East, West, they all had their big stations and Delight was the biggest probably in South. So Solid Crew, are you familiar with their work?

Payman: Yeah, yeah.

Milad Shadrooh: So Delight was their station. So it was started by a couple of their members and they all kind of grew out from that. It was done in like Battersea, Clapham, all in kind of estates essentially, and you just creep in there and kind of, because it was illegal, right? Doing pirate radio, so you just kind of creep in and hope though, people don’t come and take your aerial that night and then, yeah, you’d pay your subs, you’d pay five pounds and you’d have a show. So, I had a DJ friend at the time, so we had our own show. And then, because I was on radio a lot, I started to get more bookings and you just get people calling you up, “Oh, I want you for my night.” And all right, 50 pound, 100 pound-

Payman: But you stayed focused, did A-levels.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah man. Yeah, Did A-levels got into dental school obviously and during dental school, but I remember so I’d have a booking to finish at two in the morning, go back home, shower, clean up, have breakfast and go into clinic.

Payman: Love that.

Prav: And you never did, did you ever skip class-

Milad Shadrooh: Never.

Prav: All that sort of stuff.

Milad Shadrooh: Honesty, if you speak to any of my uni friends, I was always there. I’m not saying I didn’t nod off in pharmacology or dental materials.

Payman: I think we all do. We love it.

Milad Shadrooh: But even if you weren’t out, you’ll probably nodded off in those two. But I was always present, always there, always signed in. And in clinics I did all my patients all the time. I didn’t miss out on my numbers. I hit all the targets, we had to hit, exams. But that’s what I’m saying. I would knuckle down. So when it was time for studying, when it was time for whatever, I studied well with people. So I’d have a friend of mine, John, who lives in Malta, he’s Maltese now. So I’d go to his house, we’d literally lock off for like two weeks. I live with him for two weeks, we would study 10 hours a day.

Prav: And you stop the music at that point.

Milad Shadrooh: All of that would stop. Yeah. When it was time to get serious, it would, it would stop, because I knew it’s not easy to get into dental school. Getting into dental school in my opinion starts around 13 years of age, 14 years of age, because you got to smash your GCSEs in order to do the A levels in order to get into dental school. So it starts from then.

Payman: The system here. It always does start earlier then.

Milad Shadrooh: You can’t get D’s and E’s in science at GCSE and then expect to get into dental school, because they won’t let you do maths, physics, chemistry, biology, at A-level, if you’ve got D’s and E’s. So you’ve got to get A’s and B’s in that at GCSE level to then go on to do that at any level. And then you’ve got to get straight A’s nowadays to even be considered.

Payman: It sounds like you handled dental school okay. How about, so when you first became a dentist, what was your first job? Who was your first mentor, your first boss and all that?

Milad Shadrooh: So, the same guy that I’ve been with ever. So my first job is the practise I now own.

Payman: Oh really?

Milad Shadrooh: I’ve worked in one place.

Payman: Really like Tif Qureshi is similar.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. So it’s in Basingstoke.

Payman: And you were VT there? And now you owned them.

Milad Shadrooh: And now I’m there, yeah. So I remember very well, we were on oral surgery clinic and we’re all talking about what we’re doing next, what’s our plans are for our life and all the rest of it. And I was like, “Yeah, my life plan is to move to California.” Because we had loads of family there and friends and stuff. And I always wanted to live in LA. I was like, “Yeah, I want to move out there.” And at the time there was a board exam you could sit to get a conversion. The year I qualified 2004, they got rid of the board exam and it became university. You had to go and join their third years or whatever. It’s like $50,000 a year tuition plus living expense. I was like, “Blimey!” But at the time I didn’t know that. So the whole plan was to do that.

Milad Shadrooh: So we’re in the last year and I had also to chew on it at the time, was like, “Okay, well while you’re studying for your board exams, why don’t you just work as an assistant?” I was like, “What’s an assistant?” He was like, “Well, it’s like a associate, but you work under someone else’s contract, but they just pay you for the work you do.” And I was like, “Okay, that sounds interesting. I might as well while I’m studying.” “Yeah, I’ve got a friend of mine has got clinic in Basingstoke. He used to be a trainer. He can help you do all that stuff, but you can just work there while you’re studying.” I was, “All right. What is this Basingstoke you’re talking of? I know not of this village?”

Milad Shadrooh: He was like, “Yeah, just go meet him.” So I literally went and met him, we got on really, really well. And he literally gave me the job there. We had a meeting in a restaurant for lunch and he gave me the job there and then. He was like, “Look, it’s yours if you want it.”

Payman: So who was that?

Milad Shadrooh: Oscar, his name is, and he was like, “Mate, you can, yeah. Just come and work here when you qualify.” And this was three months before anyone even had to apply for a job, right? So then when we did all the CV writing and pitching for jobs and VT and all that, I was like, “Gassed it bruv.” You lot do that, man. I got a job. So I qualified and literally we qualified in July. I was there in 19th of August. My first day, walked in didn’t know what I was doing. Because Oscar had experienced, he gave me full clinical freedom. He was look, “Take an hour for a checkup. Do whatever you want, you just work at your own pace.” And he paid me as like an assistant, even though I wasn’t generating that kind of money, because he knew then longterm, it would pay off. And within about a year or two, he said, “You know what? One day this business is yours if you want it.” Oh, wow. So I owe him a lot, man. And he still works there now two days a week.

Payman: What’s his surname?

Milad Shadrooh: He’s Irish. So basically it was Joe. So I became kind of an honorary Irishman and he loves golf. Right, Oscar was sick, he played off scratch, when he was 18 and he pays off two and four, he’s really good and I’ve never held a golf club in my life. But like I said, I’m one of those guys, right? Give me a sport and I’ll be decent at it. So I remember him taking me along, he like, “Look, you’re playing, you’re a dentist now, you have to learn how to play golf. This is just something we do.” I was like, “All right, let me learn this sport.” So he took me along and I just picked up a stick and hit it. And it went quite far and straight. But then I had lessons and I started playing golf quite a lot with him. And he was great, man. He literally taught me the ropes. Every Wednesday. We’d have a meeting after work and we’d hang around.

Milad Shadrooh: And he showed me his tips for surgical extractions, how to do endos properly. And you know how to prep things, how to really kind of work within the world of dentistry. Then he started teaching me the business side. After about three or four years, he offered me a partnership. So I bought into the practise as a partner. And then a couple of years after that, he was like, “Look mate, I’m out if you want it, it’s yours.” And that’s when everything was changing, the new contract was in, HTM O1-05 was coming in. He was like, “Look, I just want to turn up in dentistry. I don’t want to worry about his business stuff, but you’re young. You’ve got energy, you’ve got enthusiasm. You understand business, take it.”

Prav: What was the most challenging part of that transition? So often when you, especially in that situation, you’ve, you’ve been working with him. He trusts you, you trust him. And then up comes the conversation of buy my practise, getting valued, agree a price. Was there ever any difficulty at that point?

Milad Shadrooh: Never, but I think that’s a lot down to him being so kind of accepting and cool. And he got a valuation. I got a valuation. They were very similar. I think the issue comes when it’s miles apart and you’re arguing with your former mentor or whatever, they were very similar. And we were both super-fair. So I bought the freehold as well. That was valued, it was what it was. So I bought the freehold for what the value was. The Goodwill was valued. That’s such an arbitrary, weird figure, right? But it was what it was. So we both were happy with the figure. So, I got the funding and I bought it. But what was key for me was for the patients, there was never any kind of, “Oh, this is so different now.” We kept it the same. We did it as a partnership. His name was still on the wall above mine. We didn’t change, because it was his practise for 20 years. So I didn’t suddenly come in and go right now, let’s rub my hands, I’m rebranding, I’m changing this, I’m changing that.

Payman: A common mistake, I see it all the time. Yeah, because it’s exciting to own your own practise. And as all the works, all the paperwork’s going through, you’re getting excited and you have this weird idea of people will realise something’s… And it’s actually a big mistake.

Milad Shadrooh: I agree man.

Payman: Because the patients and the staff want to know that everything’s the same.

Milad Shadrooh: Business as usual.

Payman: And then evolution rather than revolution.

Milad Shadrooh: I love that. Exactly, right. And then slowly that’s what’s happened so slowly. Because we were purely NHS, right? So slowly I brought in the private side of it.

Payman: And it was purely NHS.

Milad Shadrooh: Purely NHS, yeah. So then I converted my list to private after a couple of years. So I bought it. I didn’t go private next day. I still stayed exactly the same, because I didn’t want to rock the boat, man. I’ve taken over, we need to try to change somethings. We need to start establishing certain things.

Payman: What was the thing that you wanted to change definitely? What was he doing wrong in your eyes?

Milad Shadrooh: He wasn’t doing anything wrong at all. What he was doing, which I think everybody was doing was the clinical governance aspect, the compliance on so many things. It wasn’t as strict when he was doing it, yeah? You could have sterilisers in your room. You could have, it was just a different, you didn’t need a million folders with a million policies in it. You just took for granted that you did that. You took it for granted that you didn’t discriminate against a disabled person, right? But you didn’t need a folder telling you that that’s what you do. You just did it. Yeah. So it was all of those things. So, and when he was suddenly faced with the task of having to do all this stuff, he was like, “Dude, I just want to turn up and do my dentistry man.” So I was like, “Well, look, this is, I’m happy to do this.”

Milad Shadrooh: The practise management side of it I enjoyed. So it was having to set these things up and those things happen in the background, and patients again, they don’t see those things. Yeah, so it wasn’t like we need to change all the chairs. Patients don’t care about chairs, right? As long as it’s comfy and they go up and down, they care more about your waiting room. They care more about have you got a TV on the ceiling? They don’t care that you’ve got a 50 grand chair or a five grand chair with reupholstered seats that we don’t care. So we had some Belmont 1980s things, bruv, never broke weighed like five tonnes, but they never broke. There was nothing to go wrong. It just went up and down.

Payman: But then before you became the singing dentist, you were lecturing in clear aligners. So how did you go from doing this NHS cat to being this private cat? Who’s now a teacher in orthodontics? Were you actively trying to get better at ortho?

Milad Shadrooh: Oh. So again, that happened, that happened quite kind of organically and sort of randomly. So at the time when I started going private, I realised that the kind of… Because when I qualified, so veneering was really the big thing, everyone was doing veneers and doing small makeovers with veneers. And this thing came out called Lumineers from [inaudible] dead, thin veneers. And I was, “Oh, this is it.” So, I’ll put booked a weekend off, paid an astronomical amount of money to go on the Lumineers course. And I did it and I was like, “Wow, this, this sounds terrible.” But I don’t know if this is going to work. So tried a case and it was just so fiddly. And so, like there were supposed to be thin and it’s just as thick as anything else. It came out and I was like, “I’m not sure this is really the one for me.”

Milad Shadrooh: And then there was more and more stuff coming out with the heavy preps and people getting in trouble. And I thought, “Oh God, there’s surely a better way of doing this.” And that’s when Tif was really talking about the aligning bleaching bonding, right? That’s what that sounds awesome. So let me kind of look into it. I tried to book an Invisalign course and I couldn’t, because they weren’t doing it in my area or whatever. So Clear Step was a company that was around. Yes. So I thought, “Oh, let me learn about Clear Step.” So they came into my surgery, he did an hour lunch and learn training with me. And off you go.

Payman: Fully fledged orthodontist.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, “Start the ortho my friend.” I was like, “This is sweet.” So start taking impressions sending it in. They send back aligners, you start putting a patient’s mouth doing an IPR, just like winging it.

Payman: One hour man.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah man, mad. So, but then as I was doing the cases, I was like, “Hold on, there’s got to be a better way than this. This can’t be normal.” So I had some orthodontic friends. So I was basically mentored through my kind of orthodontic journey, I suppose, as being formal education, I was just mentored by people, because I learned like that. I learned by watching others and listening to them and absorbing what they’re doing as opposed to sitting there and reading books.

Payman: You can’t get that out of a two day course either, right?

Milad Shadrooh: No, I think you need mentoring me to stuff. You need people to tell you their tips and tricks of what they’ve learned based on their experience.

Milad Shadrooh: … they need people to tell you their tips and tricks of what they’ve learnt based on their experience.

Payman: Then I guess when you get stuck they can help you get unstuck and stuff like that.

Milad Shadrooh: Exactly right. It’s so important. Your mentorship, I think, is the key when you try and learn anything, or having a coach or having someone there, right?

Payman: Mm-hmm.

Milad Shadrooh: So I just started doing cases and learning while I was on the job. Learning, okay, so that kind of movement only works well if you do X, Y and Z. No one told me that, I just kind of learnt it. So I was just doing so many cases of it, and then Clearstep kind of decided to disappear. Didn’t they?

Payman: Mm-hmm. I remember having a conversation with you at the time you’d paid for a bunch of cases and paid the-

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, and they disappeared and I had loads of cases ongoing. I was like, “This is maddening.”

Payman: Ongoing as well.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, I had about eight cases to finish.

Payman: So how did you handle that?

Milad Shadrooh: Thankfully, I got my money back just before they disappeared. So money-wise, I was okay.

Payman: Did you get wind of it, somehow?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. Yeah.

Payman: Yeah. Patients?

Milad Shadrooh: The patients that were ongoing, they were like suddenly stuck, need more aligners to finish and no one’s there, but I knew the guys at S4S already because I used to do their snoring devices, Sleepwell. I made quite a few of those. They were kind of telling me, “Look, we might have an aligner thing coming.” I was like, “Okay, what is it?” “Smart Line.” ‘All right, let me come and have a look at it.”

Milad Shadrooh: So one of the patients that was ongoing, I sent them the impressions and they were like, ‘Yeah, we can finish this quite quickly and quite simply.” I was like, “All right, this is awesome.” So they sent me some aligners. I put it in, it was much easier than what Clearstep was doing. I thought, “Okay this is pretty cool.” So I finished all of my cases to my own expense. Obviously, I had to pay for them and I finished them. But then I thought, “Okay, these guys are kind of, it’s more digital,” because Clearstep was literally analogue, right? They’d get models, break the teeth off, move them, recast them.

Payman: Yeah.

Milad Shadrooh: Whereas these guys were doing it digitally. I was like, “This has got to be the way it’s going.” So I kind of spoke with them and I moved all my patients over to that, started doing loads of aligner cases. Then the more I did them, they were like, “Okay.” I worked quite closely with the guys at S4S and learning things, you need to kind of change this, change that. They were tweaking a lot of stuff. They were doing loads of R&D into it.

Milad Shadrooh: Then when they finally felt ready to really push this out there and start running courses on it, they approached me and they’re like, “Look, Mil, you’re quite a confident speaker. You’ve done loads of cases now. I’m sure you’ve learnt a lot. You were mentored well. Do you want to run the courses?” I was like, “Okay, but I’m not like an orthodontist, dude.” He goes, “Yeah, but our target audience, our market is not orthodontists. This is dentists who have an interest in ortho, who if you pick the right cases and do proper diagnostics, you can do this stuff.” I was, “All right.”

Payman: Did you put the curriculum together for that course?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah.

Payman: Yeah.

Milad Shadrooh: With S4S, we sat down. I looked at it purely from a dentist point of view, right.

Payman: Uh-huh.

Milad Shadrooh: Because the majority of the time, I mean, on the courses, we still get orthodontists turning up and I’m looking at them. I like to do an intro at the start, “So what’s your name? What you do and why are you here?”

Payman: Are you still doing those courses?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. We still run them. Yeah. Then I’d get occasionally, “Yeah, I’m a specialist orthodontist. Qualified 10 years ago.” I’m thinking, “What am I going to teach this guy?” But the point is he’s like, “But you know, I’ve never done aligners,” because their work is bracket work. They’re doing proper ones. They’re doing pulling canines out of noses and what have you. But then when it comes to just some simple alignment before an aesthetic case, they don’t want to have to bracket it up for 12 months. They just want to use some aligners and fix it.

Payman: Are you just teaching or are you doing the support side as well?

Milad Shadrooh: I do most of the teaching on the day, but I give everyone my direct contact details and, “Listen to anything you need just holler at me.” Yeah, I don’t mind them. I’m available all the time, but with S4S they’ve got proper orthodontic therapists, not therapists, orthodontic technicians, sorry, there. They plan the cases. They’re doing stuff. So they’re not just a bunch of like kids that have been taught how to use the software. They have technicians there. So there’s not a lot that they don’t know on a support level when it comes to aligners. The key with aligners is there’s three aspects in my opinion, that lead to your success. Number one is correct case selection, right?

Payman: Yeah.

Milad Shadrooh: You’ve got to choose the right cases. That doesn’t mean don’t do complex stuff. Just do it if it’s right for you and you know what you’re doing, but don’t do that as your first crazy case. It’s like that with anything, the minute you learn implants, you suddenly going through All-on-4, you learn how to do a single tooth implant in a nice molar area. So you’ve got your endo where if you suddenly go rotary, don’t just pick like the worst upper molar to do, just do bloody central. So it’s like that with anything, if you’re doing aligners, don’t pick the most complex, horrible case. So first thing is case selection.

Milad Shadrooh: Second thing is patient education and motivation because if your patient’s not on board from day one and they don’t know their responsibilities, you’re screwed. Your whole treatment for nine months a year, whatever, is just going to be fighting against someone who doesn’t want to be on that journey.

Milad Shadrooh: I call orthodontics a trip. You start at one place and you want to finish somewhere else. The method by which you go is up to you. It could be a bus. It could be a train. It could be a motorbike. You’re driving. Your lab is your sat nav, but the patient’s your passenger. If they want to jump off constantly it’s going to be a horrible journey. So you’ve got to educate them. You got to motivate them. You’ve got to keep them in the car with you. Happy that they’re going on this journey. The very end is once you get to the destination, retention is so key with aligner treatments, right?

Payman: Yeah.

Milad Shadrooh: If you don’t have a good retention protocol and you haven’t explained this from day one, you’re going to have a nightmare. They’ll come back constantly, “Oh, this is too smooth.” “This is not as straight.” “What, I’ve got to wear retainers for the rest of my life? You never told me that. What? This wire’s got be stuck on my teeth forever? Are you mad? I can’t floss. I’ll get lettuce getting stuck in there all the time. What’s wrong with you? Take it off.” “No, you got to keep on.” Well, if you don’t explain that day one, you have a horrible time. So those are the three keys. Once you establish that and you’re good at communicating you can do aligner treatments very successfully.

Payman: What’s the biggest nightmare patient you’ve had or the biggest clinical mistake you’ve ever made where you’ve just thought, “Oh, my God, I can’t believe I’ve just done this”? Then how did you recover from that?

Milad Shadrooh: Probably the biggest mistake was choosing dentistry in 1999 when I should have just stuck with the music, my friend. How did I overcome it? 15 years later, start singing about teeth. That’s it? No, no, I’m joking.

Payman: Pulled the wrong tooth out ever?

Milad Shadrooh: No, touch wood. No, no, no, never done the wrong tooth. You know what? To be fair, I haven’t had any of those like crazy disasters, genuinely. There’s patients that I think because I’ve always been a good communicator, I think if you can communicate well and patients genuinely like you, you avoid so many issues.

Payman: Totally.

Milad Shadrooh: Stuff goes wrong all the time. It’s not necessarily mistakes. It’s things that I felt, “Oh, that’s a shame.” There’s been teeth that I’ve properly thought, “You know what? This is shot. There’s no way I can save this.” But patients are really like, “Doc, is there nothing else you can do? Please do it?. Then you’re endo-ing something that you know you can’t restore very well and you kind of endo. You save it for like one year, two years, three years.

Payman: I think being in the same practise for a long time, Tiff always talks about seeing your own failures.

Milad Shadrooh: Yes.

Payman: So that initial Lumineer’s case, how did that look 10 years or … You know what I mean? That kind of work I mean.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, I know exactly. It’s that? So the Lumineer case was … to be fair, still looked all right, but it just needed maintenance. It needed one replaced here and one became a crown and then it doesn’t look as good as everything else because there’s different porcelain and different times. It just becomes a management thing.

Payman: The point I’m making is a mistake, there’s the mistake that you make and there and then, and terrible sinking feeling and perforated a root canal type mistake. Then there’s the other type of mistake which is a whole treatment modality of something you did to a patient 10 years ago, and 10 years later thinking, “I could have done that better,” you know?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, yeah. Again, because I’ve been at the same practise a long time, I haven’t seen too many of those if I’m totally honest.

Payman: I like that.

Milad Shadrooh: Touch wood, I haven’t seen too many. But again, it’s because I’ve always been really good at knowing my limits. I think that’s another key issue for people, you want to do a lot because the majority of the time you’re driven by your desire to do the best thing for your patient. You really want to do well for your patient. So you take on something that’s a little bit outside of your skillset at that time. Then you’re constantly trying to recover from that initial commitment you’ve made to that treatment plan. I’ve always been quite good at just not doing that. I learnt very early on doing stuff.

Milad Shadrooh: I mean probably the worst stuff is … Oh, actually I remember some. So I remember the first time I gave a patient a facial palsy from an IV block. That was pretty terrifying. Obviously, I went a bit too high and I kind of gave in, and was like, “Yeah, yeah.” I started drilling, they were numb, it was working, and then suddenly one eye stopped blinking. I was kind of looking at him thinking, “This isn’t right.” So they were like, yeah, blinking like that. I thought, “Okay, are you all right there?” Yeah, I’m all right. My eye just feels a bit funny.” I was like, “Wow, that’s a bit of a problem.” But I managed it. You tape their eye shut and explain to them that it’ll wear off. Then I finished the treatment, sat them in the waiting room until it wore off, and they were absolutely fine.

Payman: Communication.

Milad Shadrooh: It was communication. It was terrifying at the time. I was like, “Oh, my God, what have I done?” Then I realised what I’ve done and you fix it. I remember taking out a retained root, upper, and I pushed it into the-

Payman: The sinus.

Milad Shadrooh: … the sinus. Crapped myself. But I was like, “Okay, okay, think, relax.” Touch wood, communication. I’d explained to them, that’s a risk. I told them an OAF may happen. I’m going to do my best to make sure it doesn’t.” But dude, it popped up so quick, I was like, “Oh, my God. Wow.” You crap yourself, obviously, but then you just think, you relax, you take a deep breath and go, “Okay, what do I do? Okay, let’s manage it. Call the hospital, say, ‘Look this is what’s happened. Can you see them now?’ ‘Yes, we can.'” Tell them not to sneeze. Give them a nose inhaler thing and say, “Off you go to the hospital.” They recovered it. Job’s done. So mistakes happen, but it’s how you deal with them.

Payman: Yeah.

Milad Shadrooh: I remember my first file break in an endo. Again, I’d warned the patient this thing can happen and it broke. I was like, “Oh, okay, unfortunately, the separation has occurred. Let’s take an X-ray.” But again, luckily it broke right at the tip of the apex. So you actually have … By this one, I’d done quite a bit of irrigation and I was, “Okay, hopefully, this will be all right.”

Payman: Yeah.

Milad Shadrooh: It’s an expensive root canal filling but hopefully it can work and touch wood, the patient kept the tooth for a foreseeable. So I think it’s minimising risk. Of course, knowing what you’re doing, but communicating. Hiding stuff, as you know, you hear them stories where a file breaking, don’t tell the patient, or you know something, they’re the worst. They’re the worst.

Milad Shadrooh: Look, mistakes happen. You should hold up your hand, say, “Look, unfortunately, this has happened. It’s something that can happen. I explained to you beforehand that there is a risk that is going to happen. Unfortunately, it has. Here’s a statistic in how many cases it does happen. Let’s now fix it.” That’s it.

Payman: Moving forward. When was the point that you realised that you were famous?

Milad Shadrooh: Good question.

Payman: Yeah. Talk us through it step by step, what happened?

Milad Shadrooh: So how this thing happened and I’ll explain that. So basically, obviously I had a music background in rapping and MCing, and freestyle and making lyrics up and all that kind of stuff.

Payman: You do believe you’re famous, right?

Milad Shadrooh: No.

Payman: You don’t?

Milad Shadrooh: No. People say this to me and I get DMs all the time.

Payman: Let’s start with that. How famous are you? If you go to Sainsbury’s do you get noticed?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. Yes.

Payman: How many times, like several times?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, several times.

Payman: So can you go anywhere? The cost of that. Tell us about that. I mean, I wouldn’t like that at all.

Milad Shadrooh: I don’t mind it if I’m honest because if you grow up performing, if you grow up being on stage and kind of wanting-

Payman: That’s kind of your dream come true.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, that’s your thing for people to know you, people to recognise you, “Oh, my God. That’s that guy,” and like it. Yeah? If you’re recognised for something that people don’t like, that’s got to be horrible. You know?

Payman: Mm-hmm.

Milad Shadrooh: So people that get a lot of hate and a lot of animosity, that’s got to be not very nice. Touch wood, people genuinely … the people that come up to me anyway like what I do. There might be others that don’t like what I do then they’re not going to come up to me or they say, “Oh, there’s that, whatever.” But people that do come up they’re like, “Oh, mate, we love you. Oh, my kids watch you. You’re so funny. Oh, my kids are brushing because of you. It’s so jokes. We love what you do. You’re so creative. You’re so talented. Mate, those eyebrows.”

Payman: The anonymity is totally gone.

Milad Shadrooh: Gone.

Payman: Right? You can’t go and have a quiet coffee in Starbucks, or can you put it in the background, mate?

Milad Shadrooh: It’s not to that level. I can go and then I might not get noticed at all. But then sometimes I see it. It’s very easy. I see it and people kind of clock and they look away. Then they kind of look at you again. Then I see them turn to whoever they’re with, whisper something, that person immediately looks at you and then tries to style it out like they weren’t looking. Then they get their mobile phone out-

Payman: How do you feel about that?

Milad Shadrooh: … and then they start going through it. Then they’re looking at the phone, looking at me. Then all I do, I kind of look at them. I know this is going on, I look at them and I just raise one eyebrow. “Yeah, it is that guy.” Then they’re like, “Mate, we think you’re wicked. Oh, can we have a selfie?” “Yeah, man, course” Then I raise one eyebrow or raise the other, depending on what side I’m standing and it’s great. It’s great banter. So I really enjoy it. The times I find it difficult is actually at dental places because obviously then at a dental show, I’m going to get recognised the most because that’s the industry. That’s the times-

Payman: Yeah. I mean, walking around with you at one of those dental shows is a nightmare, right? You can’t get from point A to point B.

Milad Shadrooh: No, that becomes debilitating at times. Some people, again, they’re super nice about it. Some people in our industry are proper rude with it and it’s those times that I get a bit annoyed.

Payman: Go on.

Milad Shadrooh: Like I’m having a conversation. It’s quite obvious I’m talking to you, we’re catching up. We’re talking business. They’ll literally come from the side, like grab me, “Mate. Oh, it’s you. Let’s have a photo.” I’m like, “Dude, come on man I’m talking here. All right? But let’s do it anyway because I don’t want to be a dick-

Payman: Asked, yeah.

Milad Shadrooh: … excuse my language, to that one person because then they’ll go off and be like, “Oh, that Singing Dentist is right up himself. He’s such a knob,” but I’m not at all. But honestly, in the whole time, everything’s that changed and the fame thing that I find strange, I’m still genuinely exactly the same. I don’t see any difference in the way I behave.

Payman: Yeah, you haven’t changed at all.

Milad Shadrooh: I haven’t changed at all. So I want to show love and I’d hate for someone to go off and be like, “Oh, what a knob? Oh, that guy,” because I’m not like that at all. It would just be that at that specific time, I’m having a conversation and it’s about business and something. Then you come and grab me up. The people that wait there, I can see them waiting. “I’m like, bruv, give me one sec. Hi, are you guys all right?”

Milad Shadrooh: I’ll always smile. I’ll always engage and I love talking to people and getting that feedback that they like what I do, is awesome. It means a lot to me. So I always have time for the people but it’s the rude ones, man. It’s the ones that grab you up and they’re just abrasive with it, I find that just a bit annoying if I’m honest.

Payman: What about the kids and the family, how do they take it? How do they respond to it? Do they come back from school and say, “Hey, you know my dad’s the coolest”?

Milad Shadrooh: So my daughter’s five. She’ll be six next month. My son’s three, three and a half-

Payman: They’re just that little bit too young.

Milad Shadrooh: … they’re that little bit too young to kind of fully know, but they know that daddy does teeth and they know that daddy’s The Singing Dentist.

Payman: My nine-year-old daughter today when I told her that you were coming in, she had this look of pride on her face that I’ve never seen before.

Milad Shadrooh: Wow, that’s awesome. Yeah, so they know, my daughter, especially. Whenever I do a song, I play it to them because I know if you can keep the attention of like a five and a three-year-old for a minute and a half, you’ve done something well. I’ve seen it. If they kind of watch it for 10 seconds and then swipe or walk off, I’m like, “Maybe I need to rethink this one.” I won’t put it out because I know if it hits that demographic, we’re onto a winner.

Payman: I used to do that. I used to put logos in front of my kids. I agree with that-

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. Dude because if you’re honest

Payman: …because there’s a purity.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, they don’t have misconceptions of our preconceived ideas. They’re not corrupted yet by media and the world. They’ll tell you to your face, “Don’t like it.”

Payman: Talk us through that first video as it was trending. Why did you know it was or that it was happening?

Milad Shadrooh: Right. Here we go. So it was, I remember very well, there was Drake, Hotline Bling, was the song at a time? I had an endo booked in funnily enough, and it was like 45 minutes, the appointment, and the patient didn’t show. I was like, “This is annoying now. What can I do? I’ve got nothing.” My nurse was like, “Yeah, just go have a break.” I was kind of sitting there and Hotline Blink came on the radio and I was just doing something else, and I was literally like (singing) I was like, (singing) I was like, “This is quite funny,” (singing) I was like, “This is jokes.” I was just started freestyling and I wrote that whole thing in that five-minute break.

Payman: Awesome.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. I was like, “Oh, this is jokes.” I got my phone out. I brought up the song on YouTube, start playing it through the crappy computer speakers, got my phone, and recorded myself doing this freestyle basically to Hotline Bling.

Payman: What were you going to do with it?

Milad Shadrooh: Nothing. I recorded it. I thought, “This is funny.” I was in like a WhatsApp group with a couple of other dentists and I’ve got another friend of mine, Payman.

Payman: Sobhani.

Milad Shadrooh: Sobhani.

Payman: Yeah.

Milad Shadrooh: So I just sent it to everyone and it went into that WhatsApp group. They were like, “Oh, mate, this is so funny. This is jokes.” Payman was like, “Bro, you should put this online.” I like, “No, man. Forget it.” Because in that one as well, I mentioned the GDC. I kind of mentioned the DDU. Just like say, dentists always getting sued and all this headache for a ban too and all this kind of stuff.

Milad Shadrooh: So he was like, “Mate, you should put it on.” I was like, “No, this is silly, dentists don’t behave like this. We’re not supposed to be like that and dah, dah, dah.” He was like, Mate, I’m going to put it on.” I was like, “Don’t put it on brother, allow it. Don’t do it.” He posted it. I remember I went into the shower. It was like 7:00 PM at night, 7:30. I go into the shower. My phone was on the side. Then my phone just started popping off messages, messages, messages.

Payman: Posted it where, Facebook?

Milad Shadrooh: Dentist for Dentists? The Facebook group, the closed group. It started popping off. I was like, “What the hell is happening?” I’ve got out, it’s like comments, comments? He posted it in the group and people were like, “Oh, my God, this is so funny. This is jokes. Can I share it?” We can’t share it because no one could share because it was a closed group, right?

Payman: Right.

Milad Shadrooh: Then Mukesh, Sonny. He was like, “Mil.” He was in that the WhatsApp group, goes “Mil, I’m going to post this. All right?” He posted it in some like World Dental-

Payman: World Dental Federation.

Milad Shadrooh: … something, yeah, with like 10 million Asian dentists. Most of them like Indian dentists do this. It got to like 250,000 views in like two, three days.

Payman: Whoa, geez.

Milad Shadrooh: I was like, “I can’t believe this. This is going a bit mad here.” I was like, “Oh, my God, people seem to like this.” But the general public started seeing it. They were like, “What’s an endo?” I could see the comments, “What’s an endo? What’s the DDU? Because I used a lot of dental terminology. I thought, “Okay, maybe I should do one just for people. Maybe what can I do about oral hygiene advice? Okay, cool. What’s the biggest song right now in the world? Happy by Pharrell.”

Milad Shadrooh: I was like, “It’s globally everywhere. It’s in Despicable Me.” I was like, All right, perfect demographic. What can I say, “Happy, happier, like gappy? You might end up gapping. If you don’t brush your teeth or if you’d get gum disease. Cool.” (singing) boom. Then I started writing it.

Milad Shadrooh: Next day, went into surgery, recorded it. Then I thought, “Okay, I need to put this somewhere. Where should I put it? YouTube, obviously that’s the platform. I need a name. I need a brand, Rapping Dentist. That’d be awesome, let me call myself Rapping Dentist because I can’t really sing.” So I want it to be like a rap. I was a Rapping Dentist, cool.

Milad Shadrooh: I wrote out the logo and I went to my dad. I was like, “Dad, I’m going to do this thing with the music and dentistry. I’ve got this idea, Rapping Dentist, what do you think?” I showed him the logo, genuinely he looked at it and went, “Raping Dentist, what is this?” I was like, “Dad, he rapping, there’s two Ps in it.” He goes, “No, no, no. It looks bad. It looks like raping.”

Milad Shadrooh: I was like, “Yeah, yeah. Dad, you’re right actually, maybe it does.” What should I call myself?” “You call yourself, Singing Dentist. It’s nice.” I was like … I don’t know why he’s turned Arab, he don’t talk like that at all. And so I called myself The Singing Dentist and I made my own crappy logo. I literally took a picture of my eyebrows like this and kind of did like-

Payman: So on the one that it is? You [inaudible] that, right?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. I did it now into a proper one, but I did it on an app on my phone, like cartoonized it, or whatever you do, right?

Payman: Yeah.

Milad Shadrooh: Then I made a YouTube channel called The Singing Dentist-

Payman: Are you aware there’s another Singing Dentist? Are you aware of this, Milad?

Milad Shadrooh: At that time, yeah. He was like a proper opera guy, he signed a million-pound deal.

Payman: Yeah, poor guy.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah.

Payman: Yeah. I was at some dental event and he broke out into song. He could sing.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, he could actually probably sing, which I would say, like that way you said it, “He could sing,” like I can’t. What’s that about, what you say about it?

Payman: Go on. Go on.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, so I called myself The Singing Dentist and made a YouTube channel. Put it on there and it started to get views, bruv. It started doing well. I was, “Oh, my God. So there’s an appetite for this.” People liked it. People find it funny. So then I waited a couple of months, but I very early realised or very quickly realised, “I can’t just do this every week. This is going to be like divisive so I can’t just keep putting these out.”

Milad Shadrooh: So I waited, waited till summer and then Cheerleader came out, (singing) I was like, “That’s a big record. What can I do? ‘Cheerleader, sweet eater.'” Boom. So I parodied that and put out a song about sweets and not eating too many sugar. That started doing well. I was like, “All right, what else can we do? Teeth whitening.” Something came on the news about teeth whitening. I was like, “All right, what can I do about teeth whitening? You want to do teeth whitening, Michael Jackson.” I said, (singing) I said, (singing) boom. Recorded it. It started doing well.

Payman: But which one really did well, which one?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, No, it was at this stage my nurse was like, “You know what? He’s doing something legit. I’m going to call the local paper.” So she called the local paper, the Basingstoke Gazette and said, “Look, my boss has been doing these online parodies. He’s getting loads of traction and stuff.” The moment for me, let me go back to that. It was March 2016. The first one of them was November, ’15. I got a message on my Facebook page, this thing on this Facebook page.

Milad Shadrooh: “Hi,” it was the evening, “I just wanted to tell you that what you’re doing is amazing. My daughter who’s 11 and disabled has never wanted to brush her teeth or go to the dentist. But having watched your songs and listening to what you’re doing, off her own accord now she said, ‘Mummy, I want to brush my teeth and go to the dentist tomorrow.'”

Payman: Oh, my God.

Milad Shadrooh: And at this time I’d just had my daughter. My daughter was like a year and a half. I was sitting on the couch and I was like, “Oh, my God.” I kind of looked over to my wife and went, “Babe, read this. This is unbelievable. This is affected one family’s life in a really positive way. So maybe I’m onto something here. It’s obviously doing some good for some people.” So that’s why I carried on doing them.

Milad Shadrooh: Then I’d start getting more and more of these messages. It constantly kept kind of affirming the reason why I was doing it was to get dental hygiene advice to people in a fun way and then at least make them think about their teeth to make them think about oral hygiene, or for the kids to not be so scared. So it was because of this, that my nurse then was like, “Look, I’m going to tell the papers.” She didn’t tell me she was going to do it.

Milad Shadrooh: The papers call back and were like, “We want to come and meet this guy today.” So they came in that afternoon. I was, “Oh, wow, this is awesome.” Did a little article. They said, “Yeah, we’re going to pitch this out to a couple of papers as well.” I was, “All right.” I remember it was a Tuesday. Wednesday I had a call from Southampton [Solum 00:47:07], which is basically like a big organisation that does a lot of papers. They said, “Yeah, we’re going to run your story in a couple of papers.” I was like, “All right. Cool. Whatever.” Thursday morning it was in the Metro. Now, the Metro in London is like a free paper that goes like-

Payman: Mental, yeah, yeah.

Milad Shadrooh: … half a million copies or whatever it is, for free. I was in the Metro, “Dentist doing good. Singing about teeth.” I was like, “Oh, wow.” That was Thursday morning, Thursday afternoon, the BBC came to my surgery and I was on BBC news-

Payman: Wow.

Milad Shadrooh: … Thursday afternoon, Friday, I went into London and did the ITV London news as their Feel Good Friday story.

Payman: Whoa.

Milad Shadrooh: That following Thursday, Dr. Hilary and Lorraine, because Dr. Haley was on Lorraine, like every other Thursday doing a health segment, they talked about The Singing Dentist, saying, “And there’s this guy online, he’s going viral and he’s done this stuff and wouldn’t it be great …” They showed a couple of clips and they loved it.

Milad Shadrooh: Dr. Hilary was like, “Oh, yeah, it’s so funny, dah, dah, dah, dah.” I got a phone call from Lorraine people saying, “So Dr. Hilary’s away next week, we’ve had such a good response. Would you like to come in and do a dental special on Lorraine’s health segment?” I was like, “Okay, this is live, right?” They’re like, “Yeah, live.” By this point, the BBC news was pre-record. ITV news was pre-record, but this was live.

Milad Shadrooh: So “Oh, my goodness. Okay, live telly.” Dude, they prepare you not at all. You literally turn up to ITV London Studios. You go in a green room and this person come in, “Hi, I’m your producer today. So this is the segment. This is what we’re going to do. We might have a call-in, some people might ask some questions. So yeah, do you want coffee?” “Okay.”

Milad Shadrooh: So I literally rocked up by myself, no one to … and I just turn up there in my blue tunic I’m like, “Do you want me in my tunic?” “Yeah, put that on. People know you do that.” So I’m wearing a tunic sitting in the green room. “Go on live. Yeah, so you’ll be on in five minutes, yeah.”

Milad Shadrooh: I’m just waiting in the wings and I go on and phone-ins from mums, “Hi, my kids don’t like brushing their teeth. What can I do? I’m like, “Yeah, make it exciting.” I’m just going into normal mode, forgetting there’s cameras there and then it did really well. Afterwards they all came up to me, “Oh, my God. You’re so natural. You’re so good. Is that your first time?” “Yeah.” “Oh, I didn’t even know, blah, blah, blah.”

Milad Shadrooh: Long story short, the following week, Good Morning Britain wanted me on. Then This Morning wanted me on. So I became like that ITV go-to guy whenever there was a story. It’s always reactionary, “Statistics show 40 million spent on children’s dental extractions on the GA. Why is this happening? Well here to discuss it is The Singing Dentist. So first of all, let’s have a look and see why you’re The Singing Dentist,” play a clip on YouTube. “So Dr. Milad, it’s great that you’re getting kids, but why are we actually have this problem?” I’d say the same things and then I’ll go home and do a little funny dance, and that was it. So that’s where it started to bloom. The virality came from LADbible and Unilab, those were big pages at the time, right?

Payman: Yeah.

Milad Shadrooh: They posted, (singing) It got like 15 million views.

Payman: Yeah.

Milad Shadrooh: They posted (singing) it got like 18 million views.

Payman: There was a moment. There was a moment, yeah, because I knew it was for real where someone like my brother, who’s not on Facebook, not on Instagram, he’s on WhatsApp, the thingy, Zuckerberg got him, but someone like my …

Payman: The thingie, Zuckerberg got him. But someone like my brother sent it to me. Of course, I’d seen it many times, but the fact that he sent it to me, and then it came to me from Brazil and from Lebanon.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. That was it.

Payman: Was that the uni lad moment, was that when that happened?

Milad Shadrooh: The one that happened, so brin, brin, going away, going away, going away, Ed Sheeran, Shape Of You. Because he went-

Payman: It’s a great song, isn’t it?

Milad Shadrooh: He went away for a year and he came back with Shape Of You. And it was globally doing bits. And within very early, I heard it once. And I was like, this is a banger. This is going to go off. And I was like, what can I do shape of you, shape of you? All I could think was shave your tooth. And I was like, that’s not very nice message, is it? Like all I want to do is shave your tooth. I was like, that’s not good.

Milad Shadrooh: And then my wife, from the other room, “What about save your tooth?” She don’t sound like that either. But I was like, okay, save your tooth. Yeah. My job is to save your tooth, so brush and floss like you need to do. Oh, boom. I wrote that genuinely in 30 seconds, 40 seconds.

Prav: And all of these parodies that you put together, long time, short time, multiple takes, what’s the process?

Milad Shadrooh: The recording of it is in my surgery, my phone on selfie mode, so I can watch my stupidity.

Prav: Microphone or, no?

Milad Shadrooh: Phone camera. Song playing out of a £2 speaker that I attach to the computer. So I can just about hear it underneath. And then afterwards in the edit, I put the instrumental a bit louder. But I record straight into my phone. Because I want to keep it as low fi as possible. I want it to feel, for the people at home, this is not over produced. It’s not over polished. I’m in the room with this guy. And he’s just busting jokes close up on the face.

Milad Shadrooh: I’ve seen so many other dental parodies. Where people go to town, they do a three minute song. They’ve got production. There’s loads of them. And it’s just not good, man. It’s boring. It doesn’t engage. This is, you literally just see my face as if I’m talking to you now and I’m performing for you live. On a low pro.

Prav: One take, two takes?

Milad Shadrooh: Always one take.

Prav: Always one take.

Milad Shadrooh: There’s never cuts. So if I don’t nail it in one, I start again.

Prav: Got you.

Milad Shadrooh: But I’ll normally get it within the first two, three, four takes. If I’m on my 10th take, I’m like, I need to rethink this because something’s not right. It’s not flowing. But I perform them always one time. The eyebrows do their own thing. I don’t know what happens there. They just come out of nowhere, and start doing their thing. And yeah.

Prav: Do you have someone review them. Who’s your.

Milad Shadrooh: My kids.

Prav: Your kids?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, my kids. I go home. I show them to my wife and my kids. And if they like it, and my kids don’t swipe away from it, I know I’m onto a winner.

Prav: Rock and roll.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. So it was the Ed Sheeran, that’s the one, bruv. When the Ed Sheeran landed, we’re talking, on Lad Bible it did 38 million. On Viral Thread it did 30 million. On Uni Lad, it was just, it got, I think, collectively, I’ve counted, over 150 million views on all platforms. On my own YouTube channel, that’s on about 3.8 million views. The Ed Sheeran.

Payman: Bloody hell.

Prav: What’s the impact of you when something like that happens? Obviously your phone must blow up.

Milad Shadrooh: Yep.

Prav: Do you read all the messages?

Milad Shadrooh: All of them.

Prav: Do you respond to them?

Milad Shadrooh: Pretty much all of them. It’s much harder now. But I take time. I respond to … On Facebook, I don’t like the platform for responding. It’s a difficult thing to navigate. On Insta, it’s much easier. So I reply to pretty much all the DMs. It takes me ages. I’ve got loads built up now because I just haven’t been able to-

Prav: You don’t have somebody managing that for you?

Milad Shadrooh: No, never.

Prav: It’s all done by you.

Milad Shadrooh: I’ve never had anyone to do it, it’s always been me. Because I don’t think it’s authentic if someone else replies as me. But I get asked dental stuff all the time. But then with dental stuff, it’s really difficult. Oh, I just saw my dentist and he told me I need two root canals. What do you think? I’ve got no idea. Here’s an x-ray. Sent me an x-ray. And I’m like, listen, this is not the platform for me to diagnose your disease. If you really are worried about it, just go back and have another conversation with them. But sometimes they’ll be like, oh, I’m in a lot of pain and this and this has happened. I’m like, okay, what, what is it? Oh, it’s coming right at the back. Okay, is it your wisdom tooth? Possibly. Okay, have you got a flap of skin over the top? Yeah. Okay, Google pericoronitis, you’ve probably got that. Oh yeah, that’s exactly what I had.

Payman: What’s it done to your dental practise?

Milad Shadrooh: It’s made me much more kind of busy with a different demographic of people. So as in, from all over. I’ve got patients that travel two and a half hours now just to come for a check up, because they were dental phobic. They see me as an approachable type of person. So they want to come and see me. I’m like, okay, awesome. I will 100% see you. I’m mad busy.

Milad Shadrooh: I do one clinical day a week now because … And this was actually nothing to do with … So, I’ve been one day a week for about two and a half years, three years almost. It was for my kids. So we used to do always a half day on a Friday. I used to work four and a half days a week. Always. That’s what I’ve always done. When I took over the business, I kind of dropped that half day because you need time to manage the place. So I was doing four days a week.

Milad Shadrooh: When my daughter was born, I dropped another day. Because I was like, I want to be around. I need to be around. And I want to enjoy my daughter’s childhood. When my son was born, I dropped another day. So now I’m on to two days a week. And I just thought, when the Singing Dentist started getting busy, I was like, look, I need to dedicate time to other stuff.

Milad Shadrooh: Because I’ve got an amazing opportunity now to do something cool. I never know exactly where we’re going with it, but there’s always a direction. There’s always five things happening at once. And this opportunity will eventually die out. May eventually die out. Who knows. But I don’t want to regret in five years, 10 years and go, you know what, I didn’t give it my all.

Milad Shadrooh: Because dentistry is a career. It’s a lot … As long as I don’t do anything stupid and get struck off, I will be able to go back to dentistry. I own the business. I’m not going to sell my business. So I can go back to five days a week when my kids are older and they don’t like me anymore. And the Singing Dentist, no one wants to hear my songs. I can go back and do teeth five days a week. But right now I want to use this opportunity to really give it a push, put my energy behind it. I’m a super creative guy. I want to put the creative energies into this and see where we can take it.

Prav: Just take us back to … Something that resonated with me there is that you took … you decided to drop a day when your daughter was born, is that right? Just talk us through the … take us back in time. The day she was born. How you felt? Instantly, was it instantly fell in love and-

Milad Shadrooh: Terror.

Prav: Or was it like, oh my God, what-

Milad Shadrooh: Terror.

Prav: Terror.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. Because you’re waiting for that day to happen. And the delivery wasn’t particularly awesome. It ended up being like an emergency caesarian and stuff. Relief first, the baby’s here, wife’s good, baby’s good. Then like, oh my goodness, life has changed completely. The selfishness of life goes, that’s the only difference in my opinion. You’re still the same person. You can still have fun. It’s just you can’t be selfish. You can’t just wake up and go, you know what, today I’m just going to do what the hell I want. Because that’s not how it works. You’ve got to factor in what your kids are going to do, what your wife’s going to do. Leaving the house is impossible unless you planned it. And you’ve got everything they need for the day. You packed the two suitcases to leave the house. So, you’ve just got to plan a bit more.

Milad Shadrooh: So life isn’t … It’s different. It’s not bad. It’s not worse. I don’t … It’s better to a certain extent. But it’s different. So it was terror. Because you don’t really know what you’re doing with a child. You just kind of come home … I knew I had time off. So, that was good.

Milad Shadrooh: But then when it was time to go back to work, I was like, I don’t really want to go back to work. I just want to be here every day. I want to experience this every day. So I was like, well, I’m going to reduce a day.

Milad Shadrooh: So I contacted all my patients, because by this point I’m private, and I’ve got a lot of plan patients. We’ve got direct debits. I said, “Look guys, my baby’s just been born. And I really want to be around. So I’m just going to drop a day. The service, you guys will still be exactly same. If you have emergencies on a day I’m not here, I’ve got four other associates in the building that can look after you. And then they’ll get you out of pain. And when I’m back, come and see me. But I’m going to do it.” And no one said, you horrible man, I’m leaving.

Payman: Not many dentists do that though.

Milad Shadrooh: No. But why not?

Payman: Yeah, no, I agree with you.

Milad Shadrooh: Your patients-

Payman: You’re one of the only professions where you can turn it on and off, two days a week, one day a week, three days a week. I mean, I’ve always thought was very good for ladies in that sense, because they can be a mother three days a week and dentist two days a week.

Milad Shadrooh: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think, communicating with your patients, ultimately your patients are human. They forget that you’re human as well. And when you remind them, you’ve got the same issues that they have. You’ve got the same kind of stuff going on, and you just want to give some time to your family, they’re AOK with it. They’re like, yeah, man, cool. Actually good on you. Come back when you’re ready. They appreciate that.

Milad Shadrooh: So again, I think it’s easier for me because I’ve been in the place for so long. Dude, it’s so crazy. I’ve been there 15 years now. I’m seeing kids now coming in, they’re 18, 19. And I’m like, I remember when you were three, I did your first ever check up. You’ve only ever had my fingers in your mouth. It’s crazy. And they’re massive now, six foot two. These kids, I don’t know what they’re eating. All this genetically modified food, it’s definitely changing. They’re coming ducking under the door.

Milad Shadrooh: And I’m like, “Blimey, look at you. What you doing now?” “I’m going to uni.” I’m like, “That’s awesome.” No cavities in their mouth. And I think, yeah. That’s an achievement there, bro. We looked after you.

Payman: You’re obviously doing quite a lot of influencer type work now.

Milad Shadrooh: That’s interesting, isn’t it? Yeah.

Payman: Yeah. I mean, I was thinking about this last night when you were going to come in, you’re probably the most famous dentist in the world, right?

Milad Shadrooh: Wow. I don’t know.

Prav: Without question, without question.

Milad Shadrooh: Do you reckon?

Payman: Well, who is?

Prav: Name one dentist, Dr. Apa.

Milad Shadrooh: Nah.

Payman: No.

Prav: He just plays around with his ears all day.

Payman: Yeah. Listen, even in LA, yeah, if Dr. Apa, well, he’s from New York. Even in New York, if Dr. Apa was walking down the road, and you’re walking down the road, I think it’s more likely that you’re going to get recognised than him.

Prav: Stopped.

Milad Shadrooh: I guess, I guess. Yeah. In that kind of thing. Yeah. So it’s crazy. I’m definitely top five. I put myself in the top five. I don’t know if I’m number one. But I definitely put myself … I’m happy with top five.

Payman: We’re going to have to get Mike in and ask him. But no, so there is an opportunity. Let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about … And I think one thing that’s been really admirable about you is you have taken this fame and used it for good, for oral hygiene, for public education. Not everyone might have even thought of doing that. And doing it as much as you did. Who knows the countless lives that you’ve touched by doing that. That’s a beautiful thing.

Milad Shadrooh: Awesome, thanks.

Payman: But on the other side of it, it takes a lot of time, you’ve lowered your clinical days, monetizing this opportunity? What’s it been like? Are you getting people contacting you all the time saying, will you be the face of-

Milad Shadrooh: Yes.

Payman: I saw you on Colgate India.

Milad Shadrooh: Yes. That was fun. So, here’s the thing. So, with the influencer world now, if you talk about it. For those of you that obviously can’t see this, I just did speech fingers. Influencer. Because I don’t really know kind of what that means. What you’re influencing people to do what? To buy your products.

Payman: To buy, yeah.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. So, it’s a strange concept. But social media is undeniably there. Everyone’s on it. And you’re looking at it. And a lot of companies are looking at that. And they use it as a tool to sell. So, when you have a reach and you’ve got eyeballs watching you. Creating content isn’t free. It takes time and time costs money. It takes skills of people who are behind the camera, behind editing, your sound engineers, you as an artist making the content. So, that money has got to come from somewhere.

Milad Shadrooh: And when you bankroll it yourself, then you have to look at an ROI. Now, are you doing it for fun? Luckily I’m in a position where I don’t have to worry so much about money because we’re successful. I’ve got a practise and it’s doing well. And I’m still working. So I can put some money into stuff myself. Because I enjoy doing it. I don’t have many vices. I don’t drink. I don’t do any kind of drugs. People probably think I do, but I definitely don’t. I’m not really into fast cars. I’m not into kind of doing … I stay healthy. And I like some nice stuff in life. I’ve got a trainer addiction actually. Let me just, I’ve got 45 pairs of trainers and growing. So I do have problems with trainers. And watches. But let’s move on from that. Anyway.

Milad Shadrooh: But yeah, I can bankroll a lot of stuff myself. But then I am away from the clinic. There has to be a flip side from me doing all this amazing content for people, there has to be a way that I can monetize it in order to just keep doing it. Not monetize it so I can buy more crappy staff, no. Monetize it so I can just keep doing it. Because I really enjoy doing it. And I think I’m onto something good here.

Milad Shadrooh: So then you’re looking at brand deals. There’s brand deals, there’s ambassador kind of roles. There’s loads of different things that start coming your way. I’ve had so much stuff, bro, honestly, that I’ve said no to. Because I didn’t agree with it. I didn’t think it was a good brand. I didn’t think it was a good product. All this charcoal powder business. Loads of them. Coconut oil stuff. Loads of them. These mad toothbrushes that brush your top and bottom teeth inside and out in 30 seconds. All of them. They’ve all come to me. And I’ve all been like … It’s just, yeah, I wish you all the best, but it’s not for me.

Milad Shadrooh: Because as a dentist, I can’t back this. Because I lose all integrity. So you’ve got to look at it. It’s the long game for me. I don’t want to take a quick bit of cash to spew out some nonsense about something I don’t like. So the brand deals I have done is always with people that I kind of liked their stuff anyway. So I probably would have posted regardless. Because I quite like it and I enjoy it. So it’s always been organic. It’s been something I think has been useful and beneficial to other people. So I tell them about it.

Milad Shadrooh: The Colgate stuff was funny. I mean, they wanted to do a Bollywood-esque thing. So they flew me out to India. And I did it with some other big Bollywood acts. And that was an experience filming in India. Jesus, that was so much fun. I’ve never seen this many people on set to do a one minute video. There was literally 85 people on set. I had one person whose whole job was to pick up the tube of toothpaste and give it back to me when I dropped it. Genuinely. And one time I picked it up, he got upset. It was like, put it back on the floor and let him pick up, bruv. It was great. It was a great experience.

Milad Shadrooh: I’m working with a mouthwash company now. So I’m doing some stuff with them. Done some content with them and some advert type stuff with them. Boohoo randomly, the clothing guys. Yes. I kind of got invited to a couple of Boohoo parties. And I got to speak to them. And they sponsored a couple of stuff for me. So yeah, it’s-

Payman: And do you get paid based on the number of views on YouTube as well?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, so you can. But I don’t monetize any of the parodies. Because they’re parodies. So original copyright gets all the money. So every time I put a song out, some of them within hours, some of them within days, I get a copyright claim. It’ll come up and say, hi, Sony BMG has made a claim against this record. Don’t worry, you haven’t done anything wrong, but basically they’re going to get all the money. If you disagree, press this appeal button. And I never press it because it’s their track. And I could be entitled to something. So it comes under fair usage law. So that would then be my lawyer speaking to Sony BMG’s lawyer and saying, look, my artist deserves 10%. Bro, I don’t want to pay lawyers to have that conversation for me. It will cost me more than that 10% income. For me, that’s free marketing, I look at it. Because I do those things and people know about me then. And I’m doing the-

Payman: But what are the numbers, I mean, if 50 million people watch a video, how much money could someone make?

Milad Shadrooh: It depends. It’s not per view.

Payman: Oh, is it not?

Milad Shadrooh: It’s depending on how many people watched the advert before those 50 million views.

Payman: Oh, I see.

Milad Shadrooh: Because that’s how you generate the revenue. It’s the adverts. So, if you skip ad the artist doesn’t get paid. Now, there’s some ads, when your video is smashing it, you can’t skip. Those are the people that make the money, bruv. They’re the ones that are earning a living off YouTube. And they’re getting 10 million views a video on ads you can’t skip. And they’re gamers.

Payman: Gamers.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. They’re the 15 year olds that play-

Payman: E-sports.

Milad Shadrooh: Fortnite-

Payman: Yeah, Fortnite.

Milad Shadrooh: And 300 million people watch them playing it. And then they’re driving an R8 that they can’t get insurance for.

Prav: So I’m seeing you pop up all over my feed with CB12, squashing bubbles and diving into the floor.

Milad Shadrooh: Jokes. Yes.

Prav: Really, really creative. Really cool. Talk me through that. So, how you got the deal?

Milad Shadrooh: So, with CB12 it started with them wanting me to just do a talk at the dental conference about CB12. And first of all, they were like, look, what’d you think of it? And I said, “Well, send me some and Let me try it.” Because I’d heard of it. Because in the world of mouth washes, I don’t recommend mouth washes routinely for stuff, because people just use it as a replacement. They just rinse with mouthwash and don’t brush or floss.

Milad Shadrooh: So I like niche mouthwashes. So if a patient’s got gum disease, I recommend something specifically for gum disease. If someone needs more caries prevention, I’ll give them a higher fluoride content something or other. So for breath, I thought, okay, there’s only two games in town. It’s either CB12 or Ultradex. They’re the only two that specifically target it. And I didn’t have much experience with either. But what I knew about CB12 was it was really expensive. And Ultradex is really expensive.

Milad Shadrooh: So I always felt like, look, it’s hard for me to recommend this to an end user. If they have to spend 15 quid on a bottle. Because I just don’t know if anyone would do that. But when I spoke to them, they said, they’re reducing their fee and they’re going to make it more like £5 a bottle. I thought, okay, well that could be a good recommendation if it works. So, I started using it and I thought, oh, this is quite cool. I looked into the science of it. They sent me all their research and all their stuff. And I thought, okay, the materials they’ve got in there actually do neutralise the volatile sulphur compounds. So I thought, all right, this could be cool.

Payman: It is chlorine dioxide?

Milad Shadrooh: No, theirs is-

Payman: Ultradex’s.

Milad Shadrooh: Zinc, yeah, theirs is a zinc based stuff. So, I did the lecture for them. And it went really, really well. They smashed it. They were really happy. So then I said, “Look, if you want to get this out there and you want to increase the over the counter side of your business, you’ve got to do online marketing. Just the way it is.” So we just kind of talked it, hashed out with my management, got involved-

Prav: So, you’ve got someone managing the commercial aspects of your business now?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, I’ve got a manager full stop. Yeah, they manage everything, media, tv.

Payman: Oh, is that how it works? So, let’s say, I don’t know, whatever, Philips, let’s not talk about Philips.

Prav: Sunlighten.

Payman: Oral B. Oral B wants you to be their brand ambassador. What do they do, call your manager, is that how it works?

Milad Shadrooh: The way we kind of have our relationship is, I look at the deal first. Because I want to see if it’s something I want to do. If it’s something that I feel fits with … Because no one knows the brand better than me. I’ve created it. And the brand is me. So I look at the project first. Have a chat with them. See where their spiel is. See what they’re kind of thinking, what they want to do. And then I’ll have a chat with my management and say, look, this is the situation. What do you guys think? For me, I think X, Y, and Z. And they’re like, yeah, okay, cool. What do you want as a fee? And I’m like, well, I don’t know. What do you think? And yeah, we’ll do this. And they go back and they negotiate the deal. They negotiate what’s required of me. How long the term is, blah, blah, blah. They do all the nitty gritty bits.

Milad Shadrooh: And then if it’s a goer, it’s a goer. And then it all depends. So there’s brand ambassador roles, which are much longer term. There’s brand deals, which is a one off. Post this. You have certain things you’ve got to do. It has to go on Instagram for a day. You can’t post something else after, for 24 hours. You’ve got to do two swipe ups, one the following week, blah blah. You have those deliverables. As long as you tick all the boxes, you get paid.

Milad Shadrooh: But an ambassador thing, you work very much with the brand. So with the CB12 thing, I worked very much with them on the creatives, trying to come up with the concepts, what they wanted to do, what I felt would work. So it was a joint effort. And it’s been so much fun to do it. Again, we shot that in India. So again, I flew out to India for three days to do that. So yes, it was really good fun. It was really good fun.

Prav: Is it more lucrative than dentistry? Or has the potential to be?

Milad Shadrooh: Do you know what it is, it’s unstable. So you could get a brand deal and then not get another deal for weeks. So you’ve got to live off that one. So I think it depends. Short game, long game. It’s always the way. Dentistry will always provide you with a living. It’s a hard living. People underestimate how difficult it is, nowadays especially. But you use your skills, you graft and you’ll have a comfortable life. You’ll be able to look after your kids.

Milad Shadrooh: It’s more difficult now than it used to be. I know dentists from 30, 40 years ago, basic routine amalgams and extractions were putting their kids through private school, living in million plus pound houses and driving Porsches. It’s not like that now. Your average associate is not doing that now. No way. So it’s much harder. But it’s still a good life. But you pay your dues to have that life.

Milad Shadrooh: So with influencing, pound for pound, yes. Off one deal you can make what someone makes in a year.

Prav: Roughly?

Milad Shadrooh: Really depends, man. Depends what you’re doing for who. I mean, deals can start from £250 to do a story post, to five grand to do a story post. It’s crazy. Proper influencers, when I say proper influencers, it’s mad, I don’t consider myself one. But you come out of Love Island. You go into Love Island with 10,000 followers. You come out with 1.2 million, 1.5 million followers. You’re suddenly worth a load of money. You’ll get a brand for half a million pounds, for a year, for clothing. And that just means you post once a week. So you do basically 52 posts for half a million pounds. That’s not bad going.

Payman: That’s just Love Island. What about where you’ve done businesses yourself.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. So that’s been the other thing, launching stuff. Using the platform to launch stuff. I’m super excited by that. I love … I am entrepreneurial very much. And that’s one of the things that I think coming away from the dental practise has always been something that’s been inside me to do. Because being in one place nine to five is just not my kind of makeup, man. I like meeting, greeting, networking, thinking, designing, creating, starting something from zero and watching it grow. I love that process. I love it.

Milad Shadrooh: It’s like making music. When you make music, you don’t have a beat. You start with nothing. You start with this empty screen. You add your elements, your kick, your snares, your hats, you build up. And you add your baseline, you add your top end. You add your whatever you’re doing. I like that in business. I like to create something from the start.

Milad Shadrooh: So I thought I’ve got a platform. What can we do? But I’ve always been based on trying to help do certain things. So one of the things we did was Smile Wise. Which started out as, I was getting so many patients just messaging me saying, dude, we want to come and see you. I’m like, all right, perfect, where are you? Down in Manchester. I’m like, bro, I’m like three hours away, four hours away. You’re not going to come here every six months. But I know someone sick in Manchester you should see. Oh who? This guy. He’s just like me. He’s not scary. He’s cool. And does a great job.

Milad Shadrooh: And I was like, why don’t I turn that into a business? But at the same time, there’s probably not enough patients doing that. So we can help market patients. And just link people to good clinicians. So that’s what the thought process of Smile Wise was. And we wanted to do it nationally and get the right people.

Milad Shadrooh: But the trouble with that is, if you don’t get the right people or you generate … it became lead generation. Which is a horrible game. And that was never what I wanted it to be. Because lead generation, once you know what you’re doing is cool. It’s what you do with the leads. And if dentists or their team or their receptionist or their whatever is not equipped and ready. If they’ve had no training to handle leads. The leads turn to nothing.

Payman: This is Prav’s day to day.

Milad Shadrooh: Exactly. You know exactly what I’m talking about.

Prav: It’s just follow up.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. The follow up is so key. So then we thought, you know what, we need to teach people this, before we do lead generation. Because there’s no point getting leads if you don’t know what to do with them. So Smile Wise has evolved now into something else, so we’ve taken a step back because we’re developing something pretty big. So it’s coming back. It’s in beta testing now. But that was one thing.

Milad Shadrooh: Toothy Box has been the bane of my existence for so long. I thought of this idea three years ago. Subscription oral care. Now there’s 12 of them in the world flying around. Everyone’s trying to do it. And everyone is … But show me one that’;s battering it in the UK, none. America-

Payman: In America, couple in America doing well.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, but America, dude-

Payman: Big market.

Milad Shadrooh: Colorado is bigger than the whole of the UK. You know what I mean. It’s just a massive market. So it’s cool. Burst and Quip and them lot are going to kill it.

Milad Shadrooh: So the issue I’ve got with Toothy Box is unless I … I want to go big or go home, bro. And unless it becomes the sickest thing ever, I’m worried to launch it without then having the logistics in place to smash it. Products are done. The marketing is all in my head. It needs capital, bro. If you’re going to … Your commodity is £2/£3 thing, unless you’re selling a hundred thousand units a month, there’s no business there.

Payman: Yeah, tell me about it, man.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. So I need to make sure that’s right. But coming with dental products has to happen for me. It’s like Jamie Oliver not coming out with cookery stuff. It makes no sense. So, the Singing Dentist has to have some dental products. But it’s got to be right. They’ve got to be the right products. And it’s got to be a massive business. Otherwise I just don’t want to start it and flop.

Payman: I think the kiddies Sonicare that makes the kids brush through the app.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. Yeah. That’s cool.

Payman: You should have an app, or you probably do have an app-

Milad Shadrooh: No, I don’t. I’ve looked at it, but it’s just money. Making apps costs a bomb.

Payman: Yeah. But an app where you make the kids brush his teeth and then products stuck to that. Sounds like fun. But listen, dude, this stuff takes time. This stuff takes time.

Milad Shadrooh: It takes time. It takes time for development.

Payman: Dentists, I’m a dentist, dentists don’t realise. Yeah. Because just because you can buy a dental practise, and six months later you’re in profit. Don’t realise, products and services, they take time. They take time.

Milad Shadrooh: Absolutely. And graft and a negative living for a while. Which if you’re risk averse, that’s scary, man. When you look at how much money you owe. And money ain’t coming in. And you’re a bit like, eh, have I done the right thing.

Payman: And I think some of the Jamie Oliver chef stuff, they’re licencing the name of the talent.

Milad Shadrooh: Exactly.

Payman: So it’s not Jamie, all of his own business.

Milad Shadrooh: No, and even then-

Payman: It’s more an influencer ambassador kind of role.

Milad Shadrooh: Exactly. But even on that level, things go wrong-

Payman: Yeah, of course, of course.

Milad Shadrooh: Jamie’s Kitchen, you know what I mean, whatever. So things, it’s difficult. It’s not easy. It’s not easy.

Payman: No. Nothing’s easy, man.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, exactly. Anything that’s good, you’ve got to work for it, man.

Prav: So, on the outside, I’ve not met you before properly.

Payman: Have you not?

Prav: No, it’s our first time.

Payman: What the hell.

Prav: No. We’ve conversed. But the one thing I see straight away and feel is the energy in the room. And the moment you walk in, he’s like the happiest guy I’ve ever met. Seriously.

Payman: Yeah, yeah, because-

Prav: Bursting with energy, super happy, super …

Prav: Seriously…

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. Yeah, Because-

Prav: Bursting with energy. Super happy. Haven’t met anyone like you before, right?

Milad Shadrooh: Awe, sweet. Thanks, man.

Prav: Just amongst all that, the real you. And this is probably the real you. You’ve got so many things that you’re playing with, advertising, practise, management, patients, DMs-

Milad Shadrooh: Family.

Prav: … deals, family, being a dad, being a husband, A, how do you manage that? And B, what are your low points in this journey, because it can’t all be-

Milad Shadrooh: No, not as rosy as it looks on the outside.

Payman: What are the darkest days? So take us back to some of the dark days.

Milad Shadrooh: I mean, so firstly, how do I manage it? I manage it, because I’ve got good people around me. They’re super important. My wife. I wouldn’t be able to do any of it, if it wasn’t for her, 100%.

Prav: She get involved in all of people?

Milad Shadrooh: She gets involved in none of it-

Payman: Okay.

Milad Shadrooh: … which is why it’s so beautiful. But not because of the way it sounds. She does the stuff that allows me to be off doing the crazy stuff, right? She holds the fort together. If she wasn’t like that, I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing. There’s time where I have to be away for three days, four days, she handles stuff, looks after the kids, does the bits in the background, so that I can do what I’m doing. When I need to be creative, and I think, “Babe, can you come and have a look at this? What do you think?” She puts time, and she’ll come and look in all of that. So She’s an artist by career and stuff, so she understands graphics, she understands the visuals very well. So she’ll kind of look at it and go, “Oh” and coming up with ideas. She’s super creative. So she helps me massively, and we’re so polar different in personality.

Payman: which is why it works.

Prav: Where did you meet? How old were you?

Payman: The ying and the yang is beautiful.

Milad Shadrooh: We met… I was 20, she was 19. So she’s been with me before any of this, before I was in first year dental school, and she was doing her art and design degree. Theatre design she did. So yeah.

Prav: good people-

Milad Shadrooh: That’s the first thing, my mom and dad, because I’m an only child, right? So my mom and dad live seven minutes away. They see the kids a lot. But my dad, he’s a serial entrepreneur, businessman, so I always consult with him with any kind of business stuff. My mom’s super creative. So they help me out a lot. My aunt, she’s always been around. My uncle is in America. They’re super around. I’ve got very good friends. Being an only child, you develop brother ship style friends. I’ve got a friend who I’ve known since we were five. Went to same primary school. We’re still friends now. Saw him just Saturday. So he gives me a lot of good sound advice, in dentistry Nilesh Power he’s my best friend. We qualified together, so I’ve known him since we were 18.

Payman: Oh, you’re in the same year?

Milad Shadrooh: Yes, same year. Qualified together. So 20 years now we’ve been friends. Nilesh is one of the most phenomenal people that I know, for what he’s done and what he continues to do. He’s just a sick guy. So when I have some stuff, I sit down and chat to him, because he knows business. He knows what’s what, and I chat to him. So I’ve got good people. I’ve got another couple of friends who, they’re just solid guys, man. They’re good, and I trust them. So if I told them something, I trust them to not be yes-man, and I trust them so [inaudible] that’s a terrible idea, Don’t do it. So having good people around you is key. Next thing, is your gut. Do not underestimate your gut. I know, if someone tells me something, and I get that feeling like “Bro, that ain’t the one,” I won’t do it.

Prav: Have you ever gone against your gut and it’s proved you wrong or anything?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. And that’s why I know I have to trust it. Very earlier on I had a brand deal, and they wanted me to do some off-key stuff, and I was already in. I had no management then. I had nothing. I kind of did it, and it wasn’t even great money. And mate, I had to do some dodgy stuff, not dodgy stuff, but they were just cheesy dudes, man, and they were getting me to do some bits, and I just wasn’t comfortable doing it. I didn’t like doing it.

Payman: It was uncool?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. They wanted me to do some cheesy stuff, and I just felt bad, and the final product that came out, the final finished content, was so terrible. And I was like “Guys, you can’t post this.” And, “Well we’ve done it now. We’ve paid you, so we’re doing what we want.” And it just made me feel horrible. And at the time as we were recording it, my gut was just going all over the place, and it wasn’t because I had spicy food. It was just not happy. So after then I was, “Never again. Never again am I going to allow myself to feel that, ever.” So I haven’t ever since.

Prav: So going back to your darkest moments. Yeah. During all of this And certainly for me, I run around doing a lot of things too, and as much as you, but there are times when I’m away from home two, three days at a time. And I come home third, fourth day and my daughter says, “daddy I want you to stay here, I don’t want you to go anywhere, is it the weekend”? Breaks my heart. Does that resonate with you? Do you get similar conversations with your kids?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, there’d be times where I’m going and my daughters be like “daddy, don’t go”. That makes you feel horrendous immediately. But it’s very transient with kids, right? The minute they start watching TV, they forget it. Okay. So I know I’m around way more than other people are for their kids, but that’s just because of the circumstances. So I know that overall longterm, when my kids look back on their childhood they’ll know daddy was around. I’m around way more than I think is expected. These days of what that kind of do or whatever. So I’m not so worried about that. The dark times come when it’s random stuff for me, as long as there’s something happening, as long as there’s direction, I’m happy. I’m least happy when I’m stood still. I like to unwind. Don’t get me wrong. I can be lazy as hell. I could spend a whole day doing nothing. But I do that happy knowledge that tomorrow I’ve got five things I got to do. And that’s cool.

Prav: How’d you do with the overwhelm? Or do you get it? Do You experience it like that. You’ve got so many things to do?

Milad Shadrooh: I did at one point and I was like, you know what? If I continue with all of this stuff, none of it’s going to be successful. So I had to drop a couple of things and then concentrate more on the other stuff. But having said that I’ve still got like five things happening anywhere at any one time. But I had like eight and I was like, this is probably possible. I’m never going to be able to give a hundred percent to all of them.

Payman: What would be your dream true for the next five years?

Milad Shadrooh: Well, so dream wise, first and foremost, I know this sounds really cheesy and stupid, but staying healthy genuinely because the more I’m getting older, I’m 38, I’ll be 39 next month January and things are starting to hurt for no reason. I got a bed with a new pain. So this is not normal. I’ve always been such an athletic guy and I’ve just been in good. And I’m like, “Right, that don’t feel right” you Sleep fine, and you wake up needing the hospital, right?

Prav: It’s me this morning. I just woke up with a bad neck.

Milad Shadrooh: I mean, so staying healthy because I see for the kids, and I’ll always want to be active. And you know, there’ll be times where you just have a blood test nowadays and I’m just praying about the results and “what if they find something Jesus” but I never used to worry about that kind of stuff. So number one, stay healthy for sure. Eat well, stay healthy. So that’s key, but work-wise, I would love to take this thing in dentist to another level. Cause dude listen, in my genetics media is being out there and I’m comfortable in that zone. I think I do well in that zone and people like it. People enjoy what I do, I’d like to do that more. I’d like to have my own TV show, talking about teeth and having a kid’s TV show on CBeebies, we’ve got where we had a great concept, but they just weren’t accepting any kind of shows at the time. So doing that kind of stuff being-

Payman: So literally the Jamie Oliver?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. A hundred percent, I’ve wanted to work with the government on brush club campaigns, getting toothbrushing into schools as a national legislation thing, but there’s just no money, no appetite, public housing they’ve got their own problems. NHS has got no money at ever, even though they spend money on the problems that I want to spend money on the prevention necessarily. So it’s hard work, man. But those things take time, for the amount that you guys might think I’m famous or whatever, I’m nowhere near famous enough to make noise like that. Even reality TV shows like being in the jungle, I’m a celebrity but I watched it every year for the past seven, eight years. I loved the show. I think it’s an awesome show. I’m not famous enough for it. So that’s what we were told by the management.

Prav: To get into the jungle.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. I would do Strictly in a heartbeat. I’m not famous enough for it. These type of things are like “celebrity come dine with me”. I’d love to do that [inaudible] I’d love to do that but It’s getting those types of positions but having more of that established celebrity positioning, so that I can then make those changes. People don’t want to listen. You know DR Ranch. DR Ranch is Asian doctor. He started with a kid’s TV show, singing songs about kind of gutter problems and you know, whatever. And then he became the “this morning kind of one of the good doctors on this morning”. He ended up being on Strictly. He now has a decent profile where he can actually make some change and do some stuff. So I want to come out of being known as just that social media, funny viral eyebrow guy to being that established, figured I can do stuff, and I try and show people my personality. I think if you hang around me-

Payman: There is a lot more to you than the singing.

Milad Shadrooh: Absolutely.

Payman: Or the parodies even in the end of the entertainment space-

Milad Shadrooh: Absolutely. And I want to show that I want to showcase that. I want people to see what my friends see. I want people to see that when you kick it with me, it’s just, jokes and it’s fun.

Payman: It’s fun all the way.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. And I want people to see that.

Prav: What’s the weirdest DM that you’ve received?

Milad Shadrooh: I mean, I get marriage proposals all the time for a while on Snapchat. You know why people use Snapchat? Because things disappear. So I used to get all sorts of photos on Snapchat, I would always know how it’s going to happen as well. So I’d get a DM “hey, do you have Snapchat”? And then I’ll be like “yeah, let’s Snapchat”. And I’ll immediately go to my wife and I’ll be like “Babe check what’s about to come through”. Because I’m super transparent. when you’re doing this kind of stuff, you cannot be like it’s just, and there’s no reason for me not to be right. I find that hilarious. So I’d literally hold Snapchat, open up and I’m like “baby ready”. Because if you screenshot it they know. So I was just literally about “are you ready? Open” Boom! And it’d be something Interesting.

Milad Shadrooh: Alright. So given that kind of stuff, I get a lot of the kind of serious stuff. The stuff we talked about before, which is nice to get.

Prav: The life changing stuff.

Milad Shadrooh: The life changing stuff that is always amazing and i asked some people, if I can share, I’m going to listen. That’s such an amazing message. “Would you mind if I kind of share that”? And they’re like, “Oh my God, that’d be great”. If you help someone else weekly a hundred percent. yeah. I could look for my DMS now and I’ll be able to show you something it’s crazy. And from all over, Globally in all countries.

Prav: So what’s the legacy you want to leave?

Milad Shadrooh: That’s the thing. So when you say it again, what do you want to do in five years? I Want to do in five years, I want to have left behind a legacy. I want it to be so that in 10 years we look back and think, “Oh yeah that was the singing dentist guy, man. He done well. He smashed it”, and I want my kids to be like “Oh yeah, my dad was the singing dentist”. Oh, what your dad was singing? That’s sick”. I want to have done something so that people know, make a change for sure, help dentistry. There’s so many different aspects on a consumer level, there’s stuff I want to do. I want to really help reduce the problems we have in the UK, but on a dentistry level, dentists are my peers are my colleagues, they’re my friends. There’s so many negative things are happening. There’s so many unhappy people and it just shouldn’t be like that, man. But as dentists, we shouldn’t be in this space.

Prav: Do you get hate from Dentists?

Milad Shadrooh: Never to my face, ever. I wish I did, not because I would confront them with beef.

Prav: you can to deal with it?

Milad Shadrooh: I’d love to see what it is. And then take that on board and see what is it he don’t like, you think I’m bringing a profession into disrepute in which case? Okay. Let’s talk about it, why? What is? Was it the brand new stuff? Was it the fact that I’m giving oral health advice by singing songs? What is it that you don’t like? You just find my face irritating? That’s fine. Everyone’s entitled to have an opinion. Right? Dude. The amount of bad trolling I’ve had from non-dentists, there’s nothing that a dentist could tell me, because I’ve had “Oh, he’s that guy. I want to shoot him in the face”. I mean, anyone else think this is the most annoying person in the world. Let’s find him and kill him. You get that kind of stuff online.

Prav: Which Platform is the worst?

Milad Shadrooh: Every platform. YouTube less. Facebook is the worst I think for that. But yeah, you get that kind of stuff

Payman: On the subject of dental trolling-

Milad Shadrooh: I’ve never had it. I’ve never seen it.

Payman: You mentioned Nilesh. He gets a lot of it?

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah. He gets it.

Payman: But having Nilesh at some point we can ask him, but-

Milad Shadrooh: There is one thing first and foremost, 100%. If you do nothing in life, you keep your head down and you just fly through life. Like a leaf in the wind. You’re not going to get, hey.

Prav: put your head above the parapet.

Milad Shadrooh: Guaranteed. The only time you get hit is when you’re smashing it. Because genuinely people don’t like it or they’re jealous of it or they’re envious of it. Or they think they should have had it. They feel entitled. Like why is he doing that? When I should have been doing that?

Payman: Well, I disagree. I mean you could get hate. Cause you’re an idiot.

Milad Shadrooh: Sure. But why would someone know you’re an idiot if you kept it to yourself?

Payman: I understand this whole jealousy thing. We’ve talked about this before on the podcast, but I think it’s dismissive to say “that’s what it is. It’s just jealousy”

Milad Shadrooh: No, I don’t think it’s just jealousy. But what I’m saying is unless you put your head out there, unless you open, no one would know. So that’s the thing. So the minute you’re smashing it, you’re going to get “haters”. it just exists. It’s just the way it is . But dental ones, I’ve never had any come my way. Look, there’s a couple of people in our industry that I think everybody in the world knows who they’re super negative people, they never like anything and blah, blah, blah, blah.

Milad Shadrooh: I’m sure they’ve said stuff like, and I’m sure behind my back enclosed circles in their little forums, they’ll chat about me or they’ll be negative, but I don’t know who they are. Someone’s never screenshot something and sent it to me and go “look what this bread said about you”. I would love it if they did, because I would meet that guy. I won’t do the internet rubbish. I’d like to meet him and just chat to them. And say ” bro, what is it that I did to upset you so much? And to what level are we going to take that upset?” Because if it’s something we could talk about, cool. If it’s something we can’t and you genuinely don’t like it, then let’s have it out and then we’ll deal with it. The South London way.

Payman: Have you ever had any trolling that’s actually bothered you like it’s been-

Prav: No anxiety or anything?

Milad Shadrooh: No. Never, ever. because again people around me, they keep me grounded enough that stuff like that don’t get to me. I find it fascinating. I kind of read some of it and then I think “Cool”. What happens to you that you feel that this kind of comment is a good thing for you to put out on the world to portray your personality? Some people say some horrible stuff, but not engaged with some of it. I normally ignore all of it. Sometimes for some giggles I’ll come in with like a Saki remark or I’ll come back with something and dude I’ve turned so many of them around like literally there’ll be like “you’re the most annoying person ever. I want to kill you” and then I’ll reply with, “thank you so much for your continued support. My new video will out tonight at 6:00 PM. Don’t forget to tune in” and then they’ll DM me, “mate, fair pay. That was funny” and I’ll be like “Alright bro” and then he goes “nah, I actually think you’re quite good, I just didn’t think you’d reply”. So they just do it to get a reaction.

Milad Shadrooh: They don’t genuinely hate you and want to kill you. They just do it because it’s online trolling. And some people think it’s funny, but I can see how it would definitely affect you. If you put a video out, you get a thousand comments and five bad ones. Fine, if you get a thousand bad comments and five good ones, maybe that’s when you should really rethink your content and think “maybe I should take this on board now”.

Payman: But it’s very natural. You’re a kind of person who doesn’t really care what people think about you.

Milad Shadrooh: But deep down, I do care if I’m honest and if I open up properly, of course everyone cares. Everyone wants to be liked. Everyone wants their work to be appreciated because you put your heart and soul into something. I don’t just do these parodies with zero thought process. A lot of thought goes into it. That is a lot of my personality. What you see as the singing dentist, like you said, a lot of the time, it’s me. I talk about the singing dentist as a third person, but it’s me. I’m jokes anyway. So I might turn it on a bit, but it is still part of me. So if someone really hates it, that is upsetting because you’re like “well, why did they hate that aspect of me?” But let’s talk about it. I don’t let it hurt me.

Milad Shadrooh: I kind of want to be “okay, well what can I do differently?” I like to be the very best person that can be for everybody. So I want to change to make someone else happy. If they think what I’m doing is making them unhappy, but positivity, I try to stay positive regardless. There’s going to be negative times, I once posted a video and it’s done badly and I’m like “what the hell happened there”, and you to kind of want to go a bit into yourself and you think “that was disappointing. I thought I was really good, but no one’s really liked it. And it’s getting some shit comments” that’s a bit of a shame.

Milad Shadrooh: So you get a bit down, that there’d be times where I’ll be stocked for contacting “God. I need to post today. I haven’t posted a couple of days”. Dude, you just feel a bit “Oh my God, this is a bit overwhelming” but then you just slap yourself out of it. I do a superhero pose. I go stand in front of the mirror, look at myself and think “you’re better than this. You can come up with some content”. And I end up filming myself, doing that and people love it. There’s content right there.

Milad Shadrooh: So I just stay positive man, and I really do believe in thinking about the good thing. There’s so much bad stuff and there’s so many people that are in such a worse position than you, when I wake up and I think ” why would I be unhappy?” I’m so blessed in so many ways, you just got to really put that into perspective because life genuinely is so short man, and can change in a heartbeat.

Prav: And on that note, it’s your last day on the planet. What three messages do you want to leave the world with?

Milad Shadrooh: Three messages on my last day, always make time for friends and family, regardless of what else is going on, try and do something that changes someone else’s life so that you will never be forgotten even by one person, and lastly, enjoy everything that you’re doing. Even if it’s something you don’t like to do, find some kind of enjoyment in that. Enjoy not liking it because life really is too short. I don’t know if you guys have got kids, but I’ve got kids. Have you seen Coco? The cartoon Coco?

Payman: Nope.

Prav: No.

Milad Shadrooh: Watch it. The Mexicans have this after life theory thing, right? So when you die, you go to a place. Every year they put the photos out of their loved ones who have passed on and then they get to come back. And as long as the photo is up, your spirit never dies, right?

Milad Shadrooh: Because someone always remembers you and you always have that adoration to come back, but in the spirit world someone dies and they go to spirit world, right? So in the spirit world, you can die in the spirit world and you die in the spirit world, the minute, no one in the real world remembers you, the minute no one puts your photo out. Right? When I was watching that, that really hit home for me. I think that’s just terrifying, to think that if there is an after life, when nobody remembers you you’re gone, forever. I don’t want that to happen. I want to be remembered by someone somewhere.

Payman: What is your Belief system? Is it that-

Prav: is there an afterlife (silence) reincarnation?

Payman: Or is it just coma or is it-

Milad Shadrooh: I genuinely don’t have a belief because I’m not very religious. I don’t follow a religion. I believe in something I pray to God. I ask God for stuff. When I say pray, I don’t pray three times a day, get down and pray or I don’t go to church or I don’t go to any kind of religious places, but I believe there is some

Payman: So she’s an atheist in a bomb shelter.

Milad Shadrooh: Yeah, exactly. I speak to somebody and ask for certain things. I get strength from that whether it’s the universe or whether it’s a spiritual thing. I think I like the spirituality side. I know people say, “I’m not religious I’m just spiritual” but I do believe in some other stuff that we will never comprehend. I like to think that maybe when you pass on, you start to really comprehend these other things. So I think there is another continuation of our existence, but not the way we know it now. I got to go a bit deep in it at the end.

Prav: I think that’s a wrap.

Payman: Yeah. Thank you so much for-

Milad Shadrooh: No, honestly no honestly it was cool. Thanks for inviting me down

Payman: I think the great thing that I got from this, is that you are who you sometimes you see a persona online from the moment you walked into now is you are who you portray. That’s awesome.

Milad Shadrooh: Thanks man.

Prav: That’s what you got to be. Being yourself is very easy.

Payman: Thanks a lot.

Milad Shadrooh: Thanks guys.

Outro Voice: 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.

Prav: Thanks for listening guys. Hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Make sure you tune in for future episodes, hit subscribe in iTunes or Google play or whatever platform it is and we really appreciate it if you would give us a six star rating.

Payman: That’s why I always leave my Uber driver.

Prav: Thanks a lot guys.

Payman: Bye.

Vikki Holden: What I tell my kids, I probably say to them, just to always make sure that they are fair to everybody. Treat everybody equally. They are very lucky, and I don’t want them to forget that ever. Don’t just take, take, take, be a giver as well as a taker. And the final thing, always brush your teeth.

Intro Voice: 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.

Payman: It gives me great pleasure to have Vikki Holden on the podcast today. Vikki’s had a real varied career extending from general practise to legal. Well, we’ll get into it now, Vikki, but just tell me about lockdown, Vikki. What was lockdown like for someone like you?

Vikki Holden: Well, I really, really enjoyed lockdown actually. After the first bit of drama where we had to very quickly hibernate the practise, I actually really loved being at home with the kids. In a way, it was easier to have the practise shut. I did try quite hard initially to get systems in place so that we could have run an emergency service from here, but there was quite a few barriers put in place, quite a few obstacles, and it was difficult getting things like the PPE sorted out.

Vikki Holden: So when it just became apart that the kids were going to be at home for the foreseeable future, actually it was quite nice just to be able to leave the practise for a little while and spend a bit of time at home with the kids. And actually it’s the longest break from working on teeth that I’ve had since I’ve graduated.

Payman: Did you change something or are you going to change something going forward? Just imagine the virus disappears tomorrow, what will you do differently after lockdown?

Vikki Holden: Now I’m back at the practise, my working pattern is still the same, but the things that I probably would change are little things like the dog walker. She wasn’t able to come and walk the dogs through lockdown, so under the old ways… my husband works in London, so he’d be out most days in London and I’d be racing around between the practise and trying to do work for TDS and picking the kids up from school. So I’d never had really time to walk the dogs apart from [inaudible 00:02:42]. And now I’m out every day with the dogs, and just simple things like that actually. I think we’ll have to find a way that we can always do those things ourselves. Just simple stuff, really. Spending time with the kids, taking them down, out playing at the skate park, that kind of thing. I’ve really, really enjoyed that time.

Prav: And with your husband, saying he’s always away in London and stuff, and a lot of my friends and colleagues travel a lot for work, are things going to change for him? Is that going to change the dynamic in the home as well?

Vikki Holden: Yeah, it’s definitely. It’s been so much nicer having him around a lot more. Previously, he’d be out of the house at half past six in the morning. He wouldn’t get home till half past seven, and by that time the kids are getting ready for bed. He’s been working from home since maybe the beginning of March when I think his office closed. And I think his role is quite a global role, he doesn’t do a lot of travelling, but he does-

Payman: What does he do, Vikki?

Vikki Holden: … what does he do? He’s like a CRO for a company called Willis Towers Watson, and they’re based in London, but well, they’re an American company. They’re a global firm. They’re an actuarial company. Willis is an insurer, so it’s real corporate financial world really, and at the moment he’s heading up a project, overhaul their IT systems and the platform that they use for [inaudible 00:04:10]. So he’s not a fund manager, he’s not got a job like that, he’s really just an operations guy.

Payman: What’s your arrangement at home? You own a practise, you’re partnered in a practise, you’re doing all of this defence stuff with Taylor. You’re one of the moderators on the Dentist UK site, is that right?

Vikki Holden: Yeah.

Payman: You’re a busy person, and you’ve got two young kids. How old are the kids?

Vikki Holden: Well, one’s nearly 10 and the other one is eight.

Payman: So what are the arrangements? What’s your typical week like? How many days do you work?

Vikki Holden: So I’ll be at the practise four days a week, and the way that the hours are structured is that I’ll have a little bit of time doing the clinical stuff in the morning, have a big window in the middle of the day for dealing with work that I’ll be doing for Taylor Defence Services, see patients again in the afternoon, and then pick up the kids. So the kids, they’re quite lucky. They go to a nice school. It’s a private school. I can drop them off just down the road. They get a minibus to school at about half past seven, and then I pick them up at half past five. So the biggest issue, I think, when you’re a working mom, is childcare. So that system, I’m not particularly one of those people who go, oh, my children must go to private school to get the best education. It is really something that’s driven out of a need for childcare because it’s quite difficult actually getting wraparound care when you’re children are at school.

Vikki Holden: And I will say, wanted to be the person who drops the kids off at school, I wanted to pick them up from school. I don’t want to have to rely on nannies. So I live quite close to the practise, that’s great. I’ve also got the job working with Taylor Defence Services where I literally just need my computer and a phone to do that. So those things fit in quite nicely really. I limit the time that I spend on social media to about 15, 20 minutes a day. I don’t spend a lot of time on Facebook for various reasons. So that part of it doesn’t take an awful lot of time really.

Payman: Can you moderate that forum in 15 minutes a day?

Vikki Holden: Well, people might say that it’s not maybe a very well moderated forum. That is one of the criticisms that comes up and that’s maybe the reason why. But I’ve done a lot of moderating since about 10 years ago. Tony Jacobs GDPUK forum. So I’ve been involved in that for quite a while actually and I think generally people behave okay on the forums. There’s not that much stuff that needs moderated. You might get a notification that pops up that somebody’s offended by a post or there’s something that’s inappropriate, somebody that’s self-promoting their own causes a bit too much, or whitening is being promoted and unfair to other companies, et cetera. And we tend to deal with those and then move on really. It doesn’t take a lot of time. I’m not really one for sitting on Facebook, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling through the threads. I’ll go on, have a quick look, see if anything’s been flagged up on the forums, and then off.

Prav: Do you think that being a woman in dentistry is more difficult, being a mom?

Vikki Holden: No, I don’t think it does actually. I think dentistry is quite a good career choice if you want, because I think the main reason is that you get the option to work normal hours. It is a very nine to five job, and then you might be doing a bit of admin or treatment planning or courses outside of working hours. It’s not as difficult as say, if you were a barrister or something and you’ve got long hours in London or in court, or a doctor where you’re having to work shift patterns. I think those things could be really difficult. But I think dentistry, it does lend itself quite well actually to being a working mom, as long as you can get the childcare issues sorted out around school.

Vikki Holden: And obviously we’re quite lucky in the situation that we can pay to put our kids into a school that helps with that. That might be a bit of a challenge for some people, I’m sure. And there’s been times actually in the past where before I moved the children to that school and they were in the village school, because we didn’t have any childcare, I was literally having to condense my working days into nine till half past two so that I’d be the one that was having to pick them up. And that was where I just thought this is just ridiculous that I’m having to do this. My own staff managed to arrange the childcare, I’m struggling with it, but it’s just living in a little village out in the middle of nowhere. There’s not an awful lot of childcare around really.

Payman: This question of women in dentistry is coming up quite a lot recently. I’ve noticed when it comes up, you’re vocal on the opposite side of the argument, saying, look, I’ve never had any problems as a woman. What you just said, that you think that it’s a good career for women and all that. And why do you think it’s a thing that’s coming up now and where do you think there are the disparities? And certainly I can say myself there aren’t enough women lecturers. But do you think the way to handle that is to positively discriminate or are you one of those who says that’s definitely a no-no?

Vikki Holden: Do you know, I think this topic, it’s…

Prav: Hard.

Vikki Holden: It’s so complex. And I don’t profess to know enough about things, really, to maybe give the right view on this. But from my point of view, I want to be able to be in a position to see my kids grow up. I don’t want to give over my whole life to some of the things that happen in dentistry. I know you’re probably referring to the topic conversations to why are there no females on the executive board of the BAPD. That is something I know that they tried very hard, actually, to positively engage women into those roles, and I was asked. I just said, look, no, I haven’t got the time for this. I didn’t want to do it purely from putting the brakes on how many things I’ve got going on in my life. There has to be a line drawn somewhere. It’s the amount of time that you give up, and these things can be quite time consuming.

Vikki Holden: I personally have never felt discriminated against as a women. I’ve felt as though I’ve been able to everything that I wanted to do in terms of my career, but I do think women are underrepresented in a lot of ways in dentistry. And that’s the question, I think, that needs to be asked, is why aren’t more women putting themselves forward rather than looking at it from the point of view saying, well, these men, they’re pushy, they just take over all these roles. I don’t think that is the case. I think a lot of men do want women to be more engaged and we need to have a look at the reasons why they can’t.

Vikki Holden: And it might be, that same as me, just go, no, I don’t want to spend my whole evening working on committees or preparing lectures. It’s a lot of work that has to go into preparing lectures. I want to be able to work hard. I enjoy being a dentist. I really do enjoy the day job. So I’m not necessarily looking for ways to cut down my clinical time to be able to maybe do more lecturing. I’m pretty happy with the setup that I’ve got, and it might be that that’s the case for a lot of women, maybe feel the same. I don’t know. It’s something that we don’t really talk about very much and it often seems to descend into an argument, whereas there needs to be a bit more of constructive discussion about it.

Payman: I’d agree with that. I’d agree with that.

Prav: I do totally agree with what you say, and I think looking at the whole women in dentistry, and I guess we’ve all got to be careful about what we say, but I’ll just speak my mind anyway, ultimately I’ve never seen discrimination against females. You’ve organised some events, Payman, and you’ve asked lots of female lecturers to come on board and a lot of people said no. And you’ve had some female lecturers as well. And similar to what you just said about the BAPD, it’s not because they’ve not actively gone out there and asked women.

Payman: That’s not the case for me, Prav, actually. In the [inaudible 00:12:33], I approach more men than women. I did. I wasn’t onto this idea, to tell you the truth. I wasn’t. It’s not like I thought about it and decided not to ask women. I thought I want the best people, who are the best people. Started thinking who do I know and all of that, and organically went for the best people. And then it was pointed out to me later, by I think Bertie, someone like that, who said, look, you had nine speakers and eight of them were men. And I don’t know what the actual answer. It’s not that I asked lots of women and they said no. But I feel like there wasn’t the availability of high profile women to ask. That was the feeling I had.

Prav: Let’s say you look in the composite field of implant dentistry or whatever it is that you want somebody to lecture on, who have you got to select from?

Payman: Not from women [inaudible] composites. You know about implants, Vikki?

Vikki Holden: Yeah, I do, and there’s a number of women actually who I think I would love to see do lectures. Anna McDonagh, she would be somebody who’d be great. She did a lot of implant surgical work. Maria Hardman, who is very close to us in Oxford, massive implant dentist. Maybe people don’t think about it enough to maybe do a bit of research. I was having a chat with my husband about these sorts of issues actually over the weekend, and quality and diversity. All this row erupted on the Facebook group about the lack of women in the executive [inaudible 00:14:20]. And he said, these days it’s not just enough that people say, for example, I’m not racist. Nowadays we have to be anti-racist. We have to actually go out of our way, all of us, to stamp it out. And it’s maybe the same with the whole equality thing with women in dentistry. It’s not the same necessarily as positive discrimination, but it’s saying, look, we’ve got a board here, we’re actually just going to make it equal. So it’s going to be 50-50 and we won’t fill those seats until we’ve got enough women come forward to do it. And maybe that’s the same way that we need to be. I don’t know.

Vikki Holden: I don’t know that I know enough about the topic enough. It’s something that maybe I need to… you know, I think I probably will read some books on it and try and learn a bit more and.

Payman: In that particular debate that we were talking about, there wasn’t any technicians on that committee, there weren’t any nurses. And BAPD were saying we represent all these people. There probably weren’t any associates for all I know. It was rapidly put together. But I don’t think it was… I think you’re right, Vikki, that you can’t say that this is not a valid argument because if enough people are feeling it, I guess that turns it into a valid argument. The question is it lots of people, is it a few, minority, vocal minority? And does positive discrimination help women or not?

Vikki Holden: Pass. I don’t…

Payman: Such a difficult question.

Vikki Holden: It is. It’s all very complicated and lots of strings to it I think that…

Payman: Let’s move on.

Vikki Holden: find an easier topic.

Payman: So tell us about when you started looking at law and doing the law degree and all that. What made you start doing that?

Vikki Holden: So when I was thinking about what A levels I was going to do actually, I nearly chose law rather than dentistry. So I was quite interested in law anyway, but I decided to go down the dentistry route instead. I think I decided that I’d be better of doing something that was more science based than something that was more practical. I used to play a lot of instruments when I was younger, so quite liked the idea of doing something that involved that dexterity. But I promised myself that I would probably come back to law at a later date. And I did find that soon after qualifying I was quite interested in the dentolegal side of things. So I had in my head that I would at some point do an LLM. I had to wait until the time was right, I guess, which seemed to be after I had my second baby. So I’m not sure that the timing of that was that brilliant. But I did quite an interesting course actually. There’s quite a few LLMs out there and they’re not all the same. Some of them when I looked at the syllabus seemed to be more to do with medical legal law and those medical legal questions like the rights of the unborn foetus, end of life things, it’s quite topical. Should people have the ability to choose when they’re going to choose to die, et cetera.

Vikki Holden: That wasn’t really, as interesting as it is and important as it is, that wasn’t really what interested me. So the course I ended up doing was very much focused on topics that were quite useful to dentistry. So consent, confidentiality, clinical negligence, et cetera. And it was mainly a distance learning programme as well, which was quite helpful when you’ve got two young children. So I’d spend a lot of the evening reading up on that and had to do quite a few assignments. And it took me two or three years to do that. In the meantime I was also doing quite a bit of expert witness work as well, which was quite interesting, although I don’t do any expert witness work these days. But that was how I got round to it really. It was just one of those things that I had on my long term personal development plan.

Payman: Are you the person on Taylor Defence that’s get the call from a dentist who’s had a compliant or a GDC? Is that you?

Vikki Holden: Yeah, well there are a few advisors. The rest of them are all based up in Scotland. So there’s only me who is actually really down on my own down here. Really, all the calls and complaints will go into a central email system. So they can do a conflict check and see who will be the best person to deal with it. And then some of those complaints will obviously come out for me to deal with. Most of what I do now is helping people deal with complaints at a local resolution stage. If something is a litigation claim or a GDC claim, then typically would be instructed to deal with that, as you would with any organisation really. And then I will still assist those clients and offer support. But I’m there on the end of the phone or emails. A lot of the time just dealing with general queries and complaints.

Payman: Do you often find when people speak to you, or dentists when they’ve had a complaint, that you know what the outcome’s going to be with your experience. I’ve, as a non-legal entity, acted as almost a shoulder to lean on for a lot of my clients who just want to speak about a letter that’s arrived through the post. And what my experience as a previous dentist who’s had similar issues, and the advice is obviously don’t lose too much sleep over it, even though you can’t prevent that. And my experience of what other dentists have been through and what advice they’ve given. Do you often have an idea when someone comes through, something comes through, that the way they’re rationalising it in their mind in terms of how bad it really is in comparison to how bad it really is?

Vikki Holden: Yeah, there can be sometimes a bit of a tendency for people to catastrophize with complaints. So it is often it’s quite obvious when you’ve dealt with a lot of complaints the right ways to resolve it. And it’s not always the case that the patient wants their money back. Sometimes they just want to be given the chance to have remedial treatment, sometimes [inaudible] things being damaged [inaudible 00:20:28]. It’s about sorting out what’s the fair thing to do for both parties, really. And a lot of dentists, they do take your advice on what is going to be the best way out of it, but the majority of what we deal with is just local resolution really, and it can be dealt with at a local level. Not everything needs to escalate, and if you’ve got good complaint systems in place in your practise then most things you can handle without it needing to escalate to the GDC or to litigation.

Prav: I had a conversation with a client even just a couple of days ago late last week, and it revolved around this patient getting a 1,000 quid back. And that particular dentist said to me, well, it’s not fair. There’s nothing wrong with the crown. I don’t believe they should get it, blah, blah, blah. And my advice was listen, just give them the 1,000 quid and forget about it, because if this does escalate, the problems it’ll cause, you’ll have wished you paid that 10 times over. And there’s often this argument that they feel it’s just not fair, but doing the easiest thing is just to give them the 1,000 quid and just forget about it. What’s your thought on that?

Vikki Holden: Well, I don’t know necessarily that all patients are just looking for money back actually. It’s quite interesting. I did some research for a webinar that I did over the lockdown period on complaints. But if you go on the parliamentary [inaudible 00:22:00], so they deal with NHS complaints that haven’t been resolved locally, their research showed that actually most of the complaints that they received were people who didn’t want other people to have the same experience in terms of service. It was not to do with money. And there’s another organisation, ADMA, which is accidents or medical accidents, basically things that shouldn’t have happened. They’re a charity, and they were saying that their research showed that most people litigate because they want an answer as to what happened. Sometimes people just need to have an explanation as to why things have gone wrong because they haven’t understood necessarily what has gone on in the surgery. Sometimes just writing a check and saying, well, have your money back doesn’t always resolve the complaint for the patient because they still don’t really understand why what happened happened.

Payman: Vikki, would you characterise… I remember when I was [inaudible 00:22:56], if there’s something which to go to the GDC or whatever, it was what we would call an obvious situation had happened. Whether it was a fraudulent thing or whether it was an actual clinical mistake or something like that. Whereas nowadays it feels like everyone’s getting problems because of, I don’t know, [inaudible] or whatever. But when you get the calls coming in, how do they break down in terms of the percentages? What percentage are just on dentist issues, what percentage are dentist [inaudible] patient issues, and then what percentage are what we would call actual problems, and what percentage are the ones that we’re also worried about that I know they’re actual problems?

Vikki Holden: So I think the majority of the complaints that we get [and are 00:23:44] patients complaining for one reason or another about treatment that they’ve received. And I’d say the majority of that seems to be, I’d say maybe NHS treatment. That’s just you don’t get as much about private dentistry, but that might just be because we have got more clients who are NHS dentists than private dentists. I don’t think we audit that data yet. Sometimes the patient will come in with a complaint saying, I’ve been to a new dentist and this new dentist suggested this crown isn’t good enough, et cetera. But you haven’t got all the dentist notes to know whether that is the case or whether that’s just how the patient has interpreted the conversation that they’ve had. We did go through a spate where we seemed to get quite a few GDC complaints that were against clients that were anonymous. Not a lot. I’m talking about maybe a dozen or so where there seemed to be an undertone of the complaint had been drafted by another dentist, maybe, who’d left the practise or a disgruntled employee. And those complaints were often made anonymously, so the dentist probably has an idea who it was, but doesn’t necessarily know for sure who it was. And it’s not as many as you might think.

Vikki Holden: And hopefully since the article in the BDJ highlighting the issue with blue on blue complaints, and I’d submitted a [inaudible] request a while ago, actually, to get updated from the GDC to find out how many complaints were made in retaliation by dentists. It’s not loads, and hopefully those numbers will improve now that it’s been aired in public and people [have got 00:25:23] a bit of telling off by the BDJ article about using the GDC as a weapon for airing complaints.

Payman: What about treatment modalities? Which are the treatments that are getting the most attention [inaudible 00:25:33]?

Vikki Holden: I’d say it’s often pain related complaints is probably the big one. So patients who’ve had deep fillings put in and the tooth needed re-treatment or it’s not settled after it’s had a crown put on it, that sort of thing. That’s often a common complaint with patients.

Payman: [They’re] not also [inaudible 00:25:59]?

Vikki Holden: No, not really. I’d say I’ve worked for Taylor Defence Services for, it’ll be coming up to five years I think in February, and we haven’t had a lot of claims that have come in for litigation. The [inaudible 00:26:21].

Prav: A lot of what I hear, and it’s maybe just the practises I work with, tend to be revolving around the cosmetic outcomes and just dissatisfaction around that. Do you see much of that at all?

Vikki Holden: Bonding is one of the things that I’d say we get not a lot of complaints about, but that could be something that patients complain about. Patient expectations, I think, are getting higher, definitely. And these treatments, injection moulded composites, veneers, composite or edge bonding, actually can be quite tricky to do well. And one of the things that sometimes you see with snapshots of the treatment we see on Instagram is that a lot of the dentists who do this amazing work, they make it look really easy because they’re so good at it. And that can be something I think that actually needs quite a lot of training and a lot of practise to be able to do those treatments really, really well.

Vikki Holden: Sorry, somebody’s responding to that question.

Prav: I think you mentioned something about fixed braces or I think, [inaudible 00:27:32], you not wanting to do fixed ortho again. Is that related to this or is it something completely separate?

Vikki Holden: No, just from my own clinical preferences. So the past few years I’ve tried to generally learn a bit about everything through my career. So I learned how to implant. Spent a fortune on implant courses actually and I don’t do even like the number of implants that I should do. I did the FGDP diploma in implant dentistry, which was quite a feat because I had to do all these cases with block grafting in, which I did, and then I just never wanted to do anything that complicated since. So I’m very much just limit the implants that I do to very simple cases. Over the last five, six years, I’ve learned how to do Invisalign treatments, and that’s been quite good. And at some point [longer] on I thought do you know, probably should have a look at fixed braces because I keep hearing about Invisalign’s great but sometimes you just need to put the patient into fixed braces at the end, whatever. That’s not been my experience of it at all actually. And so fixed braces have been the, particularly through lockdown, just thought, God, I’ve got these patients, I can’t see them, I don’t know what’s going on, they’re complaining they’ve got brackets that have fallen off or the elastics are breaking down. So fixed braces, certainly for me, not for me. [crosstalk 00:28:57].

Prav: Is that just because of your lockdown experience or just in terms of you getting better results with removable appliances?

Vikki Holden: I think the way that we’re heading, particularly our practise as well, is very much down a digital workflow. We’ve got two [ICO] scanners that we’ve got in use all the time, and I just like the ability to be able to do the digital planning. And that for me, I think with fixed braces sort of thing, I’m just not sure how that you can visualise that end result in quite the same way as you can with the Invisalign planning or digital planning where you can do it all pre-planned. I just like that. I like that certainty that you get in being able to see what your outcome is that you’re working to before you’ve done anything. I guess it’s like having a [wax] [inaudible 00:29:45], isn’t it, beforehand. Because you can see [inaudible] dimensions, I just find it a bit easier to visualise.

Prav: So you talked about obviously going digital with your practise and stuff. Have you embraced any other changes during lockdown like video consultations or using remote monitoring? I think there’s-

Vikki Holden: I’m looking at remote monitoring. I’ve not got it set up yet, but that’s definitely something to look at. The other thing that we’ve done is we’ve pretty much gone paper free. So looking at ways that we could reduce touchpoints in the [surgery 00:30:19]. I guess like many practises are, waiting rooms are out of action at the moment, but when you start to look at some of the systems that you have in place, some of them are actually quite inefficient and quite expensive, probably, to run in terms of the amount of manpower that you need. So for example, patients arrive at the practise and give them a printed off medical history form and they sit in the waiting room and they fill it out and they hand it back to the receptionist and then somebody loads it onto the computer and gets scanned it and it gets shredded. Look at all the steps that are involved in that.

Vikki Holden: One of the things that we did initially was we made all the forms into digital forms so that people could fill them out using some sort of Adobe Acrobat. But we had problems with that as well, because a lot of our patients were saying, well, actually I can’t save this document and send it back and they were coming back blank and patients complaining they had four different forms to fill out for new medical history and photo form and COVID screening form, et cetera. So one of the things that we did was we just made a load of Google forms and the patients get sent a link, they fill out the form, we save their answers to it, download it, import it into the dental software, and it’s been really good actually. So that’s one of the things that we’ll definitely keep in place.

Vikki Holden: We’re just constantly, at the moment, looking for ways in which we can make things more efficient. We’ve lost two members of the staff naturally, which is good because it means that we’re not in a situation [wherein] potentially we overstaff. So that’s been quite nice that we’ve been able to plan the workforce around a team that’s naturally reduced in size, but obviously that means that we have lost two bodies that would have been able to do some of those jobs. So we’re just looking at a lot of ways that we can speed things up now because now we’ve got five surgeries running today. That’s the most that we’ve had since lockdown. So it’ll be interesting to see how that works with getting patients in and out of the building without them bumping into each other and have we got all the paperwork that we need sorted out beforehand, and taking more payments remotely, that kind of thing.

Payman: How do you manage with partners? Which role do you play? How many partners? Say that again.

Vikki Holden: So there’s four partners at the practise. We did have six initially, but just [with] retirement and people moving on, we’re down to four. I tend to look after most of the compliance side of things, which just seems to be actually where they would have me. And I don’t know, again, we’re coming back to this equality issue, because I’m the only female partner, I seem to be the person that a lot of the staff would naturally gravitate to if they’ve got an issue that needs resolving. And I’m probably just about a little bit more than everybody else [inaudible] practise. So I tend to maybe oversee most of the HR side of things.

Payman: Hiring and firing bit?

Vikki Holden: Well, I’m fortunate not to do much firing, but hiring, we delegate that to the practise manager. She’s much better at interviewing and recruiting, I’d say, than the partners have been in the past. So that’s one thing we don’t do, but looking at maybe the legal aspects if the employment contracts need updating or associate contracts need reviewing, then I would have a look at those sorts of things. We outsource quite a few bits. Like employment law we use FTA Law. So Sarah Buxton’s company. They look after our employment side of things, and that’s something that’s really worthwhile having in place actually.

Payman: What’s the decision-making structure? Is one of you responsible for marketing and you leave it up to him, or do you guys pass all these decisions through each other?

Vikki Holden: Well, in terms of how the practise runs, so two of the partners are actually specialists. So one’s an orthodontist and one’s an endodontist and they have quite solid referral basis, whereas myself and the other partner, Nick, are more general practise dentists. So really, in terms of those decisions with marketing, I’d say mainly it’s down to me and Nick to decide what we do, and that makes it quite easy because it’s just the two of us need to have a conversation with the practise manager. We do a bit of Facebook marketing. We don’t really do any Google marketing. But we just have a look at what sort of things we want to do. It’s mainly Invisalign or implants. Prior to lockdown, we were having Facebook marketing done with Derek. You know Derek?

Payman: Yeah.

Vikki Holden: So Derek was, imagine that, we’re just about to get that all up and running again. We tend to be a little bit conservative, I suppose, on marketing things that we can’t measure. So adverts in the paper, that kind of thing, we don’t really get involved in that sort of thing these days. But it’s quite easy in a way to make decisions like that because it’s just two of you, you have a conversation, go, do you think that’s a good idea, and they’ll go, yes or no, and then you move on. So I think the days of sitting around, having long meeting where everything has to be agreed by six people is gone because that can be a bit [inaudible] obviously to get everyone to agree to the same thing at the same time.

Payman: How do you, and obviously you don’t have to answer this question, but how do you figure out the financial split when you’ve got four partners? Just on a higher level, the dentistry you’re doing, the dentistry a specialist is doing, what goes into the central [partners] of business? Let’s say you buy a couple of iTero machines, how does that fit into the mix if, let’s say, a specialist isn’t using it? There must be a lot of complicated conversations when you’ve got numerous people in a partnership. Just curious to learn how that all mixes up.

Vikki Holden: So a lot of those systems, I’ve been here for 13 years, and the practise has always been, when it’s very busy financially, but it’s always been quite well structured financially because I think a lot of those difficult conversations about how things were split were done before I came. And over time, whenever we refine those systems or review some of them, but it’s quite simple actually, and we break it down. Each fee earner who’s a partner, we have our own [inaudible] big [inaudible] management accounts, and our income is our own. So the dentist software allows [to say 00:36:40] if I’ve done a crown, seen a patient for an exam, that payment is allocated to me. So my income is mine. And that’s the same for the other dentists. Where we’ve got associates that we share, that gets split out between those vendors who are looking after that associate.

Vikki Holden: In terms of the expenses, again, it’s quite simple. We either have expenses that we split equally because you need that thing whether you are there one day a week or five days a week, for example, CQC registration. If there was only one partner at the practise, they’d be paying that on their own, so we split that equally. And some things we split on what we call a sessional basis. So we work out how many, say my surgery is available for me 10 sessions a week, so I would pay the portion of those expenses that vary based on how much you’re here, like gloves, for example, local anaesthetics, cotton wool rolls, those things [inaudible] on a sessional basis. And it’s quite simple. We get the invoices in, we look at materials. Well, that went to that surgery, so it just gets all split out. We employ a full-time administrator to do the finances at the practise, as well as a practise manager. When we’re fully operational, we’ve got eight dentists working here, two hygienists, so I think you need that level. So it is recorded in quite a big level of detail, really, but overall it should be pretty fair.

Payman: What’s positioning of the practise? Are you [guys] the most expensive practise in town?

Vikki Holden: Do you know, I don’t know because I don’t really look too much at what other practises are charging. We’re in the same town as the [inaudible 00:38:23]. I’d say we’re probably not as expensive as they might be for things like implants or other specialist work that’s going on. We are a fully private practise. The practise has been going for over a 100 years, I think, but I we don’t set ourselves out necessarily to have a… we’re going to position ourselves as most expensive one, you’ve got to be very wealthy to come here. My upbringing and my view on life is that we should be inclusive of everybody, so I would probably be trying to position the fees to make it affordable for everybody actually.

Payman: Everybody except NHS patients, is that you mean?

Vikki Holden: Well, we don’t have an NHS contract. Actually, you say that, but yesterday I had a patient come in for a consultation because she wanted to find out about Invisalign and she wanted to find out about having an implant replacement but she didn’t want to come here as a general practise patient. And we’ve also, since we’ve reopened after lockdown, we have made quite [inaudible 00:39:20], saying, we are here, we can offer emergency care to everybody. And we’ve had quite a lot of patients who’ve come in just to have something sorted out because their own dentist either hasn’t been ready to do it or couldn’t see them quickly enough or wasn’t able to AGPs at the time. So I try and be inclusive of everybody.

Payman: And then, as somebody who’s involved in a partnership, are you all quite aligned in terms of what the end goal is or where you want to go, what direction you want to go, and whether it’s an exit, a planned exit in X number of years time? Are you all at different stages in your life and how does that all play out?

Vikki Holden: Yeah, so I think I don’t know. That probably is a conversation, at the moment, that we need to have actually, because I am the youngest of all the partners. One of the partners, Nick and I were about to buy him out actually at the start of lockdown, and that’s been thrown up into the air because nobody knows what’s going to happen there. So we were going to go down to three partners. Exit strategy, I don’t know. I’m 44 and I’ve always said I just don’t really fancy working for corporate. I just don’t think I’d be very good at being an associate actually. I don’t know whether the associates here would want to buy the practise. Nick is actually 10 years older than me, and I think he is still fairly young, but equally, I don’t know if he wants to keep going after 10 years time when he’ll be 64. Does he still want to be at the practise seeing patients? I don’t know. I’ll need to see. And I think with a partnership this big, where it probably gets difficult is as you reduce down partners, then the amount of money that you need to borrow to buy people out is getting quite significant. And then I’ll be getting on for 50 maybe when the next one’s wanting to retire.

Vikki Holden: So I don’t know is the answer. But I just feel as though this practise has been an independent practise for over a 100 years, and I just don’t know that I necessarily want to be the one that would hand it over to one of the corporates.

Payman: Corporate. And do you have some kind of rules in terms of deciding who gets to buy [it 00:41:32]? So let’s imagine you’ve got three, four partners, whatever it is, and then one of the partners wants out and goes, do you know what, I’ve found a buyer. I’m assuming you guys have got first refusal, right?

Vikki Holden: Yeah, so that would be something that if you’re going to be in a partnership you need to have a well-drafted partnership agreement. And we have had those agreements written and they do need to be reviewed every so often as well. So I think the clause would be that the sale of the business would be to the people who are within it, and if they didn’t want to exercise that right, then it should be free to go on the open market, really. I don’t know [crosstalk 00:42:08].

Payman: So just that partner share?

Vikki Holden: Yeah.

Payman: Interesting.

Vikki Holden: They’re a bit old fashioned, I think, aren’t they now, these partnership agreements or partnership rules. When I bought in 13, 14 years ago now, and I’d not worked for [them 00:42:25], I didn’t know any of the people who were buying in, really it was a bit of a risk at the time because they can be a little bit quite difficult to get out of if you decide that you didn’t want to be in the partnership anymore. Finding a buyer in the open market or getting everybody else to buy you out might be quite tricky. So I’d say it is a bit of a risk, I suppose, going into partnership, but we seem to be doing all right with the ones that we’ve got left.

Payman: So what would you say has been your darkest day from a professional perspective?

Vikki Holden: I think probably I would say that was… When I had children, I’d say that was a pretty stressful time actually, when they were actually born because [particularly] with my first child, I had him at 28 weeks. And I had these plans, I was having a baby and I had no NHS contract so I didn’t have any maternity pay at all. And I had this plan that I had an associate, he was going to come and look after my patients through November when the baby was going to be born and I was going to go off for maternity leave. And actually I went into labour suddenly one day after being in the clinic one day, and ended up the next morning I had a baby and the baby was in hospital.

Vikki Holden: And it was just massively stressful at the time because I felt like the rug had been pulled from under my feet a little bit. I had patients who were still midway through treatment. I didn’t know whether I was going to be able to finish them off or not. [inaudible] having to [trek] back and forth to the practise and financially it was really, really stressful. And I’d say that was probably the darkest day that I had, or darkest days, because it was all very uncertain. I just didn’t know if the baby was going to be all right. Just very difficult because ended up being signed off from work actually for three months, which was great in a way, because the insurance paid out then, but without that being in place, I literally went from earning normal income and I planned to wind down, and that didn’t happen. I had all these bills.

Vikki Holden: and I say that experience probably put me in a better frame of mind for when we suddenly had the Coronavirus and everybody had to stop working actually, because you could see when you looked on the Facebook forums, all this fear and anxiety over money. And I never really felt that at the time in March because I just thought, do you know what, these things sort themselves out. They work out and it was a great learning experience actually, that whole thing. These experiences that you can draw on, I suppose, from the past, where you think, that was awful. Wen I look back on it, it was the most stressful time of my life, and I suppose what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

Payman: That little cliché is true.

Vikki Holden: It is a massive cliché, but it is true.

Prav: When you were just speaking about the experience you went through then, getting the rug pulled under and all the rest of it, the first thing that came into my mind before you went into was Coronavirus and how that just took everything. There was no plans, there was no nothing. There was uncertainty and all the rest of it. And obviously you’ve coped with it in a really easy way. What would you say have been the biggest highlights for you, the biggest wins that have come out of this time period?

Vikki Holden: So one big win, obviously, was getting to have all this time with the kids. I’d say it was the longest spell I’d really had off where I wasn’t doing any dentistry. And getting to spend that time with the kids was great, because when I had my kids they were in hospital for most of the time when I was, in theory, on maternity leave. So I didn’t have that nice maternity period at home with a baby.

Vikki Holden: The other big win is having time to just do a lot of life admin. We managed to do so much sorting out of things that we’ve never really had the chance to do at the practise. Getting things sorted out onto spreadsheets and making things efficient, but also at home as well. It’s been great. It has just given us back a few hours each day that we haven’t had.

Prav: And do you feel like you want to go… For me, at the moment, work has just picked up at an astronomical rate. So it went from zero work, panic, stress. So I did have the panic, I had the stress, I had the tears. And then, life became incredibly good. It was almost like getting a snippet of what retirement would be like in the future. And spending loads of great times with the kids, with the family, having those long lie ins in the morning. It’s like what the [fuck 00:47:08]. I’d say in bed-

Vikki Holden: [crosstalk 00:47:10].

Prav: … till half past six in the morning or something like that. And then-

Payman: He sent me a message today at 4:40. 4:40.

Vikki Holden: Oh, [inaudible 00:47:21].

Prav: … I had to get a shift in before the podcasts. So all of that came great, and now my world has imploded and work has gone crazy and it’s almost like I want to steal back that old life, do you know what I mean, and try and get it back. I think what I’m trying to do is design my life so I can lean more towards what the start of lockdown was, rather than reverting back to the old ways.

Payman: [crosstalk] it’s easier for me and you because we literally can work from home. Prav’s told his team he’s not going back till January to the office. And you probably won’t even fully go back at that point.

Prav: It’ll be hybrid.

Payman: Something that’s changed for me, Prav, [inaudible 00:48:06], my marketing manager said, [I want to 00:48:08] do a course, an online course. And it’s every Tuesday at 4:30. So once we go back to the office, every Tuesday at 4:30 to 5:30 I’m not going to be available. Would that be okay? And under normal circumstances before lockdown, we would have said, we’ll try and work it out or whatever. Really? We’ll try and work it out for her to do her course. Now, I said, well, if we ever go back, why don’t you just take the Tuesday afternoons as working from home? Amazing. To give someone an afternoon working from home before would have been a major decision.

Vikki Holden: I think everybody’s realised, haven’t they, that there’s a lot of things that people can do as productively from home-

Payman: More productively.

Vikki Holden: … as they can in the office.

Prav: More productively. I had the same conversation with my team, and Payman, what you’re saying there, we were on a Zoom call the other day and I said to them all, I said, in no uncertain terms, had all of you come to me and said, listen, we want to do half the week from home, I’d have told you which bus to get off. Not in a million years. But now, we’re all having the discussion of what does 2021 look like, and I see it as a hybrid structure where we have a couple of core days in the office, and then people can choose to do what they want. They can either come in and do a five day week in the office, they can do two days in the office, three days from home. And no hard and fast rules for any one individual, but just having the structure there so everyone can just deliver their best. And as long as the stuff gets done, I don’t really care.

Prav: There is no way my mindset would have been in that frame of mind pre COVID. And even that’s a blessing for everyone because everyone’s happier at the moment.

Vikki Holden: My brother works for Google and they’re quite a progressive employer anyway. They [crosstalk] where 20% of the employee’s time can be spent on developing their own projects anyway. And I think they’re still doing it for Google, because out of that have come a lot of things that they’ve developed. But he’s been told they’ll be able to work from home till mid 2021.

Prav: Wow.

Vikki Holden: That’s how [crosstalk 00:50:27].

Payman: Vikki, you talked about your upbringing, saying that because of your upbringing you want your practise to be accessible and inclusive. What do you mean? Tell us about that, your upbringing? Where did you grow up? What kind of family was it? When did you decide to become a dentist?

Vikki Holden: So I grew up in a really tiny village in Northumberland, which nobody will have ever heard of, called Ovington. It’s quite close to a [inaudible] called Hexham, which see, people know that because the racecourse if they’re into horse racing. So it’s not up near Scotland, it’s not in the middle of nowhere, but quite far down in the south of Northumberland. But it was really nice, the old country village, not much to do. Was two pubs in the village and a post office. Very, very rural area. My parents were both teachers. My mom was a deputy head of a primary school in the village, and my dad taught in a bit of a bigger school that was on the outskirts of Newcastle. And they always said to me, be whatever you want when you grow up. We’ve got no expectations as to what you have to do, but don’t be a teacher. So I always knew that I was never going to be a teacher because I see how hard teachers work. It was a really difficult and demanding job, and they were in that era where they started to bring in lead tables and a formal curriculum, et cetera, and that sort of thing.

Vikki Holden: I also had another big influence in my life, which was my aunt. And she was a dentist. And from being quite young, she would say to me, you’re going to come work for me when you’re older. And I think when I was about seven or eight, I thought, I’ll go and work as a receptionist for Auntie June, which probably wasn’t what she meant. She meant come and be a dentist. So when I was going through school and I seemed to have this affinity for science based subjects, I was interested in science, I was interested in medicine, but I always used to do a lot of sport. I was quite a sporty child. And I played three musical instruments, as well, at school. So I did a lot with my hands, and it just, like I say, went down this route thinking well, what am I going to do?

Vikki Holden: If I didn’t have that dental influence, I’d probably dare say I would have gone down the medicine route. It would have been medicine or law. But I think because at the time, a lot of the people I was at dental school with, they seemed to have some link with dentistry. I’m in that age group where it wasn’t necessarily a really popular choice of degree to do. The grades that I needed to get, they weren’t very high. I had quite a few [inaudible] offers, actually, to get into university, because there just wasn’t that level of competition, I don’t think. But that was why I…

Payman: Where did you study? Where did you study?

Vikki Holden: Sheffield.

Payman: How was that? What did that feel like going from rural Northumberland to the big spoke?

Vikki Holden: I know. I applied to universities that were in the north of England. The obvious one would have been to go to Newcastle, but Newcastle [would have been 00:53:27] about [15] minutes drive from home, so I thought I need to be a bit further away than that. I don’t know why I didn’t really… I didn’t fancy Leeds. I can’t remember why particularly. I went for an interview in Liverpool, but it was just the worst weather I’ve ever experienced. Walking back to the train station, I got literally soaked to the bone walking down from [inaudible] to [Broad Street 00:53:50] station. So I didn’t fancy going there either. And there was this train that took five hours to get home, so that would be a nightmare.

Vikki Holden: So Sheffield, it was two and a half hours drive away. It was a good distance, I suppose, from my parents. It was nice, it was a small dental school with quite a small year group, I think, that came out of there. They didn’t have a lot of students. It was a new dentist school as well when we went. I think we were one of the first years to go through the new dental hospital. And it was nice, it was a nice time. I didn’t want to stay in Sheffield after I finished. I moved back home. It was too obvious to not go back and work at my aunt’s practise after all the influence that I’d had from her.

Payman: You did that, did you?

Vikki Holden: I did, yeah. I did my [inaudible] back in the Northeast, and I worked at my aunt’s practise for four years or so. I liked working there, but I didn’t really like doing NHS dentistry, I think. I found that hard, and I found it was the old contract. And I found the fee pricing system, which was what it was at the time, we used to say it was [the real old 00:54:59] treadmill [this 00:55:00]. And I could see how it was a bit of tread mill and I just felt like I wanted to learn how to do implants and I wanted to learn how to do cosmetic dentistry. And a lot of those things, I just at the time, didn’t think I would necessarily maybe be able to do. I think that’s all changed now because I think there’s such a market for those things everywhere. So I headed off to the South and I learned how to do implants and learned how to do cosmetic dentistry.

Payman: So how did you end up being a Southerner then?

Vikki Holden: [Ended up being 00:55:31] a Southerner. Wow. I moved down. I got a job in the South, and when I landed down here I started to think, well, I’d quite like to buy a practise and I’d like to have my own practise. And actually, this is quite interesting, because one of the things that I did do about this time when I was moving to the South is I got in my head. I didn’t want to work as an NHS dentist, I wanted to develop all these other skills. So I ended up thinking I need to have some sort of coaching or counselling to help me decide what I want to do with this career actually.

Vikki Holden: And as I looked into it, one of the first post graduate courses that I ever did actually was a diploma in life coaching. So I am technically a qualified life coach, although I’ve never really done any coaching. But it was brilliant, that course, actually because part of it, it was you had to really coach yourself through to get the qualification. You had to go through a lot of coaching yourself, and it really did open my eyes to a lot of things. And it was a really good exercise in personal development actually. And it really sparked an interest that has followed me through. I don’t read a lot of books on fiction, I read a lot of books on productivity and self-awareness and personal development books. That’s really my thing. I’ll listen to podcasts on those things when I go out walking with the dogs.

Payman: Vikki, what would you say are a couple of books that have changed your life, changed your direction?

Vikki Holden: The Seven Habits book, I’d say. That was probably the best book I’ve ever read, and I still refer to it now. Those habits, those values, I think are the ones that I would definitely say I try and live my life by and get quite frustrated when I come across people in situations who don’t really live to those [ones 00:57:24]. That’s one. Second book, I don’t know.

Payman: What about podcasts? Which podcasts do you listen?

Vikki Holden: Well, I like your podcast. [crosstalk 00:57:34]. I really like [inaudible 00:57:35]. So the podcasts I like, actually the ones I’ve been listening to most of the summer, I love listening to your Podcast. It’s been brilliant for getting to know people who you feel as though you know them because you see them on social media or they do courses or whatever, but you don’t really know these people because you’ve never met them personally. I’ve never met you guys face-to-face. It’s been really good, actually, these chats that you’ve had with people, getting to know them and seeing what was their upbringing like and how did they end up in dentistry. That’s a good one. And I also like listening to Brad’s podcast. Have you listened to Brad’s podcast?

Payman: Yeah.

Vikki Holden: Business type of podcast. I quite like listening to that one.

Payman: Do you listen to anything outside of industry?

Vikki Holden: Yeah, I do, but I’d have to get on my phone, have a look, because I probably just [inaudible 00:58:22]. I’ll see these things, don’t know [if it’d be 00:58:24] a really good… Tim Ferriss, he’s another one. I quite like listening to that podcast.

Payman: So Vikki, you’ve got lots of different hats. You’re a mom, you’re an owner, you’ve got the dentolegal side. You’ve got the Facebook moderator, headmistress role. Which of these are the ones that you like that most? Is clinical dentistry your passion? It sounds like you’re up for volunteering for stuff.

Vikki Holden: I really like to help out with things. I definitely am happy to give up time and knowledge. I did the FGDP career progression. So I did the FFGDP fellowship exam, and one of the things that I said when I was doing the final [inaudible] for that was that I’d spent a lot of time focusing on my own post graduate education, really it’s time to maybe give some of that back. So I’m quite happy to volunteer and help to do things, obviously [inaudible 00:59:27]. I think it’s just a question of time management. I enjoy all the things that I do. I enjoy being a mom and I enjoy clinical dentistry and I enjoy the dentolegal thing. I think I’d be very, very upset if I had to ever give one thing up to focus on one thing alone.

Vikki Holden: But it’s that principle out of the Seven Habits book, isn’t it, putting first things first. At different times of your life you have to be able to do what’s needed. So through lockdown, the thing that needed to come first was sorting the kids out and supporting them through homeschooling. Hibernate the business. People were looked after in the sense that we have the furlough scheme in place. That was the thing that needed to be put first then. There’s been other times where there’s been a massive workload with TDS and that needs to be put first to sort those things out, and other periods of time where the business has needed a lot of attention, particularly when we were getting it back up and running. And I’d said to my husband, it’s nice that we’ve all been at home for the last two months together, but there’s going to come a time when I’m going to have to go back to the surgery and you’re going to have [field] the kids at home on your own. And by that time it was a bit easier because the kids were into the routine of the Teams lessons and Alexa alarms were set all through the house. So they were going off all the time to tell them when the next lesson was.

Vikki Holden: So a lot of it is just about being organised, I think, and making sure that you’ve got your calendars up to date and you’ve got your calendars synced and you know what you’re doing. And just working out what needs to be done when.

Payman: The question that’s been boggling me the most over lockdown has been can we address some of the issues that we’ve got as a profession? And I feel like we were let down left, right and centre. We don’t need to be [mystical 01:01:17], but the GDC reform, no one really knows fee reform. You’ve done a law degree now. Is there a debate in the legal profession that talks about the downsides of things like no win-no fee? I guess there’s an upside to it. People who can’t afford lawyers, are your lawyers working for you properly and all that. But is there a debate about that? That we have debates about polishing composite?

Vikki Holden: I think there’s a bit of a misconception about no win-no fee in that people think it means that solicitors will just take on any case. And the reality of no win-no fee is that the solicitor still has to do a lot of work on a case before they have any chance of getting paid for that case. So they won’t take on a case unless they think it’s got a realistic chance of success. I don’t know-

Payman: [crosstalk 01:02:13]… I guess what I’m alluding to is that claim culture. I have a little [inaudible] in my car, for the next six years I get called by some sort of ambulance chaser saying, haven’t you got whiplash and all of that? If someone has an accident at work there’s adverts on the TV saying, call us claims. And then we’ve got our version of it with the dental law partnership. Then there’s the downside. The downside of that ambulance chasing, maybe I called it no win-no fee, maybe that wasn’t [inaudible 01:02:42].

Vikki Holden: So I think a lot of patients, from the complaints that I see coming in, I think a lot of the general public are wise to the fact that actually sometimes getting a solicitor to sort a problem out doesn’t save them any time, in fact it just prolongs the process. So I think as a profession, that’s where maybe we need to look at accepting that sometimes things don’t go to plan. And there might be times where things go badly wrong. So you might have damaged a tooth beyond repair. I think it’s [inaudible] profession to be professional about it. And that’s the reason why you have indemnity arrangements in place so that you can call on them to sort out those problems if it needs some sort of financial settlement before the patient is necessarily given the opportunity to go to a solicitor. Because if you go to a solicitor everybody loses, really. The dentist or the [inaudible] loses because their costs go up massively because they’re now paying legal fees on often both sides. And the patient loses because they might not get the level of compensation that they would have got if it had just been sorted out amicably with no lawyers involved.

Vikki Holden: And the main reason for that is that part of the no win-no fee arrangement is that solicitors can charge the clients a success fee of up to 25% of the damages. So if say you had some sort of an issue and your dentist is going to compensate you 5,000 pounds, you might be initially 25% down on that at the end of a settlement, and it might have taken the best part of 18 months, two years, to actually get there. So I think taking those opportunities to solve those problems that might involve [inaudible] compensation in-house, that’s one thing that would help get rid of, what we call ambulance chasing solicitors.

Vikki Holden: I can only think of one case, I suppose, where I might have looked at it and gone, do you know what, that is really, really ridiculous. Where a patient was trying to claim for a toothbrush. They said I’ve got to buy a special toothbrush because of what you’ve done. It was like an electric toothbrush. One in five years I’ve seen. I don’t see it as being a bit of a problem or as big of a problem as people do because of the work that I’m doing. But the problem is you’ve got these echo chambers on Facebook, i.e, forums, where there has been a lot of scaremongering about these sorts of issues. And I think what you’ve got to remember when you read the Facebook forums and form an opinion about ambulance chasing solicitors and no win-no fee and GDC compliance, is that you’re only getting one side of the story there. You’re only getting one party’s side of the story. You’re not in a position where you’ve seen what was the complaint that came in from the patient and what really happened. And I think I’ve just learned to take a step back from those sorts of threads and again, I just [crosstalk 01:05:36].

Payman: You’re literally saying there’s no need for reform, it’s all good, everything’s fine?

Vikki Holden: I think we need to reform it by managing things better at a local level. If we’re talking about reforming the GDC by saying, oh, let’s go back to the burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt, it’s not ever going to happen. That’s never going to happen, so it’s a bit of a waste of time. The reform that would be going on at the GDC, right-touch regulation, that’s a really big thing that the regulators are looking at at the moment. And you can see in the communications that they’re sending, to me, I see that they are taking those things quite seriously. Where does the reform need to happen, people not taking screenshots off of social media and reported people to the GDC for making unprofessional comments. We need to look more at ourselves as to why these things are happening and reform it that way as well as just demanding that the regulators maybe don’t open up so many complaint cases. There’s just certain triggers that in place when the GDC get a complaint of such words that needs to be used that will open an investigation.

Vikki Holden: I just don’t buy into the scaremongering as much. I think that there have been some changes that have been at the GDC that are quite positive actually. We need to maybe keep on with the clinical advisor reports a little bit. They can be sometimes a bit irritating that they might not have picked up on or not read things that are blatantly in the notes and it’s triggered their case to go to the case examiner’s. But those cases do get dealt with when the letters are written and the case examiners have a look. So I…

Payman: It’s lovely to hear you say this.

Vikki Holden: [crosstalk] about those thing than…

Payman: It’s really good to hear you say this, it’s really good that you say this because you’re in it, so you’re getting much more information on this than we are. But I don’t-

Vikki Holden: I’m not saying it’s perfect. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but I think the expectations of the profession maybe needs to be managed a little bit. The GDC’s not going to go away. They are there to protect patients. They’re there to do a job to review complaints that come in. And the proof will be in the pudding of looking at the annual reports and seeing how many cases were stopped by the case examiners. The case examiners seem to be doing an amazing job, actually, of dealing with those GDC complaints at a much lower level and not triggering it onto a hearing. So I think from where I sit, things do seem to be moving in a positive direction.

Payman: I think there it was something that we were, in the UK, we had over the Americans, that I thought was that we weren’t so [meticulous 01:08:21], we weren’t so attacking each other. And [inaudible] that’s gone, now we are. I guess if a society’s based on law, it’s one of the side effects of that, isn’t it. Maybe that’s what it is.

Vikki Holden: Yeah, and when I did a webinar recently, again, looking at this issue of complaints, I think understanding the reasons why people complain actually will probably help us to stop a lot of complaints from escalating in the first place. And one of the facts that I’d uncovered was that in the UK, we’ve got a bit of an issue with literacy. So it’s something like one in five adults in the UK has got the literacy skills of an 11-year-old child. That’s actually quite a high proportion of adults who’ve actually got quite poor literacy skills. And are they really understanding the information that’s being imparted to them, and particularly where you might be in a rushed clinical environment.

Vikki Holden: [inaudible] one was something like half or nearly half of adults only have or didn’t have 300 pounds in savings for an unexpected emergency. Well, when you look at, what was it, cost to keep teeth under good repair, it’s quite expensive. And those sorts of factors. And you’ve got a patient who might have paid for a crown on a tooth and all of a sudden the crown needs a root canal treatment, and they’re looking at that tooth being extracted and implant. That’s quite a big deal actually to a lot of the general public. And I’m not saying that there aren’t complainants out there who are vexatious or who are aggressive in the way that they present their complaints, because of course there are. But I think we just need to be able to look at how do we understand things from that other point of view, and that would go a long way, I think, into helping resolve a lot of issues without needing to escalate in the first place.

Payman: Communication [crosstalk 01:10:10].

Vikki Holden: Yeah. Communication, and empathy is another one.

Prav: I’m sorry, you’ve heard this question probably God knows how many episodes you’ve listened to, but if it was your last day on the planet and you had your kids by your side, couple of things, what would be the three pieces of advice you’d leave them with and how would you like to be remembered?

Vikki Holden: Oh gosh. So I’d probably like to be remembered as somebody who was a fair person and somebody who was happy to speak up and say something that needed to be said, even if what needed to be said was unpopular or uncomfortable for other people to hear. What would I tell my kids? I’d probably say to them just to always make sure that they are fair to everybody. Treat everybody equally because they live very privileged lives, my kids, and they are very lucky and I don’t want them to forget that ever. They could have been unlucky to have been in born somewhere that’s [inaudible] war or where people are just not being very nice to them. There’s so many issues with child abuse and things that go on, are just horrible in the world. So I want them to always remember that they are very, very lucky. And pay it forwards. Don’t just take, take, take. Be a giver as well as a taker. And the final thing, always brush your teeth. The only thing I’m not great at actually, which is a bit disappointing as a dentist.

Payman: Vikki, before we go, before we finish it off, how do you keep it real for your kids? They’ve had a much more privileged upbringing than yours, let’s say for the sake of the argument, so how do keep it real? Do you actually try and keep it real for them somehow?

Vikki Holden: I try not to spoil them. At the moment, for example, because they are spending a bit more time than probably I’d like on the Xbox, but they are wanting to constantly buy V-Bucks or whatever they are so they can play on Fortnite. And I’m like, no, it’s a waste of money. I’m not into wasting money. Even though I think we’re quite fortunate, we’re probably a lot better off than my parents were. But they don’t get spoiled. They don’t get everything that they want. They’ll come to be saying, can I get this, and I’ll be like, no, you get it for your birthday.

Payman: Really good point.

Vikki Holden: [crosstalk 01:12:34].

Prav: Hard to say no though, right?

Vikki Holden: I don’t know. I’ve [inaudible 01:12:38].

Prav: I struggle with certain things. I don’t know. You want your kids to have the best, whether it’s education or maybe Fortnite credits and games and things are probably not at the top of the priority list. And in the same respect, deep down, I want them to know what it’s like to struggle as well.

Vikki Holden: Yeah, exactly. I think they just need to have a good perspective of life. And I think I’d also want them to know that we live in the house that we and they have the nice holidays that they have, although obviously nobody’s going on holiday at the moment, because me and their dad have worked really hard. We’ve not [inaudible] on a plate ourselves. And equally, I don’t think that I would be wanting to hand things to a plate on them either. They need to learn how to save up money if they want to buy something, and they need to understand that if they don’t get good school reports then they’re not just going to get rewarded with treats all the same. I think that’s probably a good lesson for them to have, that it doesn’t just all come from nowhere.

Payman: Thank you so much, Vikki.

Vikki Holden: Thank [crosstalk 01:13:49].

Prav: Thank you.

Payman: [crosstalk 01:13:51]. Hopefully we’ll meet up for a real meeting.

Vikki Holden: That would be [inaudible 01:13:56].

Payman: Thanks a lot.

Prav: Thank you so much.

Vikki Holden: No worries.

Prav: Take care.

Vikki Holden: Thanks. Bye.

Outro Voice: 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.

Prav: 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 actually 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.

Payman: 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.

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

Payman: Called from me, the CEO, to my top users. I should’ve been doing more. I’ve learned that now. A simple thing like that. Of course, there’s all the financial side. Luckily, I’ve got a partner who takes care of that stuff as you know, so.

Intro Voice: 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.

Payman: So, today we are going to talk to Jimmy Palahey, who’s got four practises in around Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. Jimmy, is that right?

Jimmy: That’s correct. Yeah.

Payman: Yeah. Nice to have you Jimmy. So Jimmy, just tell us firstly, pre-COVID, what your practises were like. The size of them, the number of people, the buildings, the kind of dentistry you were doing in those four. And then, three of those became urgent care centres, urgent dental centres. So really, what I’d like to know is what it’s like, first of all, how did you do that? Why did you do that? Why didn’t you barbecue like the rest of us? And then, what it’s like working in that environment.

Jimmy: Okay. So, let’s take a question at a time. The initial group of practises that we had, we always run a mix model, so we’ve always run a mix model. I’ve always felt the most suitable model for us.

Jimmy: I think it works well for us. I have a background doing NHS dentistry. Did most of my career doing that. And then, obviously always had one eye on private as well. But we’ve always approached it as a Pizza Express of dentistry, toward that sort of model. So, not high-end Michelin star and not McDonald’s, so kind of sitting in the middle. And we’ve always sat at that sort of position. So we’ve always built the practises, all four of them really, into that sort of position where we have a steady NHS income, and then also have the private on top.

Payman: When did you have your first one? How old were you when you started that? And then, when did you add the next three?

Jimmy: So we bought the first practise about 10 years ago [inaudible 00:02:15], and we bought a pretty standard setup sort of buy a practise offer, offered the practise owner. And then they were, they sort of ran it as much more of an NHS type practise.

Jimmy: And then, we sort of added in more services and expanded the practise and so on. And then, we sort of went through the tendering process, for new NHS contracts. And, that’s how we sort of expanded over the years. So, we expanded over the last few years into more sites in order to sort of just essentially able to treat more patients. And just to have a bit more activity going on. And then, obviously taking that original philosophy into the new practise to create that sort of mixed model.

Prav: And Jimmy, as a practise owner… And I see a lot of practise owners who have mixed practises and then grow. Personally, from a clinical point of view. Did you adjust your splits? Did you start doing more private work, or move, or at any point shift towards being exclusively private? And then, get the associate centre do the NHS. How has that been during the whole period of time that you’ve grown from say, your first practise up to four?

Jimmy: So, yeah, obviously I was doing a lot more NHS work at the beginning. Because, young couple buying a practise. You essentially got to put the graphic that you’ve got to have that grit and determination to sort of…

Prav: Sure.

Jimmy: Get ahead a few years. I’m sure everybody will say the same thing. And then, as we, as we have more conversations with patients and we stabilise our base, we can start talking to them about private work. And then, obviously introducing various clinical systems into the practise. So, whitening being one, for example. And then, implants and handles. So, sort of endodontics and oral surgery and just expanding into all the different stairs. And then, just making sure that, we cater for all needs really. We try to keep everything under one roof. I think that’s probably what the majority of practises are doing or aiming to do.

Jimmy: And, that gives you a natural platform to then expand on. And that’s what we’ve done.

Prav: And so, you as a clinician personally, do you do any NHS work now? If you shifted to be primarily working on the business plus private, or do you do still do a little bit of NHS? How does the structure work now?

Jimmy: So yeah, I probably do more private work now. As you said, work on the business. So, I do problem solving and all the other aspects of running a business. But I still do a little bit of NHS because there’s where my roots are. And, I don’t mind doing a little of that. I think in certain circumstances, NHS is very suitable. Private is obviously suitable in other circumstances. So, it’s just about giving people choice and then… I’m not pretty prejudice against one or the other. I’m quite happy to do both.

Payman: How did the UDC thing happen?

Jimmy: So, UDC thing happened. I also work with the LDC in Nottingham and we were approached as an LDC about UDC. Because the thing about LDCs is that no one’s ever heard of it. And quite frankly, in most of your [inaudible] different games with them very much. And we have many years where there was not much engagement.

Jimmy: And then, we were then mentioned in the documentation that came out from the CEO of the NHS about utilising the LDCs to create either UDC or to impart on the CBC. So from the outset, we were inputting on this, how we wanted our UDC to be sort of designed in our area. And I think as a group of LDCs, we did that. And obviously, as a provider of services, we actually provide an eight to eight service. And we provide seven days a week at most of our practises. So, we already have that sort of platform. And we are already quite happy to see NHS patients.

Jimmy: So it seems like a natural progression to then extend that out towards that UDC model. And ultimately, we were approached by the NHS to become a UDC.

Payman: So, you were running eight to eight, seven days a week before.

Jimmy: We were, that’s right. And, in a few of our sites we’re eight to eight, seven days a week. So, we find that works quite well. And we find it’s quite a good model for our employees as well. [inaudible]

Prav: Jimmy, quick question about that. In my own practises, sometimes I talk to my associates and support team about possibly opening a Saturday clinic or doing a late evening and stuff like that. You’ve obviously got something in you that we haven’t, that enables you to get team members to be able to come in late or, or do the weekend shift and stuff. How have you managed to sort of set that up? So, you’re able to operate on them hours. And then, how do the shifts work? Just, just give me an overview of that. I’m really curious about that.

Jimmy: So, probably a combination of wit and charm, let’s say that. Hey, that’s from me, that’s from my wife. This is not really my doing now. I’m not that charming really, to be honest. Yeah, it’s just talking to people, and exploring the fact that this is not a bad option for many people. They can turn their weekend into a weekday. They can do a lot more work in that weekday. Then as more things open up, there is more opportunity, it gets busy. So it’s just really, trying to spell out the advantages of working in this whole flexible way. And I think that, if people have children, that they can do the school run. And one way or the other, so they could drop in the morning or pick up in the afternoon. I think there’s an appetite for it. And it works, it’s a very productive way of working I think.

Prav: Amazing.

Jimmy: Yeah. I think that it does have its challenges. But then, all practise have their challenge to problem solving, as you said before.

Payman: So is it an eight to two, two to eight model?

Jimmy: Yeah. We run it more of an eight to two, two to eight. I think it’s reasonable, six hours and then their work is over, usually. Some people like to work more and that’s their choice. But, we’ve encouraged that sort of working.

Payman: But then, how about the manager? Are there two managers or just one?

Jimmy: So we’ve been through different scenarios. I think early on we had multiple managers, a manager per site. And, I think that now we sort of have a bit more of a dual practise manager role. We also have a team of about, let’s say five or six to look after all the sites. So, we all chip in and do a bit each. And, we all have our different roles. I think they’re quite role specific. We tend to spell those roles out quite early on. So, everybody knows what they’ve got to do. And, I think we sort of… And, then we can dip into other parts of the business as well. So we have a loose managerial structure. But, we tend to just allocate the roles accordingly.

Prav: Jimmy, how does it work for you as a practise owner? Because, I certainly know that during the times of operation, there are certain team members that are on call too, if that makes sense. And then, when the practise shuts, obviously I’m probably going to get a little less feedback and stuff like that. What does your work life balance look like? And, are you on call from eight to eight most times. Or, have you got that sort of covered, so there’s a layer below you. How, how does that work in terms of your life and how you manage something that’s running seven days. Eight to eight.

Jimmy: Yeah. Good question. I think it was a bit more challenging at first. But then, you get into a flow don’t you? And, if you have a good team and you can allocate work, you feel that the team are picking up that work and you get good feedback.

Jimmy: I think at that point you can start taking your foot off the pedal a bit. And maybe, just concentrate on the more complicated work with more complicated problem solving. I think more of the operational type aspects of the business, I would leave to other team members. Our clinical leads, for example, practise managers and so on. I think that would be where I would try to just actively take a step away and say, that’s your role? And if you have any issues and come and see me. But, essentially I’ll expect you to fulfil that role.

Jimmy: And if it’s clearly defined from the outset, and if that means you can dip in and dip out accordingly. And then, make those time for your kids and everything else, you’ve got to make time for as well. It’s just juggling time. Isn’t it really?

Payman: Yeah. So tell us about what it’s like working within a UDC environment. Like, whole PPE thing. Especially, when the virus was peaking. Did you have members of staff scared to go in and that sort of thing?

Jimmy: That’s interesting. Yeah, I think we’ve seen the whole evolution of this really. Because, from the outset we were sort of sitting with the NHS saying, this is how we think it should be delivered.

Jimmy: And, everybody didn’t have the level of sort of guidance as we have now. More documentations coming out on a weekly basis, daily basis almost. But, early on, we didn’t have that level of guidance. So, we would do things like fit testing. And then, the person that was fit tested would say, look, there’s literally no guidance in the healthcare space. Most of my guidance comes from asbestos and from solvents and so on. So, there really isn’t. So we’ve asked him a question like, how about we try this. And he’d be, oh, there isn’t any evidence for it again. So, essentially become a guinea pig. And I think, that we kind of guinea pigged our way through from the early days. From PPE testing, patient flow, everything. They created softs quite early on and they did a good job in explaining this.

Jimmy: I think that their team that created the standard operating procedure to do a good job, based on the evidence they have. And obviously, more has just flooded the market and opinions have changed over time.

Jimmy: So, where we started and where we are now is quite different, actually, I would say. A bit more clarity on what you can and can’t do.

Payman: And you were doing AGPs as well. Right?

Jimmy: We were doing AGPs from quite long time now. Yeah, we sort of embraced all of the PPE requirements, and obviously patient flow requirements. And adjusting the practise to accommodate donning and doffing areas. All that sort of stuff. We did that early on. Yeah. And we’ve been doing it for a while, so we feel quite right doing it. So, we’ve continued on. And yeah, we’re happy to share any sort of information. We’ve done that through the LTC networks. We’ve always shared any kind of learning.

Payman: Yeah. What are some tips how to manage in this new normal. In this bit? H Hopefully it’s going to change again. But, to me it seems like patient communication is an issue, right?

Jimmy: I think so. The conversation, there’s going to be an issue because of the mixed messages that they’re probably getting from the wider sphere. So, if the tell everyone they’re opening on the eighth. And they don’t give you any indication as to what to expect. And it becomes a bit of a… You almost have to work backwards. Certainly, they give you all of the information later. So we’ve had a big comms bundle that’s come from the NHS. But practises are already open. So, you’re kind of retrospectively trying to get that all out to patients. So, it’s kind of almost doing things in reverse. And that hasn’t really helped the situation. But in practises that are proactive and people are quite sort of willing to get on with it. I think that’s, we’re a pretty adaptable profession. And I think that we can adapt to whatever that gets thrown out. So, I’m not hugely downbeat about it. I think you just got to adapt to what’s there.

Payman: When I said communication, I meant actually patient-dentist communication. Under all that stuff, do they not find it difficult talking?

Jimmy: Yeah. So we’ll have a conversation with the patient prior to getting them through. So yeah, we learned quite early on that we needed to triage prior to them coming into the practise. So, trying to get conversations done and dusted. And we’ve been using things like video conferencing and things like that to at least liaise with the patient beforehand. And just kind of give them an idea. And post-treatment as well, essentially when you’ve treated them, you want them out of the door and out of the practise. So that you can start preparing the practise for the next patient and cleaning down and so on. So, we can always have a debrief post the appointment. So, using tech has been a big help and has allowed us to sort of contact patient outside of the room, sitting in the chair. I think, it is going to be a useful thing to use. I think going forward, I think the whole profession will embrace it, wouldn’t they?

Prav: I think something that keeps coming up with a lot of my dental clients and friends is it’s fallow times and how long to leave between AGP, non AGP procedures. And, what was that when you first kicked off? Has that changed and what advice can you give? And it’s different. We speak to everyone. It’s different.

Jimmy: Yeah. In the early as standard operating procedures that we’ve got from the UDC, the real first incarnation of that. At that time, it’s about 60 minutes and we used to leave about an hour and a half some for the AGPs. And about 60 minutes for anybody non-AGP. But, that was what was written down. Because, I think that, that position was evolving. And obviously again, through the LDC network, we would always ask the questions about this type of thing directly to the NHS. And sit there and wait for an answer from PHE, would eventually come down the line. Things like air conditioning, for example. We had a lot of our teams sweating away in FFP3s and their gowns. And, we’ve kept asking the question, yeah, can we use air conditioning? And then, we got the responsible for a few weeks later.

Jimmy: So, it hasn’t always been that quick, getting the response. But, obviously the PAT position is that equal position. So, I think that you have to follow that. The FGEP guidance has been very useful in my mind. I thought that was a good document. And again, some of our East [inaudible] colleagues were involved in creating that document. But, it’s not always in tune with the NHS documentation. It’s kind of explained in a slightly different way. And, I think that ultimately from what I’ve heard anyway, the NHS document has to trump that in terms of that being a legal position that you must take.

Jimmy: So, I think the final time issue is going to be something that sort of ranges on and on. Isn’t it? Especially, when we move into the sort of level three type alert status, and people start to think about going a bit more towards routine care or going a bit more back to routine practise. I think those questions will be asked a lot more about fallow time and how, how it could be potentially mitigated.

Prav: So what are the fallow times today? Are they similar, or have they changed now?

Jimmy: Well, the FGEP thing to see… I’m not an expert on this, but they tend to sort of, from my understanding of their documentation, that the non AGP, they didn’t really mention having a fallow time. And for AGP, they gave a range of mitigation for how long the fallow time should be. But the baseline is 60 minutes based on six air changes, I believe. After which we are opening a window. So, and I think they’ve taken out from hospital theatre design and air movements in the hospital sector, how they design it.

Jimmy: So whether more information will come out about mitigation, for example, air exchanges, ventilation systems, and so on. If more evidence comes up, maybe they’ll tweak that slightly. And obviously, you can use rubber down in the suction. And there some very good papers, that talk about the experiences of other countries and how they’ve tried to mitigate that sort of circumstance. I think, certainly the Germans and the South Koreans and so on have certainly released some good information about how they dealt with the issue. And what the actual risk is. I think this is an evolving thing. I think that as their profession demands, more thorough investigation, more thorough explanation of what they can and can’t do. This will only widen the debate further, I believe.

Prav: And, just excuse my ignorance here. But, am I right in understanding as an NHS practise, there’s certain things that you have to stick to. And payment, you might know this better than me. Where this is solely private practise, you can be a little bit more discretionary and go towards, let’s say the SGDP guidelines, or what the BAPD are doing. Because, I’m having conversations every day. Obviously I’m not going to mention any names. And some people are saying, look, I’m using fallow times of 10, 15, 20 minutes. And, I know those are going down the more rigid sort of 60 and longer fallow time routes. And, and is this a sort of, well, this is what independent practises do. This is what NHS guidelines, they have to stick to these. And then, there’s the conundrum of, well, if you’re a mixed practise, how does that pan out?

Jimmy: That’s a good point. I’m not a big… Essentially, people are people and patients are patients.

Prav: Of course.

Jimmy: Everybody is an NHS patient, quite frankly, because everybody pays tax. So everybody’s an NHS patient. Some people choose to have their private perk, healthcare provided privately. But, they have the option of accessing secondary care, also other things on the NHS. And we have lots of patients that maybe have a bit of both. So, I think fundamentally making that divide between NHS and private, probably isn’t going to hold well, if you get scrutinised on your prep. On the way that you decide to interpret rules and regulations. I think, I’m going to give a personal opinion there. I’m not that strong on this. But, I suppose in my opinion, if you’re dealing with a sort of that level four. It’s there for a reason and we should really be dealing with urgent care or maybe tinkering on essential care. People that are having problems that you know, will get worse. And, really sticking to more of a non AGP based model.

Jimmy: I think if you start mitigating fallow times at level four, alert level, I think, maybe in my opinion, that’s a bit premature. I think, as the alert level reduces and the outside risk reduces, then maybe there’s more scope. But again, that’s why I’ve mentioned, that there’s lots of guidance. And, I think that if the PAT position is really the legal position as far as I’m led to believe. So, I think the GDC have also acknowledged that. But, in terms of health and safety, which is essentially what this would fall into. Then, you’d have to follow a legal position in the past, been defined by the department of public health England. I think even as a private practise, I think you’d be hard pushed to defy that regulation.

Jimmy: I think the issue is whether having robust stays and if it’s challenged and so on. And, how much evidence is there to back it up. I think ultimately, you can have an opinion on these things. But my own opinion is that you probably have to follow that regulation if it was in black and white. I think you’d be hard pushed to have your own interpretation of it, unless you had some senior figures, or senior think tanks. Or, people that were in a position that they could rewrite legislation on your side.

Payman: Obviously, you’re quite a focused person. You’re obviously looking into the future and from the business perspective, what do you see happening with your contract. And what do you think you’re going to do? What are going to be your tactics going forward, your strategy going forward?

Jimmy: That’s a pretty broad question. Does anybody know? I mean, ultimately it depends on a number of things. If the GDP figures are what they are in terms of the tanking economy, that is going to be a mitigating factor. And all that will go back on what’s happened in the past. And I guess 2008, we do remember 2008. And I think that, it was when the profession took a hit. And I think that, my gut instinct is that it’s probably going to take a hit again. By how much we don’t know. I think that a furlough is probably giving a false sense of security at this stage. And then, they are going to affect cost and mitigate. And, it might be that the appetite is maybe not as great as it was. It’s a very difficult question to ask.

Jimmy: I think that the NHS side of what we do will continue because the demand will always be there. And we’re quite happy to serve those people that have issues and need dental care. We’re quite happy to do that.

Payman: Do you think the contract’s going to change?

Jimmy: This is the million dollar question, right? I mean, from everything I was reading, it seemed to hint that the contract would change. What happened in Wales, and then the CDO. Sort of reading between the lines. It seemed to hint that change was in the air and that the appetite was there. I know that they’d be piloting for 10 years since the [inaudible] report. They’ve been piloting other options. I’m unsure about the… I think the pilots have become generally unstuck too, to their financial modelling. And, I think that’s always been a hurdle that they’ve never been able to get over. And possibly, there’s an appetite in the profession to change the NHS system. But it’s, whatever… It could be appropriately costly I suppose. That’s again, my personal opinion. It’s probably something to do with…

Payman: If I were to say that you were the King of the… You were the CDO? How would you structure NHS and private?

Jimmy: Well, I think that you could look at other models. The French are quite sort of, have a huge NHS. But then, they remunerate very well for their NHS care. I think about 95% of their MTs are on the NHS. And then, certain aspects they take out of the NHS, like prosthesis, like dentures and so on. So, there are various models around Europe that people could look to. And I think that a prevention based approach has got to be the way forward. If you really, you’ve got to remunerate of prevention. You’ve got to look after kids. You’ve got to. That has to be your baseline. As a national health service, that’s what you got to do. I think at the moment, it’s been skewed towards activity. And really got to go down the prevention route. It just depends on whether they’re in the position to afford it really, I think. As that’s going to be…

Payman: I don’t think they’re going to spend any more money, are they? That seems clear. And we were talking to Ian Wilson and he was saying, look, it’s 2.5% of healthcare spending is for teeth. So, what’s the best way of spending that. And I know, by the way, it’s not even worth saying if you were King of the world, what would you do? Because you’re not. And, the world doesn’t change like that. The world changes incrementally. But it’s been sick for a long time, the system. And I think, the timeline… This is a good time to reflect on what we can change.

Payman: And by the way, also the stuff that Dominic’s been talking about where… I see you’ve really managed well in this period, right? You’ve moved quickly. And you’re the kind of guy who doesn’t complain and takes care of business, but you know, we’ve been let down overall. We’ve been let down by the regulator, we’ve been let down by, over our own defence organisations, I thought were pretty poor as well. Don’t you think it’s a time for the profession viewing the LDC system? Are you guys not having these conversations?

Jimmy: Yeah, we’ve been having these conversations a lot. That’s a part of what we do in terms of discussing these issues. But yeah, it’s a very difficult question to answer. I think that you’ve got to put people’s healthcare at the forefront, because that’s essentially why you do the job. I hope so. That’s why we do it. So, people’s health has to be at the forefront. So, any system you design has to be based around patient care and making sure that the service that we deliver is in line with the demand. What we should be doing to prevent problems going forward.

Jimmy: So, as I said, prevention has got to be the key. I would agree with you, there has been some disjointed comments from various aspects of the profession over this period of time. But, you’ve had to just sort of piece it together.

Jimmy: I think that’d be fair to the LDC network. Again, I keep going on about this, because I’m sort of part of this network. But, they’ve had to provide a lot of information for practitioners. In terms of trying to decipher through sort of a plethora of information and guidance that is coming through. Certainly, we’ve tried to sort of kick through the relevant bits of information and get them sent out to practitioners. So, our levy pays to constituents are receiving that information in a timely fashion. But it doesn’t help. If the information, as I said, it’s sometimes a bit backward. Open the practise and then tell you how to do it afterwards. I think that kind of position has been a bit tricky.

Jimmy: And also, trying to extract a position statement from a lot of organisations has taken time, as well. As I said, that starts at the UDCs. We didn’t have this guidance. We were just kind of winging it a little bit based on some guidance. But then, that was evolving. I was reading constantly reading weekly, trying to work out if anything new had come about. And do we need to change the way we practise.

Jimmy: And I think that’s the experience of most of the practitioners now. So I think the frustration maybe has come about from just having to go back to your business model constantly. And have to make adjustments because new guidance come out and then that would supersede other guidance. And then you trying to decide which one trumps, which. Because, you might get two different opinions and you’re not an expert to decide which trumps which. So you’re waiting for someone else to come out and tell you. For example, that the public health England position is the law and the other positions are not.

Jimmy: So, you needed that guidance from the GDC to actually spell that out. So then, you know that if you’re going to be scrutinised, which guidance you’ve got to follow. So, I think that this is where it’s very… It’s been a huge learning curve and a huge challenge for not only practises. But practise owners especially, but also associates and so on have had to adjust to a different style of working and so on. So, I think any kind of change often breeds fear, doesn’t it? So I think that we are fearful about these changes. But, I think the way to deal with it, it’s just to be level headed and just try to see it in and around and…

Payman: Where do you sit on the conspiracy versus incompetence kind of debate.

Jimmy: As I said, I’d like to think that I’ve gotten a bit of an idea about where I think of how is it we, want to go with dentistry. But then, everybody throws their 2 cents in. And that’s why, again, as you said, would be sort of this redesign of the whole NHS system. I thought that was on the cards. I really… My initial thought was that will never happen because it’s simply too expensive to do it. Or, it would involve additional funding. But then, you started to get trickles of the fact that obviously they were thinking about this in the background. And, there was an opportunity. As you said, everything’s up in the air and an opportunity to rethink it all. But then again, they came back with, we’re probably going to go back to activity again. So then, my hopes were dashed somewhat.

Jimmy: So basically, that letter it’s just quite generic and said, we’re going back to activity again. So, I don’t know what goes on in those conversations. I get a bit of an inkling from people that possibly are negotiating on our behalf as a profession. And giving you sort of snippets and possibly eyeballing the opposition or the other side and the negotiations. And, they can give you their thoughts. But ultimately, unless you’re in that position, sitting around that table, you haven’t really bothered how to make that decision. So, all we can do from the grass or our level, which is the ground level, is just make our opinion known. And then keep our fingers crossed that it doesn’t fall on deaf ears and that somebody does something about it.

Payman: You’ve read a book, it’s called The Shock Doctrine? There’s a new idea as well. It’s all about, when there is a crisis, that’s a good time to make a massive social change.

Payman: Again, by the way, whether it’s a pre thought out thing. Or these plans are already… Of course, there’s loads of plans in place. And there must be people saying, well, now’s a good time to put it in. I can see that happening. I thought the opening, the sudden decision to open. I think that had as much to do with Dominic Cummings’ problems as anything else. Because they announced a bunch of stuff that day on the ticker and on the class. That’s how government tends to work, the news flow management and so on. Right?

Payman: Yeah. But not conspiracy theorist are you?

Prav: No, I am not. I think know for me, I hear lots of things from lots of dentists, right? And, I’ve listened a lot to Dominic. I’ve listened a lot to Tiff. A lot of my clients as well. And they’re all saying different things. My approach has always been that everything that we do in all actions we take, we should be following guidance and law. But at the same time, I truly believe that we should be following science as well. I think that’s key for me, is when, when you look at… And I don’t know if you guys have been following stuff that Ross Hobson has been putting out. He’s been filming smoke bombs in his clinic and stuff like that to see how quickly the air clears. And I think, one of the things that’s really clear to me is one thing that we’re doing with every single patient that walks through the door is we’re doing this screening. But, we’re treating every single patient like they’re walking COVID time-bomb.

Prav: And so, while we’ve got these clean down, leaving it so long for the dust to clear and everything. While we’ve got the temperature check, we’ve got the questionnaires, we’ve got all of this. And, I am not at the front line either. So, I can say what I want, right? And I can say, well, do you know what? The fallow time should be 10 minutes. Or, I think it should be less than that. And I think personally, things will move in that direction. I think, as the evidence comes out and more and more comes out, I think things will shift over back to normality. But, I think the people who are making these decisions have also got a lot on there, a big weight on their shoulders. What if they were to make a decision tomorrow and somebody contracted COVID, that was tough.

Payman: We have been having these conversations with super people who’ve been through. President of GDC, president of BDS. None of them seem to know where the answers were, until we finally got to this point of the chief dental officer. Yeah.

Payman: So, the system’s broken and this is not the last time we’re going to have a problem. There’s going to be other types of problems, whether it’s again, one of these pandemic type. Or some sort of crash or financial crash or whatever it is. Jimmy, what are you thinking going forward? What were your plans? Are you the kind of guy who thinks 10 years ahead. Or, are you thinking of adding more than four practises? What you’re doing?

Jimmy: I don’t know. I think this has been a bit of a chance to reflect, this kind of problem. Knowing that the advice that we get is like throwing a pack of cards in the air and seeing how they fall. I haven’t got. I’m not sort of. Just get a good balance in life basically. Isn’t that, just [inaudible 00:32:17].

Payman: Just seven days a week, eight to eight.

Prav: Jimmy, can I ask you one question? Yeah. And it’s a question I’ve been asking a lot of my friends, colleagues and stuff is, what has been your biggest silver lining of COVID?

Prav: Mine has been focused around family life, appreciating the kids And getting some time and moments in life that 100% I would have missed.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Prav: And, you couldn’t have paid me any amount of money to take this time off work and do that. So, a lot of blessings there. Have you got any silver linings personally, or professionally that have come out of this that you could share with us?

Jimmy: I’m probably on your page there. I think just basically spending some time with the kids. Actually they have been off, we’d been off a little bit. So, it’s been nice to actually just be spending that quality time. Just doing mundane stuff with them was quite fun actually. And also, I think from a professional point of view, I’ve had to really look at the business. And, I’ve never looked at it that much before. And I’m talking, looking at the numbers, really focusing, crunching down those numbers and making projections.

Jimmy: And I think, sometimes we all get a bit complacent and you just kind of like talk… When it comes in, you see that there’s a margin there, you kind of just fill up the gaps, you just get a bit complacent about it. And I think, something like this makes you really focus and sit down in front of that computer screen. And keep looking at those Excel spreadsheets and just trying to work the numbers and work out what’s going on. I think that’s just been a good thing. And I think I’ll make some permanent changes within the practise. It’s definitely off the charts. I think those changes would be for the benefit factor. And when all of this sort of mess goes away, eventually, when things start to go back to normality more, I think that those will be positive changes. I think that making you focus so intensely is a good thing. It’s something that I probably wouldn’t have done.

Prav: Yeah. I agree with you there in terms of, when the train’s moving. And you’ve got this business and it’s moving, there’s always those ideas you have. One day I’ll get around to this, one day I’ll look at this, one day I’ll look at that. And all of a sudden, the train stops moving. You get off there and you’re able to walk around it and analyse what was wrong and say, I’ll change this, these systems, these processes, this, that, and the other. And then, you jump on, it starts moving. And you think, I’m so glad I’ve had that breathing space. So I think for me, definitely systems and processes. And yeah, it’s been good. It’s been good in many ways, it counteracts a lot in the negatives.

Payman: Well certainly, the family stuff. I’m enjoying working from home. It’s a nice mix. For professionally… But the reason why Jimmy’s on this podcast right now is because I called him as an enlightened centre. And said, how’s it going? And so on. And, I wasn’t doing that before. You know, those calls, from me, the CEO to my top users. I should have been doing more of those. I’ve learned that and there are some simple things like that.

Payman: Of course, there’s all the financial side. Luckily I’ve got a partner who takes care of that stuff as you know.

Prav: You too want to leash me.

Payman: Yeah. I’m more the spender. He’s more the controller.

Payman: Anyway, mate. Thanks a lot for taking the time. It’s been a real education. I think you’ve got a very bright future. I don’t know if you’re looking at the whole politics side of dentistry. But you should. Because, you’ve provided more clarity than some of the big guns that I’ve spoken to. It’s really refreshing to see that. Thank you mate.

Prav: Thanks to you actually, really appreciate it. Take care. Bye bye.

Outro Voice: 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.

Prav: Thanks for listening guys. If you’ve got this volume, 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.

Payman: 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 much for listening. Thanks. And don’t forget our six star rating.

Bertie: From when she was three years old, the joke was always, when she was three and a half, they said to her, “What are you going to do when you’re big?” And she says, “I want to be a doctor, but I want to be a real doctor, not a dentist.”

Speaker 2: 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.

Payman: It gives me great pleasure to welcome one of the people I call in dentistry the voice of reason, is the way I would characterise Bertie Napier. Someone who’s come from his native South Africa to the UK, and has got a wonderful private practise in Hertfordshire. And for me, Bertie’s not just been of massive service to his patients, but of massive service to the profession itself, culminating with being the president of the BACD and one of the founding members of the BAPD. And right now at the cutting edge of where we’re all going to go post-COVID. So, thanks for joining us, Bertie.

Bertie: Thank you. Thank you for giving the opportunity.

Payman: Bertie, give us a little quick run-down of your childhood. The 30-second version.

Bertie: Yeah. Great up on a farm in South Africa. Pretty much Afrikaans-speaking area, so having the English language meant I needed to go to a boarding school. So that’s the way I spent most of my school life, was from age six all the way through to finishing school, was at a boarding school. Yeah, and I suppose that pretty much led me to be quite independent and easy with staying away from home.

Prav: Any siblings, Bertie?

Bertie: Yep, I’m actually one of five boys.

Payman: Wow.

Bertie: The last two were twins. My mum said she always wanted girls, but when the boys started arriving in twos, she decided that’s it. Yeah, so I’ve got another brother who’s, one of the twin brothers is a dentist as well, and then the others range from motor mechanic through to panel beater, teacher. No longer a teacher. Was a headteacher, is now involved in HR in education. All in South Africa, still.

Bertie: Dad was also from farming stock. He farmed for a little while, then he was a motor mechanic. That’s where my brother got into it. And then he was a Member of Parliament for a while in South Africa. I think he served two terms in Parliament. It’s through the time that things were moving from the Apartheid era into the new democracy in South Africa. So those heavy years, that’s when my dad was in Parliament.

Payman: As a child, Bertie, what are your memories? What are your memories of the Apartheid regime?

Bertie: One of the things is, I always look at a Wimpy and I can clearly remember that we were not allowed to go into a Wimpy restaurant in South Africa. There was a little window on the side for non-whites, and if you were white, you could go into the restaurant and sit down and eat. If you were not white, you had to go to the side of the restaurant to go and get a takeaway. So that’s the one thing. Every time I see a Wimpy, I always remember that experience. I mean, it’s all changed now of course. It’s completely different. But as far as Apartheid, that’s the first memory.

Bertie: And then at university it was a friend of mine that I stayed, in a Catholic residence run by Catholic priests. And there was a French guy. We both were 19 years old. “Let’s go to the cinema,” one day. And of course, I’d never been to a cinema in my life. I grew up on a farm. I went to a boarding school in the middle of nowhere. And of course, we get there and the woman looks and says, “No, he can’t come in.” And of course both of us were dumbfounded. “Well, why not?” And she explained to us, “No, this cinema’s for whites only.” The French guy is saying, “No, we just want to watch the movie. That’s all. We’re not coming here for anything else.” And she’s saying, “No, you still can’t come in.”

Bertie: And then, of course, I suppose you’d call it the troubled times in South Africa, which was more or less when I was at university, when there was all the bombings going on, and the ANC was very active as a freedom fighting force at the time. And being told by my parents, “Don’t…” Well, it wasn’t my parents, but my uncle, actually. “Don’t get involved. You’re not there for politics. You’re there to get an education. When you’ve got your education, then you can make a difference. But while you’re there just stay out of things.” Didn’t quite work that way. You got involved. That was the end of that, I think.

Bertie: But university was, I think, Linda Greenwall was one of your guests on a previous podcast, and she mentioned that of all the universities, actually that is where things were happening as far as the politics and the anti-Apartheid side of it. And yeah, dental school of course. And I can remember what Linda said was, “You were told you’re here for dental school, you’re here to become a dentist, you’re not here for politics.” They did try and drum that into us.

Payman: She was mentioning Steve Biko was a medical student.

Bertie: Well, he was down in, I think it was Port Elizabeth area. That’s where that happened, yeah.

Payman: Which is a bit earlier, eh?

Bertie: Yeah, yeah. That was much earlier. Yeah.

Payman: So which year were you in university?

Bertie: I was at Wits from 1983 to 1988.

Payman: Okay. So right in the middle of it all.

Bertie: Right in the middle of all of it. Yeah. We had some hairy times.

Payman: So did you actually get involved in politics? Did you go and demonstrate?

Bertie: Yeah. We all did. We all demonstrated. We all ran for our lives when the police fired tear gas and rubber bullets. It was part of life. It’s what you went out and what you did. And not everyone looks at it as black and white. It wasn’t quite like that. There were lots of my friends who I still regard as very good friends, and I have a lot of respect for, who were white South Africans who were with me at uni, and amazing people, really, really good people. They don’t even realise the impact that they’ve had, some of the things they said or did. So I’m not going to mention names, but some of them will stay, the memories of the things they said and did, and when they stood up for things, will remain with me for a very long time. Yeah.

Payman: You were from a privileged background, definitely, right? Because your dad being a-

Bertie: Was I?

Payman: Well, your dad ended up as a Member of Parliament. That didn’t happen by mistake, did it?

Bertie: Well, no. Well, okay. Let’s go back.

Payman: Tell us the story. Tell us the story.

Bertie: Take a step back. Childhood memories, we didn’t own a house. We always rented. And we usually rented… Most farmers would have had one or two houses on their farm, and we usually rented a house from a farmer. And I can remember, when it rained it was exciting times, because you never knew where the rain was going to be coming through the roof. And we had a collection of buckets and bowls for the times it rained.

Bertie: I mean, my dad was a motor mechanic. He didn’t earn much. Mum was a teacher. She didn’t earn much either. Very low paid. And of course, they just couldn’t afford the deposit to buy a house. It was as simple as that. And then of course you have five children, and you got the kids at boarding school, so there’s even less money because you’re paying school fees. But for my parents it was the education that was probably the most important thing for them. I mean, my dad was always involved… I suppose that’s where I’ve got it from, is to not just sit back and let other people do things. You need to step up and get involved in your community, and get involved in your profession. My dad was a union rep as a motor mechanic. My dad was involved in lots of clubs and things, very similar to Rotary. Very involved in-

Payman: Was he a left wing politician or right wing?

Bertie: No. I suppose I’d class him as, if anything, he’d be more conservative than anything else. If you’re looking at conservative versus left wing, he’d be more conservative. But in South Africa, if you were anti the establishment, you were automatically regarded as left wing. So I guess at that time-

Payman: Everything was a bit more to the right.

Bertie: Yeah. Right wing meant you were more to maintaining Apartheid. Left wing meant you were anti-Apartheid. So slightly different to here. Left wing here is more socialist, and right wing is more capitalist. So as far as thing side of things, it would have been fairly balanced. My dad has always been someone who’s been, you need to look after everyone. There needs to be a fairness to people. It can’t be capitalism at the expense of walking all over the average person.

Payman: Was politics part of dinner conversation in your house?

Bertie: No. Strangely not. We grew up on a farm. We didn’t have electricity in the house. It was paraffin lamps. I remember when my dad wired the first house to put electric lights in the house. We had a diesel generator, and you had to go outside and start the generator when it got too dark. And then he’d run it for a certain amount of time, and then the lights would go out and we’d be back to candles, basically. So if you got up during the night, you need to reach over for the matches and light a candle.

Payman: Wow.

Bertie: Yeah.

Prav: When the interview started with, “I went to boarding school,” I didn’t imagine this conversation was coming next. So it obviously came at the sacrifice of other things?

Bertie: Oh, my parents sacrificed a lot. And I think with my mum being a teacher, that’s where education was absolutely paramount. School-wise, my mum went up to the equivalent of GCSE, and then she went and did a teacher training diploma. And it was only after I had qualified as a dentist that my mum went back and finished, because she couldn’t get above a certain pay grade without having the equivalent of A levels, which in South Africa is called matric. So she went back to school and basically did the extra night classes. Even though she’s a qualified teacher, she had to do the night classes to get that matric certificate so that she would move onto a different pay grade. In the end, she was a headteacher as well. That’s what she retired from. Yeah.

Prav: Wow.

Payman: How many years did you practise as a dentist in South Africa before you decided to move?

Bertie: So dental school was what, five and a half years? It was a six-year course that had been condensed down to five and a half years, and I practised from, qualified in June ’88 all the way through to the end of 1997. That was in South Africa. And then I started here in the UK in January ’98.

Payman: Did you have a patient base that was diverse or not?

Bertie: In South Africa?

Payman: Yeah.

Bertie: I would say not. Also, this is where I got interesting as well. I lived illegally in a white suburb in Johannesburg. It was illegal. You weren’t allowed to. I mean, it was Apartheid when I’d qualified. It only switched in ’94. So from ’88 all the way through to ’94, if you lived in a white area, it was pretty much illegal still. Or just before ’94 when they cancelled the Group Areas Act. I can’t remember the exact year. It might have been ’93 or ’94.

Prav: And it is so recent, isn’t it? ’94.

Bertie: Oh, yeah. Yeah. So worked in Kliptown, which was where the Freedom Charter was written, the ANC Freedom Charter, that’s where they wrote the Freedom Charter in South Africa was in Kliptown, which is Soweto. And obviously, I would say, 90% of our patients were black. I had two white patients who ventured into the township to come and see me, and that is only because of where I lived, and because of my friends. And that was just those people who… One was an Afrikaner lady, Sonya. I’ll never forget Sonya. What a lovely person. And she just said straight out, “I’m coming to see you and that’s it.” I said, “Oh, it’s a bit dangerous, Sonya.” She says, “I don’t care.” And she’d drive out into the middle of a black township, which is not something that a white person did in those years, and she came to me as a patient. Then a few of my other friends as well would have done the same. But yeah.

Payman: And in your year, how many whites were there and how many blacks were there at university?

Bertie: We had a quota system at university at the time.

Payman: Oh, really?

Bertie: Our class, there were 62 of us in our class, and it was very obviously quota. So we had two black ladies, two black men, both of them, I think, had been therapists or technicians, I think. Jerry is now here in the UK as well with his family. So there were two of them. They had a quota then for Muslim Indian and then for Hindu Indian. So the girls, I think there were two. Honestly, that’s the way it was done. And then even, you knew that there were a certain number of Greek girls, there were a certain number of Jewish girls. Men. They had a system which the university had to comply with, otherwise the government wouldn’t fund. The government funded it on the basis of race.

Bertie: But then, Wits eventually were the ones to kick up against it, and they stopped complying with the quota system after a while. I was the only so-called coloured person, which I suppose, yeah, would be called mixed race. And yeah, that was it. I think that was the quota, was one a year. So there was usually either just one male and one female and that was it. And we got to know each other, whichever year we were in, and supported each other. It was an eye-opener, actually, getting to Wits university, because for the first time, talking to people of different races and realising that everyone actually wanted the same thing. That we all had the same insecurities, that we all had the same dreams, that we all had the same wishes for ourselves and our families. And that we all knew absolutely nothing about each others’ struggles and the way we’d gone through things in our lives.

Prav: So fast-forwarding to coming to the UK and practise ownership, what’s the story there?

Bertie: I had got to 10 years after, qualified in ’88, by the end of ’97, I was quite disillusioned with the industry because it was mostly fixing pain and sepsis, and most people couldn’t afford it. Things like root canal treatments, you might do one in two or three months because people just couldn’t afford it. And it was a case of, just take the tooth out. And I’d got to the stage, I thought, “I’ve had enough. I need to do something. While I’m young enough, let me go and do something different.”

Bertie: Spoke to a couple of colleagues, one was an orthodontist, one was a maxillofacial surgeon that was in Durban, and the guys basically said, “Ah, so you’re registered in the UK?” And, “Yes, I am registered in the UK.” And they said, “Why don’t you get rid of your practise, go to the UK, work for a while and see if you want to actually do something else?” So off we came to the UK, and the intention was to stay for a couple of years and just try and discern where to next. So while working on the NHS to travel around a bit, and yeah. But that didn’t quite work out because my daughter was four years old at the time, and when we landed, we were told she actually needs to start school. In South Africa you started school at six. To send them to school before then was a matter of choice.

Bertie: So we’d had her in a Montessori school over there, and we thought, “Oh, we’ll just do the same here.” Then realised that she’s got to start school officially. She started school, and I was here for the two years. Came towards the end of the two years, and the guys I was working for, it was a corporate, and they said, “Do you want to stay for a bit longer?” It was a massive emotional upheaval, moving from one country to another. Probably took us about 18 months to settle down, and just starting to make friends, to enjoy being here and getting used to life, the way things worked in the UK. Then we thought, “Well, we’ve been through the tough part, let’s give ourselves another two years and actually enjoy it.”

Bertie: Which we did. And then along came a letter saying, “You may apply for permanent residency if you wish,” which we thought, “Oh, well, we might as well do that. If we go back to South Africa and we are not happy, then we can always come back again.” Within six months of the permanent residence, they said we could apply for citizenship. So that’s what we did, and became British citizens. And I’ve never really looked back. I mean, now when I look at it, and I think my kids were four and a half and two and a half when we got here, and where they are now, it’s just chalk and cheese. My children have had an absolutely amazing opportunity to grow up in the UK.

Bertie: I know we look at things and we say things that are really tough, and they are. The UK has its problems. I’m not saying that they’re not there. But I just really count ourselves as so blessed to have landed here, to have had the experience we’ve had. For the children to have grown up in a society where race is not a big deal. And in South Africa it still is, unfortunately. It’s going to be a hangover for a very long time. And they are just such well-balanced people, when I look at them.

Prav: So they’re not running around with buckets and hooking the house up to diesel generators-

Bertie: No.

Prav: … or anything like that. And I think me and Payman have spoken to each other and guests about, how do you keep it real?

Payman: Yeah.

Prav: With your kids, right? I didn’t have the most privileged of upbringings, and my kids certainly are a step up in that sense, in terms of the opportunities available to them, because we can afford it, and perhaps we’re a little bit more forward-thinking in terms of value in certain things. But there’s always that, wanting to hold back and say, “No,” whilst wanting to give them everything, because you love them, right? And finding that balance. Do you have that?

Bertie: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Prav: Have you had that dynamic?

Bertie: You do.

Prav: What’s your take on it?

Bertie: You do have moments where you think, “You guys haven’t had it tough enough. You need to experience what poverty is so that you can appreciate what you’ve got.” But then you look at them again, and the awareness they have for other people’s situations, and you think to yourself, “You don’t necessarily always have to go through tough times to appreciate what tough times are, and to appreciate where other people have come from and the difficulties they might have had.”

Bertie: I do have this thing that you should try to walk in other people’s shoes. You should experience what poverty looks like. When you talk about things, even the Wimpy experience, and just people will look at you and say, “You can’t come in here because of what you look like,” not how you behave, not the fact that you are-

Prav: Education or anything.

Bertie: Nothing. Nothing. It’s just they just look at you and say, “No, you can’t come in here and that’s the end of that.” Yeah. When you felt you were taking your life in your hands. I mean, South Africa, because I lived in a white area, and all my friends around me were predominantly white, when weekends came around and you went off to, there was a big lake called the… Well, the Vaal Dam. We’d call it a lake here, there we called it a dam. It was massive. I mean, it supplied the water for the whole of the Transvaal Province. And we’d go away for a weekend, and there’d be boating and all of that.

Bertie: I’ve never been to the non-white part of the Vaal Dam resort. I’d only been to the white areas. And of course, you are on tenterhooks because you are very aware that you stick out like a sore thumb. You look completely different to everyone around you. But then of course you’ve got a group of 20 people who are with you, so you’re there, but you are on edge all the way through.

Bertie: And then the same thing happened later on. I did a lot of motorcycling, so a few of us would go out on our bikes regularly, and we’d go to bike rallies. Now, if you’ve seen the typical bikers, big hairy white guys, and there I am. And I was like, “Do I take my helmet off? What do I do?” I mean, until the helmet comes off they think I’m the same as everybody else. But then the helmet would come off and nobody took a second glance, which was a real shock for me.

Payman: Bizarre.

Bertie: Nobody objected. Nobody looked at you different. They just accepted you there. It was just bizarre.

Payman: Culture shock.

Bertie: Yeah. Yeah.

Payman: Bertie, was there not an element… I understand what you said about moving to the UK and the opportunities that gave to your children and everything. But was there not an element of, at that very moment when South Africa switched, would have been an amazing time for someone of your talents to build something there?

Bertie: Do you know what, Payman? I think I was probably thinking very selfishly at the time. And very focused on what I wanted and what was not happening for me, and the unhappiness of what I was doing within my profession. What I had trained for versus what I was actually able to do. And that was the reason for moving. It had nothing to do with looking for a better opportunity for the kids. That is somebody up above who is looking down on us, and there’s a bigger plan.

Bertie: I genuinely believe that was God above looking after us. I look at my nieces and nephews, and I mean, they’re growing up in a very different South Africa to what we grew up in. And they’ve also got different opportunities and things. But my children’s relationship, or perspective, of other races, is completely different to my nieces and nephews in South Africa, because of the hangover of Apartheid. Because people live in communities based on race still. And you’ve got the more affluent areas which will be far more mixed. But the average person is going to be living really based in suburbs that are still very, very racially segregated, still, even though people are allowed to buy and move and do whatever they want to wherever they want to. The reality is that people will probably stay in the home that they’ve grown up in.

Payman: Yeah. I mean, I adored South Africa when I went there, but one thing I did notice at the time, I think probably right now as well, the pound is pretty strong there, right? At the time, the pound was pretty strong there and so we could afford to do things. So we took a helicopter over Cape Town, and what a wonderful city. But seeing the townships and the swimming pools and the tennis courts, and the geography of it from above, really showed you there’s a bunch of people having a fantastic time, and then a bunch of people not having a fantastic… You could see it from above so much more, because as tourists, you don’t dwell in the townships.

Bertie: That’s still the worry, though. That’s still the worry. For me, whenever I go, and looking and seeing that difference, and I’m sure people in other countries have the same experience where you see the big difference between the haves and the have nots. And you look and you think, “How does a country survive that in the longer term?” Because it can’t. You can’t. You just cannot. Something has got to give at some point if you think that that’s just going to keep going.

Bertie: Although you look at a country like Brazil, and it’s a very similar situation going on there. And they didn’t have the Apartheid problem. The socioeconomic problem is very much there. What is the solution? How do you fix the problem? Is it even fixable, or do we have to accept that that’s always going to be the situation?

Payman: Tell us about when you transitioned from associate to practise owner. When was it?

Bertie: 2002. Yeah. Actually, so this has happened twice for me. In South Africa as a new graduate I went and worked for someone. I worked as an associate probably from June, maybe for about a year. Let’s just see. 1990 I bought it, so a couple of years maybe worked as an associate, and then I was offered to buy into the practise, which I did. And on very, very favourable terms. A deposit, and the rest of the money I worked it off, basically. So I had a fixed salary which was a very generous salary, and whatever else I earned as my share as a one-third partner in the practise, went to the other two partners to pay off what I owed them.

Bertie: If I needed any extra money for anything they would let me have it. And I mean, honestly, you could not get a more generous way of buying into a practise.

Prav: Amazing.

Bertie: It was absolutely superb. Perhaps that’s something, I always look at that and think, “If I had a young dentist in my practise and they eventually wanted to buy into the practise, that’s what I would love to do for them, is pay a deposit and then work it off as you go.” Because that actually demonstrates that you’ve got faith in your business being a good business as well.

Bertie: So that was my first transition from associate to practise owner, and then came to the UK, so worked on the NHS from January ’98, and then in October 2002 was when we discovered this practise for sale, about three and a half, four miles in the next village from the town we were working in. And two of us, Odette and myself, decided we’re going to take the plunge.

Bertie: So two things were going to happen. One was getting away from the NHS, because as an associate coming in from South Africa, I didn’t have an NHS number and neither did… Did Odette? No, I think she didn’t have one either. So we both decided, “This is an opportunity to really just go for it.” And the practise we bought was totally private anyway. So that’s October 2002, bought into it, 300 active patients, 600 on the list. There’s about 5,000 on the list now, and I’d say about 2,500 active. Yeah.

Payman: So I remember once you told me before, I think maybe the last time we spoke on this thing, you said coming over from South Africa to the UK, that feeling the respect for dentistry over there was more than it was here.

Bertie: Oh, much, much, much higher. I think for me it starts at GDC level here. I think seriously, people will behave in the way you treat them. If you show someone respect, people will behave in a certain way, generally. When you, not belittle, but when you reduce the level of respect for a profession, so that you’re expecting a profession to behave in one way, but a simple thing like the title Doctor takes a lot away from a profession. And I know some people love the idea that it’s Mr. because it’s a surgeon, but come on, let’s not kid ourselves. The Mr. that surgeons are afforded is slightly above where we are, because they will have done a medical degree, and they’d have done a specialist degree on top of that. So there’s a slight difference in the definition of surgeon there.

Bertie: So that’s the first thing. And we have patients from Europe, for example, the Portuguese and the Spanish, dentists are called Doctor, and they treat you with so much respect. And as much as I say, “Please call me Bertie,” it’s, “No, no, you’re Dr. Napier.” And yet you see them outside in a social setting and then they will call you Bertie. But in the practise setting they insist, especially the older patients, insist on that level of respect. Now, it makes you want to behave completely differently and live up to what the people’s expectation is of you.

Payman: Tell me about the difference between the practise in South Africa, the last one that you were part owning, and the NHS practise you walked into, standards-wise.

Bertie: Oh, Lord.

Payman: Was it lower here?

Bertie: When I got here, right? And they showed me the surgery I had to work in, I think if Harry Potter had been around, I’d have thought I’d ended up in the cupboard under the stairs. I have never seen. It was a small room, and I actually thought to myself, “What the heck have I done?” I really did. I thought, “Wow. Now I’ve really gone and made a huge mistake.” But fortunately the practise had just been bought by the corporate, and they improved things fairly rapidly after that.

Bertie: But there was an experience I had where the first day, I had 52 patients for check ups.

Payman: 52.

Bertie: 52. That was my list. It was like, five minutes, five minutes, five minutes, five minutes.

Payman: How many were you seeing in South Africa?

Bertie: Much less. In South Africa it was much less. But we worked very differently there. Almost, you didn’t work during… It was very rare that you would do just a check up. Usually somebody would be coming in for something. If they came in for a check up, it was a check up and hygiene. So you would do a really quick check up, and you’d only write down what the problems were. If there was no problem, there were no notes. You just wrote, “Check up, all okay.” Done. You’ve done your oral cancer screening. You’ve done your dental check. You’ve done your perio check. You’ve done all of those things. And all the notes basically said was, you just said, “Check up done, all okay.” Finished. That was the end of that. If there were problems, then obviously you’d list the problems, and then off they went and saw the hygienist.

Bertie: Then here, the initial experience was very similar, because they had those brown envelopes, I forget what they were called, where you did your notes. And it was fairly similar. It was exam SNP. Done. That was it. You’ve done it. You didn’t have to say what you looked at or what you saw. Yeah, now it’s about five pages of A4 for a check up. So it was five minutes to do this. And if it wasn’t something glaringly obvious, that was it. And then the X-rays were… I mean, the quality of the stuff was actually really poor because it was going through a Velopex, probably the oldest Velopex that was there, that existed in the country, almost. So yeah, this old Velopex X-ray machine. So it went through. It might have come out the other end, it might not have come out the other end.

Bertie: The X-rays were either developed properly or not fixed properly, so you’d be able to see it that day. If you went back a few days later, it might have been so dark that you could hardly see what was going on. But again, a lot of that changed very, very quickly as the corporate brought their effect to bear on the way the practise was run. I remember my principal at the time, [Jerry 00:32:32], he couldn’t understand how come the turnover was so low. So I said, “I’ve got no time to do treatment.” 52 check ups in a day, you’re going to earn nothing. It was a fiver or something like that at the time so the whole day you’re turning over £250. It’s just a silly joke.

Bertie: He came in and he said, “Right, that’s it. No more of this. I don’t want you seeing any more than 15 patients a day.” And from that moment things changed in the practise, when he put his foot down that that was the way it was going to be.

Payman: When did you start looking at cosmetic dentistry?

Bertie: We bought the practise, where we are now, October 2002, and looking at growing the practise, we started looking at all sorts of things. I ended up at a seminar at the RSM, and one of the speakers was Raj Rayan, the one who always makes the joke that when people see his name they think he’s Irish, and they see him and wonder what’s going on here.

Bertie: I remember him saying about growing your practise and marketing. That’s what he was talking about. He said simple things like joining an academy. Join the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry. All you have to do is pay your membership and you’re allowed to say you’re a member of the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry. And patients will look at it and it brings some idea that you do cosmetic dentistry. So I thought, “Oh, okay, let’s have a look at this AACD thing.” Went online, looked at it and thought, “This looks pretty damn good. This is just up my alley. I like what these guys are doing. I want to learn how to do that.”

Bertie: So joined the AACD purely as one of those chequebook members, and then they sent out the conference programme. That was me hooked. First conference, Vancouver 2004, and I’ve never looked back since then. And it started off as, the cosmetic dentist side of it, the beautiful dentistry side of it, was what catches the eye, and you want to do that kind of dentistry. Looks good, it’s functional. I mean, their emphasis… Everybody looked at cosmetic dentistry in the UK at the time as a dirty word. If you did cosmetic dentistry you were one of those people who was just cutting teeth to blazes, just to put veneers on, and make teeth look nice. I’m not trying to say I’m better than anybody else, but I am so pleased that I have never, ever never, ever cut down six, or eight, or 10 healthy teeth to put veneers onto them. I’ve never done that.

Payman: Me neither. No.

Bertie: I’ve never done it. I’ve never done it. Right? So as much as I’ve loved cosmetic dentistry, I’ve always been of the opinion of pushing patients for ortho. I remember a young girl, 22 years old, came to see me in our practise, and she wanted veneers. And I said to her, “You need to have braces.” And she said, “No, no, no, I don’t want braces. I want to have veneers.” She’d been to a practise, I’m not going to mention the group in London at the time, because there are certain people connected with it, who had told her she can have 10 veneers on the front. I explained to her, “You know what? You’re going to end up with the root canal treatments and it’s going to damage the nerves of the teeth.”

Bertie: So she disappeared. Didn’t see her. She came back a year later. I did the first three endos on her anterior teeth. At that time she was 23 years old. She was a model. Saw her again probably about five years later. She’s now [inaudible] and could not afford to have the veneers redone because there’s been general recession, things have changed, and now we are stuck with a mouth that does not look very good at all. Which is really sad. Very, very sad.

Payman: Yeah.

Bertie: So yeah. And that’s the sort of stuff that we’ve seen fairly often. Most of the work that we’ve done is replacing work that’s been there 10 years or longer. So that is a lot of what I do. And tooth work cases is a lot of what I do. So yeah, yeah. And as I say, I’m not saying it to say that I’m better than anyone else, it was just something that didn’t sit easy with me, and I just… Yeah.

Payman: One thing I’ve always admired about you, Bertie, is you’ve managed to balance this diplomat, on the one side, with standing up and saying what you believe on the other side. And those time things tend to be, for me, in tension, because if I say what I really think, sometimes I’m not being a diplomat. But you manage to really do that. You carry that off very, very well. I’ve seen it many times where you feel strongly about something and you stand up and say it. But on the most contentious issue, you’re the diplomat. Where does this come from? Is this from your dad?

Bertie: I don’t know. I don’t know.

Payman: I mean, that fairness thing you were saying.

Bertie: I suppose, yeah, you do pick up values. You pick up values from your parents. It’s from, I would say, mum and dad. I’d say my grandfather on my mum’s side, who is much younger than my paternal grandfather, so was a big influence on all of us and an amazing man. Watched him, and his sense of-

Payman: Was he a farmer too?

Bertie: No, he wasn’t. He was in the Second World War. He was a sergeant major. He was in Eighth Army under Montgomery in North Africa. But he was a driver in convoys. He was at the battle of El Alamein. I remember him talking about that. Was absolutely fascinated when the first Gulf War happened because he said, “I can’t believe I’m watching war on television. I never thought I’d see anything like that.”

Bertie: But he was a manager of a dairy, it was a company that sold milk and dairy products. They got the milk in from the farmers, they processed it, they bottled it, milk, all the dairy products, cream, yoghourt, fresh fruit, all those sorts of things. It’s not a dairy product, but they did all that sort of stuff as well. And he was the manager of that. And very respectful of the boss, the owner of the business. I suppose his military side is what got him that sort of job and that he was able to handle it as well as he did.

Bertie: But the fairness, the way in which he treated the people who worked for him, black or white, was just unbelievable. You watched him, and this man was a rock solid man. Absolutely. As well, he and my dad got on extremely well. The two of them. Yeah. And my mum was very close to her father as well. So yeah, heavily influenced by all of them.

Payman: I think it’s one thing to appreciate fairness but it’s another thing to lead in that way.

Bertie: But Payman, is it something that you can teach? Is it something that you’re born with?

Payman: I don’t know.

Bertie: I look at the generation of young people today, I look at my kids, and especially my son, there’s a sense of fairness. I mean, he’s 25, but there’s a sense of fairness amongst young people that-

Payman: Yeah. Kindness.

Bertie: Yeah.

Payman: I’ve noticed that with the Millennials.

Bertie: That’s it. It’s the Millennials, isn’t it? And there’s that sense of, when something is unjust, it hits them. You can see. They take a step back and think, “But why are you doing that? Why are you treating someone like that?” And even amongst our team, that’s one thing I love about all of them, and it goes beyond the Millennials, is if they feel something’s unfair, they’ll actually speak up and say it.

Prav: Question it.

Bertie: Yeah. They will say something. Is that something that you’re just born with? Have I seen things through my growing up at boarding school that I’ve thought, “No, come on, this is not right”? I don’t know. But somewhere along the line things have influenced you. Maybe it’s through personal experience, that you’ve been unhappy the way you’ve been treated. I don’t know.

Payman: Did you send your kids to boarding school?

Bertie: I would have loved to, but my wife, no way. I was listening to when Zacky was talking about it as well. For me, boarding school wasn’t a bad experience. In the beginning, I think as a young child, it’s a tough experience. I mean, I was seven years old. My brothers were all six years old when they went to boarding school. And it was tough. But when you look back now, the level of education… Because they were Catholic schools. So the level of education was a standard higher, and it was the nuns who were teaching. So they were there because they wanted to be there. It wasn’t just a job for them. They took it to another level, which was absolutely superb.

Payman: Vocational.

Bertie: Yeah. So we got a really, really good education. So I would have wanted my children to go to boarding school. But then I spoke to the local Catholic priest here about a private school not far from us, and he said, “Why would you? You’ve got such good schools in the town. You don’t need to spend money on sending your children to a private school.” And he was right. We’re very fortunate, the town that we’re in. We’ve got some really, really good schools. And if you look at St. Mary’s, which is the local Catholic school that my kids went to, people that have come out of there become doctors. I know somebody, Dominique, my daughter’s friends who, she’s becoming a specialist and she’ll be a consultant one day, and comes from a difficult background as well. But what a lovely, lovely girl.

Bertie: And you see how people can get to different places just by the fact that somebody believes in them, that somebody has told them, “You can do it.” And nobody’s telling you that no you can’t, because you come from a particular background, you’re a particular race or whatever. There’s none of that. And that is the opportunity they’ve got here.

Bertie: But yeah, boarding school, I wanted it, because I thought it was pretty good and I thought there’s a lot of discipline and all the rest of it. Gillian also went to boarding school. I mean, we were at school together all our lives almost. She was, “No, I don’t think we should send them. We can live close to school and they can go to school from home.”

Payman: The thing about boarding school, people who’ve enjoyed it themselves want to give that opportunity to their kids-

Bertie: That’s it.

Payman: … to enjoy it too. It’s good for sport and all that, right?

Bertie: Yeah, yeah.

Payman: You know, Bertie, when I think about your practise and your situation at BACD, I can see someone like you’s a great asset to have in both of those situations. Is that a piece of advice you would give to ambitious young dentists, to get involved in these organisations and to give service back? I mean, is it for everyone?

Bertie: Okay, the word ambition I think is my problem.

Payman: Yeah.

Bertie: I can never say that I’ve been ambitious. I’ve never looked and said, “I want to do that.” When it came to the BACD, for example, it was Chris Orr, who I didn’t even know, who approached me, I don’t know why he approached me, but he approached me and said, “Do you want to consider getting involved with the board for the BACD?” It was probably because we met over at ASCD-

Payman: ASCD.

Bertie: … was the first very informal hello, and just knew each other by face and name, possibly. And then, the first BACD meeting that was here, that was the first time I saw Tif Qureshi, Tim Bradstock-Smith, Elaine Halley, David Bloom, Chris Orr, I remember Mike Zybutz. That was the first time I had met a lot of these people.

Bertie: And then both Odette and I went to every single BACD meeting from there, and it was a few years in that Chris Orr approached me and said, “Do you want to stand for board?” Which I did, and became the longest-serving board member. And then realised you need an exit strategy, and the best exit strategy was to become president and then past president and then out.

Payman: When you say you have a problem with the ambition part, are you saying that you don’t see it as an ambitious step? You see it as a service step?

Bertie: No, no, it wasn’t. When somebody approaches you and says, “Do you want to get involved?” You look at it and you think, “Actually, I can see why this is a good thing.” And what I could see the BACD doing, I thought, was probably the best thing that’s happened to dentistry in the UK. But suddenly this move to raise standards, it wasn’t purely about making smiles look pretty. That was the great part, that there was a visible side to what you were doing, but there was a lot more going on behind the scenes. The functional side of dentistry was a big thing, and Chris Orr has been one of those people that’s always pushed that.

Bertie: So ambition-wise, I wouldn’t say I did it because I saw myself as one day becoming president. I remember when I gave my little, call it an elevator speech, for the elections… It was such a small group of people at the time. There must have been only about 30 people that were the voting members of the BACD at the time. I remember saying, “I mean, I’ve got nothing to offer. I’m just a general practitioner with a huge interest in cosmetic dentistry, but I can promise you that you will get my blood, my sweat, my tears. You will get 100% commitment.”

Payman: I think I was there.

Bertie: I mean, I paraphrased Winston Churchill, I think. That was the quote that I used. And then I got elected onto the board. And what an opportunity for growth, because I’d never done anything like it. I’d been involved in dental organisations in South Africa, but very political, in uniting the whole dental community in South Africa. We had a non-white dental organisation, and then we had a white dental organisation. We got that together. So that was my experience. I was the general secretary for that, and involved in negotiations with the South African, the white dental association or what was perceived as the white dental association at the time.

Bertie: So coming onto the board at the BACD was a huge learning experience, and being asked to do a role. I think membership was the first one that I got involved in. And then each year, the board of directors would change. You had a new chairman of the board, which was the new president, and he would rearrange his cabinet, so to speak, to try and put people in different positions. And I was moved around a lot. But in the end you realise, it’s actually the best way to prepare yourself for leading an organisation, is to actually have full experience of the whole organisation, of what the membership side is like, of running… Comms was our big area, and between myself and with Andrew Chandrapal following up, and seeing how we started looking at things like budgets.

Bertie: In the beginning, I mean, money was not an object with the BACD. There was a lot of money thrown at it by a lot of people, and we were able to do a lot as far as publicity and PR and all the rest of it. And a lot of money was made from the conferences, because it was a very unique concept. And then the copycatting started, and everybody started having conferences very much like the BACD’s conference. And that starts diluting the effect, and you’re competing with other people, and of course numbers dwindle and that’s when the challenges come in. So I learned how to work with budgets, I learned how to be focused. I learned how to plan the year.

Bertie: I mean, there was so much that I learned at BACD and could take back to my practise. So where somebody might be ambitious and think they want to just rocket to the top of an organisation, I don’t think it’s the right thing. I think it’s like the practise. You should focus on doing the right things, and the other things follow. The financial reward follows in your practise, the personal reward follows at organisation level. It’s going to happen for you, but what you need to do is to do what the organisation needs you to do. That for me is key.

Payman: What a lovely speech, man. I love that. So beautiful.

Prav: Bertie, even as a practise owner, I speak to a lot of practise owners on a regular basis. It doesn’t seem like you’ve got an ambition or an exit strategy or anything like that, but it’s more like just doing the right thing for your patients and your team.

Bertie: Yeah.

Prav: Is there an overarching business goal or ambition? Do you feel like, “In five years time, I want to get out and sell this?”

Bertie: I think yeah. I think the reality is biting that you need to at some point have something that’s sellable. And of course the conversation starts happening now. I mean, my financial planning in South Africa was to retire at 55. So what’s happening at the moment is, all my endowment policies, my retirement annuities, I’m getting all these letters from South Africa saying policies have matured and suddenly I’m like, “Oh, no. This is when I was supposed to retire. Age 55 was shutdown time and go and enjoy yourself.” I just can’t imagine doing that now.

Bertie: But what I’m doing now is saying to myself, “You’ve got 10 years.” And in five years time I need to start winding down. So I need another four years of really working for myself and doing what I want to do, and then allow an extra five years of transition for whoever it is that wants to buy the practise, that I still want to be able to input and make sure that this practise is a good return on investment for the next person, and prove that it is worth what I think it’s worth.

Bertie: So, yes, the mind is starting to stray in that direction, but there’s still a lot of, just keep doing the right thing and things will just… Yeah.

Prav: So between now and the next however many years it is, have you got a plan to maximise value? Maximise turnover? Maximise profitability so you can increase that saleable value?

Bertie: Oh, absolutely.

Prav: Is there a set-out strategy for that?

Bertie: We started last year, and the first thing we thought is, “We need to start getting specialists into the practise.” We’d like to get the associate position for a full-time. So hygienists first. Five days of hygiene. We’re up to four at the moment. We need it to be five. So the only way we could do that was by extending the practise and having another surgery. So that is what we thought we would do. We have a staff room, yeah? Payman, you’ve been to the practise. The old staff room-

Payman: I like your practise. It’s beautiful.

Bertie: Whereas the old staff room would become another surgery. And we had some sheds out at the back, and we thought, “Right, the sheds will become the staff area.” And that was the plan.

Bertie: And then, we started planning and looking at building. We thought, “Well, we need to link these two buildings.” So what started out as converting a staff room into surgery number four turned into extending the building, having surgery number four, while we’re at it, do you know what? My surgery downstairs, I need a little bit of extra room. So we’ll just extend out to the back another four feet or so.

Bertie: The four feet became a 12-foot extension of another room onto the back of the practise, on the back of my surgery. So what’s happened now, we have essentially two buildings that are merged together. If we needed to, we could actually separate off the back section and it could turn into a complete residential unit on its own, if it had to. But it’s actually working very nicely as part of a bigger practise. So we’ve got lots of room now. We’ve got four surgeries.

Payman: It’s a very South African trait, to be building out and up.

Bertie: Yeah. That’s it. So we’ve got four surgeries now, and potential for a fifth one. Again, knowing that some of the corporates, when they look, they look for at least four surgeries, and plus, they’re looking for potential for expansion. And we are in a good area for private patients. So yeah, that’s what we’re looking at, is building the practise but also not over-capitalising at this stage. Which was going well until COVID came along. And that put the brakes on a lot of things. Yeah. But if we could keep going in our recovery the way we are now, then we’ll be okay.

Prav: We’ll be all right.

Bertie: Yep.

Prav: I think we’ll definitely be all right.

Payman: Tell us about the BAPD. When was the first time… You were one of the original-

Bertie: Well, so BAPD came about from two groups. There was a group, which I think Neel Jaiswal, and I think Zacky, were pretty much instrumental in this. And a lot of guys who were, I’d say, in a new mainly friendship group, so a lot of us knew each other from that, and in chatting we were already formed these groups on Facebook. There was the turbine dentist group, there was a couple of other groups. We garden and enjoy nice cars and things like that. Not necessarily our own but other people who have them and go to car shows and things. So there’s a lot of common interest outside of dentistry.

Bertie: So when this happened, there were conversations going on, and people said, “We need to do something, so let’s start sorting out…” And what was the catalyst was, 3rd of April was the webinar by the CDO, and where the question was asked, and I’ve realised it was Wayne Williams that actually asked that question, about the involvement of private practises and the CDO saying, “I don’t speak for private dentists, yeah? I only speak for NHS.”

Bertie: And the sudden realisation, “Hey, we’re in limbo, yeah? There’s nobody going to help us.” And of course, practises then being told… Well, we were told to close down on, it was 22nd of March, 23rd of March, by the BDA first. That was the first time I had heard about it. But by that time, we’d already said to our older patients, “You know what? Just stay home until we know what’s going on.” So first call to close I heard was from the BDA, and then of course the next one was the NHS basically saying, “NHS practises should close.” I think that was 24th or 25th of March, somewhere there.

Bertie: And then the first webinar from the CDO was the 3rd of April, and her saying that she didn’t speak for private. Of course, there you are, you’ve closed your practise and you don’t know what on Earth is going to happen next. So we got together, and then we started a Facebook group, and then realised there was another Facebook group that had just been started with Jason and Luke Thorley. I think Simon Thackeray was involved in that one as well. And then we decided, “Guys, rather than launching two separate organisations, let’s talk to these guys and see what we can do.”

Bertie: And of course, people get together because you’re in groups of trust. You’re with people you know and people you trust. So there’s one group of trust, which was Jason and Simon and these guys, sort of knew each other, and Luke, but I don’t think Luke knew them as well as they knew each other, but there was this group who felt they could trust each other, and then there was our group who felt we could trust each other. And then bringing the two together. So there was a bit of, I would call it, what do they call it, forming, storming and norming when it comes to any organisation. So there was the forming, “Everybody, yeah, we’re going to come together.” And then there’s the storming when you don’t know who you can trust, you don’t know people’s motivations. And then the norming where we’ve now established what we’re about, and people can see by people’s actions that these are genuine people. These are people who have dentistry at heart, and where dentistry is going at heart.

Bertie: And from not knowing people to suddenly defending people from criticism from others, because there’s a lot of social media issues where dentists look at other dentists and think, “Oh, these people just want social media fame,” and yet when you get to know people, there’s a slight, “No, actually, yes they’re social media savvy but it doesn’t mean that they’re there just for the sake of being famous.” Which is, I think, that’s the realisation, that we’ve got to know people at a deeper level now, working with people. It’s just been amazing. Yeah. So it’s been a really good experience of getting to know people at a completely different level.

Payman: So we won’t know for sure exactly when this one goes out, Bertie, but we’re at that early August. Right now, today, are we looking at fallow time? What’s the APD’s current agenda?

Bertie: We’d like to see it gone. No, seriously. And the science… I can see the argument that for the danger of what might be in the air from an infected patient, we can see that there’s an argument. We can see the argument, the point of view of the precautionary principle. And I will say this to their faces, the way PHE have gone about this is just treating us like a bunch of idiots. Because you cannot say one hour fallow time on the basis of that’s how long it takes to turn over air in a room. Excuse me? How big is the window in that room? How big is the door in that room? What is the air flow in that room?

Bertie: These are people who are highly qualified. These are dentists who, we’ve got years of studying behind us, of studying science behind us. We’ve all done physics as part of our courses. We would know how to calculate on the basis of what our rooms have. Surely, say, let’s get a scientific basis of calculating how to ensure that there’s fresh air in your room, before you allow the next person into your room. But no. We’ve just been treated like a bunch of mushrooms and told, “One hour, that’s it, you can’t mitigate for it. You can’t do this. You can’t do that.” I’m sorry, but of course people are going to kick back.

Bertie: I think it was again Churchill who said something about, the more regulations you make, the more people lose total respect for the law. So when you start throwing regulations out left, right and centre like that, with no explanation, no justification, no consultation with the profession, or consulting with people who are non-clinical and allowing them to make regulations… I mean, I looked at the stuff from the beginning. It said aerosol generating procedure, and it says what these things are, and then it says evidence. So each thing that PHE had done, they would say what the evidence was, that there was a potential for transmission of this virus.

Bertie: And, when it came to aerosol-generating procedures, evidence, none. There was nothing there. So it’s been taken from other situations and just put into, because it’s happened for, let’s just say, with EMTs and that in the emergency where they’ve been treating these patients under emergency and it’s been just transposed to dentistry, now, why is it that orthopaedic surgeons have managed to get this changed for them and yet it’s taking forever for dentistry? Where people have been presenting science and saying, “Come on, we need to look at this, we need to look at this,” and countries all over the world have been doing very similar things, and yet here we are in the UK, still trying to battle with it.

Payman: What’s the answer to that, buddy? Why?

Bertie: They’ve got to get their act together. I have no idea. I’m a cynic. I’m a cynic. I’m a cynic. So I’d rather not answer that.

Payman: Where do you sit on that balance between conspiracy and just lack of attention to detail?

Bertie: I don’t-

Payman: We can see there’s definitely some NHS angles going down. Right? We can see that.

Bertie: I think the NHS are using the opportunity. And I think because they’re using the opportunity, that has lessened the urgency. Because if the NHS had wanted to get back to work quickly, there would have been a greater urgency to get this thing sorted. 100%, that’s what I feel.

Payman: I agree with that.

Bertie: But because the NHS have decided that they will use government funding, which is my taxes and your taxes, to support NHS… I don’t want to call them NHS dentists, because I don’t believe there’s such a thing. I believe that we are all dentists, and I believe some of us are working with a system that’s funded by the NHS and some of us are working with a system that’s funded by the patient. So I don’t believe in saying it’s an NHS dentist or it’s a private dentist, because that starts conjuring up that the dentistry is different and there should only be one standard of dentistry, and that’s the end of that.

Bertie: But I think the NHS is using, or those in charge of the NHS, are not in a hurry to get rid of fallow time, but may become in a hurry now because their plans may have moved on, and they need to start seeing people get back to work. And while they’ve got the Urgent Care Centres running, supposedly picking up the emergencies… I know it’s not the case in my area, I’m seeing a lot of emergencies who are NHS patients and who want to see someone local to them. So I’m sure that’s what’s happening in the other areas.

Bertie: So while there may be claims that the Urgent Care Centres are actually working really well, the reality is probably that private practises are picking up the slack in a massive way.

Payman: Yeah. Talking to private dentists, that’s what I’m hearing, too.

Prav: Bertie, me speaking to a lot of private dentists about fallow time at the moment, many people are looking at it differently, and there’s this so-called one-hour statement that’s been made. People are treating it completely differently, and it’s a sliding scale, as I see it. Naturally, I’d never mention any names because people have spoken to me in confidence, but it’s everything from nothing, right up to the whole one-hour thing, and panicking and stressing, despite having the large windows, despite having the suction and all the rest of it. Where do you sit on that scale?

Bertie: I think where people are looking at it is looking at the FGDP. What the GDC says, basically, if you are shown to be following a body of opinion and you have done your risk assessments, and you’ve taken the precautions to make sure that you’re not going to harm patients, and you’re doing things safely, and I think it’s that body of opinion. So you don’t have to be following one particular thing.

Bertie: The PHE stuff, as far as I’m concerned, is guidance. It’s guidance. And when you read it, it does leave itself open to, because they explain what it’s about, and there’s a few more documents and things which I’ve had sight of. And you see, there’s an explanation behind how the fallow time works and the number of… It’s based on number of air changes. Now, if I can prove that the air changes are happening to a higher rate in my room, then surely, I have evidence that I’m achieving the air change. It may be taking me a lot less than an hour. Is there some argument to say that I’m not allowed to do that? Because if it’s based on an air change, then that’s what we’re doing.

Prav: How much air change does the one hour assume.

Bertie: Six.

Prav: Six. So if you did 12 in an hour, then you could drop it to half an hour, theory would dictate.

Bertie: Well, this is what the…

Prav: It’s very simple… Yeah.

Bertie: Well, no, it won’t quite work like that, because it’s like taking a cup of tea and pouring clean water into it. It’s not going to take six cups to clear out that water-

Prav: Convection.

Bertie: Yeah.

Prav: Dilution.

Bertie: It’s dilution, but how long is it going to take? It’s not saying that you can cut it to half an hour because you’re getting 12. But there is a system of calculating it, and it is out there somewhere. If you can calculate the size of your room and how many air changes it takes to change that air completely, and how quickly you’re going to do it because of extraction systems, negative air pressure, whatever it is that you’re doing, yeah. It just comes down to calculating it for your particular room.

Prav: Yeah. Yeah. The number of questions I’ve had that are mathematical, from dentists, is unreal. “I’ve got six air changes in my practise and I’ve just put a fan in that does six air changes in that thing. Does that mean I’m getting 12?” I feel like I’m doing maths with my kids.

Bertie: Do you know what? The safest is actually to get a ventilation company in and get them to actually say to you, “So if you’re installing a massive extraction system,” which some people have done. They have actually got professional companies in to come and do it.

Prav: Certify you.

Bertie: The company says, “This is the number of air changes that this is achieving and it’s going to take so much time to achieve it, based on the size of your room,” and that is the safest way to do it. Otherwise, we’re no better than the PHE, which is based on whatever non-evidence that it’s based on. But the argument comes back to, does the virus actually exist in the aerosol that we are generating?

Payman: It’s not the same aerosol as the surgeons [crosstalk]

Bertie: Exactly.

Payman: Yeah, I agree with that, I agree with that.

Bertie: Exactly.

Payman: It’s all about nuance, isn’t it? You know, that question of nuance. I heard a lovely quote, the guy was saying, “Tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance from an argument.” The deliberate removal. The removal of nuance itself, we can see, messes stuff up. Doing it on purpose, that’s-

Bertie: Well, we have an organisation that does that on a regular basis, don’t we?

Payman: Yes. So, Bertie, when you look back on your career, are there parts of it that were dark and difficult? What was a failure in your career that you learnt from later on, that at the time seemed like a disaster, but then actually turned out to be formative?

Bertie: Wow. Okay. What seemed like a disaster was working on the NHS.

Payman: That was a disaster.

Bertie: No, it did. I really thought, “You’ve done it now.” I suppose the turning point was in attitude, and it was someone from the Pankey Institute who said, “You see the opportunity in the situation that you’re in and use it to get you to where you want to be.” Richard Branson, I always remember one of his quotes when he talks about making a mistake, and he says, “I’ve never made a wrong decision. The decisions I’ve made have always been the right decision based on the evidence or the information that I’ve had at that time.” As you’ve got more information, you may have realised that you should have made a different decision.

Bertie: So do we ever really make a wrong decision? Mistakes happen, I think, when you go against your gut instinct. And gut instinct is that amazing computer that’s your brain, that is seeing things faster than you can humanly recognise that you’re seeing these things. And then you’re going to use the logical side of your brain in ignoring the other half, and that’s when we make mistakes, because we think we’re smart.

Payman: Are you one of these guys who really trusts your instincts fully? Are you good with your instincts? Do you get sudden feelings about people that you like them or not?

Bertie: I always say to myself, you meet someone and you think to yourself, for some reason you just don’t feel comfortable. And then you get to know the person, and you think, “Oh, wow, this guy’s actually not so bad.” And then you’re proven later why your instinct was what it was. So my thing now is I always try and recognise what my first instinct is when meeting someone new, and also, when getting into a situation. I always say, “What’s your gut saying? Recognise it.”

Bertie: I can accuse myself very successfully of analysis paralysis at times, where I will sit and analyse something, and take forever to come to a decision, and then come to a decision based on the logic and the evidence and all the rest of it, and I keep saying to myself, “What was your initial reaction?” If that need to analyse is based on a gut instinct that said, “Hold on, something’s not quite right here,” then something is generally not quite right. And then just say no.

Bertie: I’ve taught myself, when somebody says, “It’s an excellent offer but it’s only available until 5:00,” I don’t wait until 5:00 to say no, I just say, “Well, the answer’s no.” Because I’m not going to put myself under pressure and make a mistake. So if somebody’s putting you under pressure, I always say, “Just say no.” An offer of a job. If somebody says, “I need to know by 5:00,” okay, if I’m not certain at that point, the answer is no.

Payman: Love that.

Bertie: You get cheekier.

Payman: So your daughter’s-

Bertie: You get cheekier as you get older though.

Payman: Yeah. Your daughter’s finished dental school now.

Bertie: Yeah. Yeah. She has done-

Payman: Did you encourage her to go to dental-

Bertie: I didn’t, actually.

Prav: Did you discourage-

Bertie: I didn’t discourage her either. From when she was three years old, the joke was always, when she was three and a half, they said to her, “What are you going to do when you’re big?” And she says, “I want to be a doctor, but I want to be a real doctor, not a dentist.” So we used to always laugh about that as she got older. And then she decided she didn’t want to do medicine, but she still wanted to be involved in the medical sciences field, and she did a biomed degree first because she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do.

Bertie: It was medicine all along. Went on a work experience at the local private hospital and got to see all the different aspects, the physio, the radiology, the pharmacy, in the operating theatres with the surgeons. Really, really enjoyed it and decided, “Medicine is not for me.” That was when she made the decision, but she still wanted to be involved in the sphere and did a biomed degree at St. George’s, and then during her final year is when she decided she wanted to do the dentistry.

Bertie: A lot of her colleagues did medicine. I think there’s one who’s doing veterinary science. Others have gone on and done a Master’s, and then she-

Payman: Secretly you were happy, then?

Bertie: I’ll tell you why I was pleased, because I thought she’s got the attributes to do it. She’s got good hands. She’s OCD. She’s meticulous about things. So yeah, I just felt she’s got all the attributes.

Payman: Good people person.

Bertie: And that’s it. And Dominique loves people. Yeah. And I actually thought, she needs to do this on her own. I didn’t encourage her. I’m happy that she’s done it. Obviously, you’re advising, “Do this now, do that now.” Looking at specialising, I’m like, “Do ortho, do ortho, do ortho.” Yeah. But the girl likes the surgery. And this is another thing. Having a daughter-

Payman: Oh, is she doing maxillo?

Bertie: Well, I think she’s done a restorative… What is it when they go into the hospital? She’s worked at year at the Royal London.

Payman: After VT?

Bertie: After VT, or after foundation year. What do they call it? What do they call it? DF1 or something like than.

Payman: I forget. DF2?

Bertie: She’s now going to be working at Whipps Cross, and she’s going to be doing surgery, I think is the field that she’s more going to be focused on. Obviously COVID has thrown a massive spoke into the restorative side of things, because she has not done as much as she would have liked to, but she’s done the sedation thing. So that’s been good as well.

Bertie: But having a daughter, and looking at the experience of women in dentistry, it opens your eyes. Actually, having a daughter first opens your eyes to realising the amount of… It’s not intentional discrimination, but people almost can’t help themselves. We go to the trade shows, for example. I remember being with a lady dentist, and both of us, we hadn’t seen each other for a while. We met on a occlusion course. Walked up to the same trade stand, and someone turns to me and starts speaking to me as a dentist, and then speaks to her as, “So are you practise manager? Or are you head nurse?” And she was absolutely livid.

Bertie: That was the first time it actually hit home, that people automatically assume that because you’re dressed very ordinary, I mean, I was dressed ordinary, I wasn’t in a suit and tie, she wasn’t in a business suit or anything like that, she was dressed ordinary. But the assumption was I was a dentist because I was male, and the assumption was that she was what’s now called DCP because she was female. And you realise, “Hold on, this is not quite right.” And this is still happening in dentistry.

Bertie: It’s like when people say, “I’m not racist.” It’s one thing to be non-racist and it’s another thing to be anti-racist. So I think the challenge is there for us now, and it’s not only because my daughter is a dentist, but the challenge is there for us now to stand with women in dentistry and actually help where we can to be aware of where these things can creep in.

Payman: We talked about this before, you were the one who pointed out to me, you said, “There should be a minimum number of speakers at your event,” at my conference, women speakers.

Bertie: Yeah. Yeah.

Payman: Do you still believe that?

Bertie: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. There’s two arguments to this thing. There’s one where you look at it and you say, “Surely people should be getting in there on the basis of merit, and that should be it.” Now, there’s another argument that says, when it comes to your friendship groups, very often it’s easy for guys, for us as men, to socialise with each other and it’s easy for women to socialise with each other. And the reality is, even though there are more women dentists graduating today than men, and I seriously think, I’m sure there are more qualified female dentists than there are male dentists, the reality is that the male dentists are in the profession and in the profession from Day One you’re there as a dentist. You’re never leaving for a few years to go and have a family. You’re never leaving for a few years to look after your family. You’re never going part-time because of your family. Which means women are always looked at, possibly, as not going to be there all the time, whereas the male dentists are looked at as, yes, they are. They are bankers, almost.

Payman: This is true in every field, right?

Bertie: It is, it is. And it’s happening in our profession as well. But I don’t know what-

Payman: But shall we take it to there? Shall we say the next prime minister should be a woman, then the next one should be a man?

Bertie: Payman, you see, I don’t like all of that as well.

Payman: I’m not being facetious on purpose.

Bertie: Yeah, no, I hear what you’re saying and I feel the same way. I don’t like that as well. But how wonderful that you can recognise women dentists who have actually achieved and then invite them to come forward? But we also need to encourage them to show themselves. They need to show themselves. It’s no use the shouting going on from the side saying, “There are no women representatives on your organisation. Why is it all male?” Well, I know in the case of the BAPD, I can say it straight out, it happens to be all male because these are the people who stood up and made a noise.

Bertie: Yes, there were women dentists invited to get involved as well. It didn’t quite work out for various reasons. And it would be wonderful if we had women dentists with the same sort of passion and characteristics of the men who are there already saying, “Right, we’re going to fight this battle for private dentistry.” But how do you find those people? How do we encourage those people to step forward? We’ve got one or two really, really good people involved at the moment, but it would be great if there were more.

Bertie: Now, what do you do? Do you say to the male dentists who are involved in, let’s just say, various organisations, say, “Right, we need you to step down because we want a woman dentist to be in your place”? You can’t do that. It’s just wrong. So what needs to happen is looking at how things go forward, is to encourage women to step up and stand forward, put themselves forward, for example, for election on organisations, to put themselves forward for doing presentations. The opportunities are there, but it means people need to be connected, whether it’s on Facebook groups, whether it’s in organisations where the questions are being asked. Women dentists need to be there.

Payman: I think, you know Bertie, my issue with it is women definitely get a really raw deal in dentistry. But I’m not thinking of the dentists, I’m thinking of the nurses, the hygienists, those types. The stories you hear about the way some staff are treated by dentists, men and women. Terrible, terrible stories. Our profession is dominated by women if you count everyone up. Men are the absolute minority.

Payman: For me, if you want to address something, that’s the one that needs addressing. The career prospects of women in dentistry, rather than women dentists. But from that post I saw, there was quite a lot of heavy feeling about it. So I guess that needs addressing too. Prav, what’s your question?

Prav: Bertie, you’ve obviously shared a lot of your values with us today during this short time we’ve been speaking, both from your upbringing, your folks, and then passing on to your kids as well. Imagine it’s your last day on the planet and you’ve got three pieces of advice that you’re going to leave your children, the world, with. What would those three pieces of advice be? And how would you like to be remembered? What would your legacy be?

Bertie: I think the first piece of advice is always try to tell the truth, because then you don’t have to remember what the story was, you actually remember what the facts of the event were. So always try to tell the truth.

Bertie: The second one is always try to talk about people as though they are there with you. That’s a very difficult one to remember at times, because emotions can creep into things. And the third one is always do the right thing. Do the right thing as though everyone is watching you even when no one is watching you. You sleep better. The rewards follow. The rewards follow. Never chase titles. Never chase recognition. Never chase money. Just keep doing the right thing.

Bertie: What would I like to be remembered for? Gee whiz. For being a good father. For being a good father. For being a good husband. For being there for people who need me, whether it’s my colleagues, whether it’s personal things that happen. For being there for my team when they need me. For being fair to people. For just being a really good human being. I think that’s more important than anything else.

Prav: Bertie, that’s beautiful. And I think the one word that comes out of that that resonates with me is integrity. It really does resonate with me based on what we’ve discussed today.

Bertie: Yep.

Payman: It’s always such a nicest pleasure to speak with you, Bertie.

Bertie: Thank you. Thanks, guys. Yeah.

Payman: Whether it’s in the practise, or in a bar at the conference, or on-

Bertie: Pub.

Payman: … a podcast, it’s always a massive pleasure. I always finish off speaking with you feeling enriched by it.

Bertie: Thank you very much.

Payman: So thanks a lot for doing this, buddy. Thank you.

Bertie: Thanks Payman, and thanks, Prav.

Speaker 2: 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.

Prav: Thanks for listening, guys, if you got this far you must have listened to the whole thing, and just a huge thank you, both from me and Pay, for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say, and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

Payman: 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.

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

Dominic: The third one is, don’t piss on my grave when I die.

Speaker 2: 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.

Prav: Oh gosh, haven’t done one of these intros in a long time. Payman’s really good at these.

Payman: It gives me great pleasure to…

Prav: Yeah. Fucking… you’ve just stolen the words out of my mouth.

Payman: Go on, bud, we haven’t got time.

Prav: It gives me great pleasure to introduce Dominic O’Hooley to the Dental Leaders Podcast. So much to talk about in so many different areas of life, be it academic, science, real home life lessons, kids, everything. I think we’re going to have a really deep conversation today because Dom said before this, “You can have anything, guys,” so let’s start from the beginning, Dom.

Dominic: Except my house.

Prav: Except his house.

Dominic: Yeah.

Prav: So, Dom, let’s start from the beginning. Your upbringing, where you were born, where you were brought up? Just a micro history of your upbringing.

Dominic: Yeah, a synopsis. I was born in Leeds, brought up in a little town called Horsforth. Two children, myself and my younger sister, Belinda. Mom and dad, Seamus and Jean. Had a very conventional upbringing, raised a Catholic, but, I’d like to say about from the age of five, but I think it was from probably the age of seven or eight, I decided I was agnostic and had a lot of conflicts with my parents about that because my dad was… to say he was religious was an understatement. I went to a Catholic primary school in Horsforth and I was an altar boy. I had to go and serve mass three times a week, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. The high point of that was, nicking a bit of the altar wine. The low point was having to serve for a Monsignor Justice, who sounds a little bit like a Judge Dredd character and he was like that a little bit as well. He was a bit tough.

Dominic: So, moved over to Guiseley when I was ready to enter secondary school, and, then, unfortunately, my relationship with my father started to decline very much so at that point.

Prav: What do you mean by that, Dom?

Dominic: I’m afraid that my dad wasn’t an easy guy. He’s passed away. My dad weren’t an easy. He seemed to find me almost impossible to understand or deal with. You know from what I’ve said before, that I’ve now got a diagnosis of autism. But, at that time, there was no real understanding of that at all. I think the commonest expression he used and my mom used as well was, you’re just odd. Which sounds a bit corny but it wasn’t particularly funny at the time.

Prav: Did you hear that a lot growing up?

Dominic: A lot.

Prav: Constantly.

Dominic: [inaudible 00:03:25], yeah.

Prav: Yeah.

Dominic: By the time I got to do my A-Levels, it got to the point where my dad threw me out. So, I ended up doing my A-Levels living in a bedsit in Headingley.

Prav: What led to that Dom? Just take us back to that moment where you did get thrown out. Was it an argument? Was it, the whole focus around being odd, or was it you rebeling a little bit?

Dominic: Well, I was a rebellious type.

Prav: Yeah.

Dominic: One of the things that I’ve reflected a lot upon since, is that my dad was very authoritarian and I didn’t take kindly to it so I was always extremely resilient and would come back at him and report everything he said. As I got older, it became a physical thing quite a lot. He beat me up a few times. We ended up, as I got bigger… and we’re both six foot tall, we ended up fighting quite a lot in the house, which wasn’t appropriate. I think that really got to the point where I went to school one day, and when I got home that evening, my bags were on the doorstep. I was told to get in the car and they took me down to this bedsit, and that was that.

Prav: Wow.

Dominic: I’d love to tell you that was horrible, but, to be honest with you, despite been a bit of an odd bird, I’ve always been a bit of a… not a ladies man, exactly, but I’ve never had any problem whatsoever when I was a young guy talking to girls, I’ve never been embarrassed or anything like that. I’ve always thought I’m quite funny, whether they [inaudible 00:05:14]. I’ll be honest, I thought it was quite an opportunity rather than a punishment, to be living in student land in Headingley.

Payman: So, Dom, when was the first time where you became aware of, there might be a diagnosis here as opposed to I’m a bit odd. When was that?

Dominic: Well, when I was at school, I had a music teacher called Mr. Mumford, who’s a lovely guy… or was a lovely guy. Unfortunately, he passed away as well. I remember in first year of secondary school, walking around one lunchtime on this… the school had numerous playgrounds, and this was a quiet one down a bit… where there weren’t a lot of kids around. Just walking around on my own, really upset and I couldn’t tell you why but I was. He just said to me… he came over and he said, “What’s up with you?” He said it in such a way that I felt confident enough to open up and I just said, “I don’t know who I am, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to think.” I was only 11 at the time. He became a bit of a pal through school to be honest with you.

Dominic: Then, I started to get an inkling that there was something not quite the same about me, as there was about a lot of my compatriots. As I got older, I became very adept at masking my difference and being very good at concealing it. I think being fairly intelligent means I can usually hide it with a combination of being quite amusing, if I want, and also just being quick on the draw so I can judge what people want to say… and I can do that. But, I think as you get to know me, I think, sometimes, the cracks in my armour become very apparent, really.

Dominic: So, as I got a bit older I left school. When I met my wife, Rebecca, I think very early on she realised that I was autistic. For a number of years, we had a conversation where it was a case of, I think you possibly should get a diagnosis and, say, go forward with that, and eventually I did.

Prav: Dominic, it expresses themselves on a sliding scale for different people, doesn’t it, and manifests itself in different ways. For you, personally, how is that expressed in communication, personality, dealing with others, body posture, and then other people that you know? What does that sliding scale look like? Just for whoever’s listening to, really, get a-

Dominic: [inaudible] give you a brief understanding.

Prav: Yeah.

Dominic: My boy, Humphrey, who’s 14, he’s got… I suppose, if you’re looking at sliding scale, he’s very much towards the right side, the severe side. He’s nonverbal. He has never really been able to speak at all. He can say the odd word such as no, or yes, but he can’t say anything else, really. He has unusual behaviours such as self-harm and absconding behaviour. He likes to run free. So, for example, when he lived at home, if he was in the house, he would try and escape all the time. It’s not because he was upset, it’s just because he likes to. Then, he used to do something called garden hopping, which was quite fun, really, which is where he’d been in the backyard with me, I might turn my back for 30 seconds, he’d climb over the garden fence, and within minutes, he’s gone down about 12 houses, across the gardens and over the fences.

Dominic: So, from my point of view, looking at my own personal… I did write a blog about this, I think the way my mind works, it’s constantly going through an incredible number of complex verbal options. I keep running back to these topics and subjects that I like and I have to whack them out of my brain because otherwise, I’d want to say to you, I’ve got a very interesting fact for you, Prav. Did you know that rhodium is actually this and… I particular like metals and things like that. Enough, Dominic.

Payman: I read something where you said you’ve chosen to look at it as an advantage.

Dominic: Yeah.

Payman: The work you’ve done with the [BABD] and the Scientific Committee on… we mustn’t say, Oh, it’s because of this, but, to some extent, you’ve used it to really focus on the evidence for COVID. But in dentistry, is it an advantage? Do you find it an advantage in some ways?

Dominic: I do. It’s a double-edged sword. I think it can be intensely focused. So, if you think about the flow state that, sometimes, we get into, Prav, I’d imagine, sometimes when you’re training, you might get into-

Prav: [inaudible 00:10:22], yeah.

Dominic: [inaudible] individual. So, therefore, with me, I can find I can get into a flow state quite simply and become almost unaware of time. That’s probably the happiest I can be in my life really, when I’m like that really. I, also, I find it a challenge because… I think I said this in my little thing that I wrote for dentistry magazine. I said, I’ve chosen the worst job in the world for an autistic guy because I’ve got to meet new people all the time. That’s hard. It really is hard. Well, I suppose, it’s a case of sod it if it’s hard, I’ve got to do it. So, I get some satisfaction from that and I get some satisfaction from the fact that I’m, in some ways, able to charm my patients and have very honest conversations with them and get over my communication issues.

Dominic: On the other hand, I think it leaves me very anxious and wrung out. So, I’ll often find at the end of the day, I’m absolutely wrung out. When my son, Humphrey, had perhaps had a, we call, meltdown, because he’s just overstimulated and he just can’t cope with it any more. I suppose, I have the similar… and I used to use my bike as a way of getting around that. So, I’d have my day of patients and I’d be completely at the end of my tether, and I just get on the bike and spend an hour and 15 minutes, hammering it back home. By the time I get home, I’ll be fine. Right now, I haven’t got that anymore.

Prav: What do you use as a substitute? You just talked about your flow state, and that’s when you’re happiest, is that? Is that when you’re mentally in the zone? One of the guys who works for me, has had a diagnosis, and he finds himself… one of the smartest guys I know, and he says, once he gets in the zone, and the zone is a mental zone rather than a physical one, there’s no stopping this guy. He is super intelligent, and just thinks differently. He’ll solve a problem in 20 minutes that will take the rest of the team a week.

Dominic: I suppose, with me, it is a mental thing. When I’m reading papers, for example, and trying to solve complex problems, I do find a [inaudible] way of thinking about things that’s perhaps a little bit different. I think one of the advantages I have is, I can absorb a massive amount of information quite quickly. So, I can look through a lot of papers and I can start to pick on things that perhaps not everybody will pick up on. Then, that means I can collate a lot of information. I suppose, it’s been a geek fest for me to be able to pull papers up that I think they useful on a daily basis.

Dominic: [inaudible] though, insofar as, I have to watch myself because I can go down the rabbit hole very eager. So, if I read a paper that really interests me, then I’ll forget that, actually, I’ve got a bit of a mission that I should be out helping to educate the [inaudible] population on COVID in my little view, that I should be doing that. I go down rabbit holes and end up reading something that’s got very little to do with it.

Prav: So, if I read a paper, I’ll scribble in some notes down. Get some facts down and stuff.

Dominic: Yeah.

Prav: What’s going in your head? Is it a bit like the Matrix? You sit there and then you pull out the bits, but [inaudible 00:13:52], and then you contextualise it and make a relationship with the next paper you read and just pull it all together. Have you got a great memory? Are you able to bring facts together and then formalise them… those facts together, in what you feel is a solid argument. How does that work? Because, for me, I have to write it down.

Dominic: I’m not sure. The thing is, that I don’t look at the abstracts, I tend to go straight to the body of the paper and read the paper.

Prav: Yeah.

Dominic: I have weak points. I’ll be honest with you, at the moment, I find statistics difficult, I always have. It makes a weak point of mine. So, there’s gaps within that quality of my ability to absorb information. What I find interesting, is that I’m able to… and, sometimes, I’ve actually wanted to go back to the office and say, You haven’t seen this connection. Why aren’t you seeing it? I’ve seen it [inaudible 00:14:55]. It’s good, but, as I’ve said, there’s big negatives to it as well. I’ve actually had to catch myself. This happens with patients and it happens when I’m in chats with dentists. I catch myself and I’ve actually been rambling on about someone for 10 minutes and you can see that their eyes are like too hard boiled eggs, because they’re like, Oh, stop, please.

Payman: So, Dom, you’re 17, 18, living alone and self-motivating yourself to do A-Levels and hanging out with chicks, but where did dentistry come into? How did dentistry come into that?

Dominic: Well, dentistry came into it from the fact that I was a little bit led by… my mother kept saying to me, she says you’re so sensitive… I think she saw my oddness as sensitivity because I used to weep quite a lot. I think the weeping was, a lot, due to the fact that I just couldn’t cope with… I felt so out of it. When I was at school, I just felt like this guy was just inside a clean room looking out at everybody else. Do you know those big round circle for clear inflatable circles and you see people playing and rolling down the hills, I felt like one of them. I don’t know what you call them.

Payman: [inaudible 00:16:19].

Dominic: Yeah, that’s it. I felt like I was in one of them all the time. But, my mom took it as sensitivity and she said… I’ve always had a medical leaning. I’ve always found medical facts particularly interesting, and she put me off doing medicine. She said, “You can cope with death.” I think one of my obsessions, all my life, has been death.

Payman: What do you mean?

Dominic: She said [inaudible] talk about it a lot. I don’t think it’s for you. I don’t think you should go down that road. Because, dealing with death, potentially, on a daily basis is just not going to be something that’s good for you. So, I thought, Well, I’ll go for dentistry then.

Payman: Pulp death, instead.

Dominic: Yeah, well, it’s a combination of minutia, so I can look into the material science side, I can get involved in things like that. Secondly, I can control my interactions with patients. So, I felt very early on that I can shut the buggers up if I want because I can tell them to open their mouth and get on with the work. Will you bleep that bit? Yeah, [inaudible 00:17:33].

Dominic: Also, I think, from a fiscal point of view, I thought it’s a good living. When I was a young guy, I went and actually watched the dentist do work in Horsforth and I realised that he had a very nice 911, a red one. A 911 turbo. One of the first ones with the massive wing on it. Then, he owed a restaurant in Horsforth, [inaudible] called Johnny [inaudible 00:17:59]. At the time, I thought, well, you’re doing all right, and yet you always seem to leave five o’clock. So, from that point of view, I though, he’s got a good bang for his buck ratio. I can do good work. I can get him very interested in what I do. But, I can still be out of work at a reasonable time. It didn’t quite always work out like that.

Payman: Where did you study dentistry?

Dominic: Liverpool?

Payman: Oh, good town.

Dominic: Yeah, so I went across the Pennines, primarily, because… I don’t know, really, I just thought, I didn’t fancy Manchester, for some reason. Pay back. I wanted to be able to [inaudible 00:18:43]. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I absolutely loved it in Liverpool.

Prav: What was dental school like compared to school school, in terms of fitting in and the social side of things?

Dominic: Well, that’s interesting because I started to find the crooks. That was quite a way for me to become more fitting in and there was two sides to that. One was alcohol. So, from an alcohol point of view, I found, that if I drank quite a lot, and I became very funny in my own head. I seemed to get a real circle of friends who were also guys who liked to go out for a drink. The second aspect of it was a geeky side. I was one of these unusual students who seemed to have a friendship base among the geeks and also among the real rogues as well. So, I ended up actually being quite a popular student, really. I know that’s hard to believe, but I did.

Dominic: I think the third aspect was that I decided… I got very fit when I was at home and I decided I was going to go for a selection into an airborne territorial army regiment, so I did that as well. So, I ended up being one of the fittest heavy drinkers in dental school.

Prav: [inaudible 00:20:04].

Dominic: Yeah, so I had a lot on my plate. I was actually doing selection for an airborne TA regiment as I was going towards finals. I’ve always been a bit like that. I love having tongues on my plate.

Prav: Just putting the pressure on. Do you to perform better under pressure? Do you feel like… Yeah.

Dominic: Yeah, I love it.

Prav: Are you a grafter that puts in loads and loads and loads of hours into lots of different things or, no? It just comes naturally to you. You mentioned the fitness as well. I remember speaking to you separately on this point about fitness. I think the words you said to me is, I’ve just got a decent engine on me, I’m just pretty good at it. But, is it something that just came naturally to you?

Dominic: Well, it’s a funny one, because when I was a young boy, my mom was a bit of a feeder, and so I was very restricted with my diet when I was a young lad. That’s not unusual among autistic people. Then, I seemed to find things that I liked and, then, when I was about 11, 12, I got a bit overweight. That was due to big meals and I had my dad making me finishing everything on my plate. Absolutely had to finish everything on my plate. So, I became a little bit… not diet obsessed but became obsessed with aspects of physical health. As we’ve talked about offline, [inaudible 00:21:29], we’ve talked about longevity, the health span of human beings and things like that, I’ve found all that very interesting over the years. When I talk about having a good engine, I think it was that once I discovered cardiovascular exercise, so running, I started getting into running in the fells.

Dominic: So, I used to like fell running. For somebody who’s a bit of a loner, a lot of the time, there’s nothing better really. You’re out in the fells on your own. Beautiful views. Can be very, very arduous, it can be bad weather, you can feel very close to nature, really. Also, there’s an element of fear there, sometimes, because I used to do a lot of very long fell races. Something called a super long races. You’d be really a long way from civilization from [inaudible 00:22:21]. If you broke your leg, you’d be in trouble. So, that appealed to me. I just discovered, I seemed to have very good cardiovascular fitness. I think that’s just a genetic thing.

Payman: Yeah.

Dominic: Funnily enough, since I’ve had my accident, I’ve discovered I’ve actually got bicuspid aortic valve. So, I’ve got an unusual aortic valve where [inaudible 00:22:44]. That was an incidental finding.

Payman: Tell us about your accident, Dom?

Dominic: Yeah, just very briefly, I was going into cycling a lot as well, and I found, as I’ve reflected briefly earlier… I said, I used cycling as a way to deal with being a bit overstimulated. So, it’s a good way for me, at the time, to calm down after a bad day work or get prepared for a day at work. I think getting tired before I start work sometimes helps me mentally. So, anyway, one day in 2018, Friday the 13th of July, beautiful summer’s day, I set off to go to Huddersfield for one of my practises where I place implants, and I got to about halfway on the journey, riding a bike I built up… a beautiful bike. Then, I went through a junction called Hellfire Corner. It’s called that because of the amount of accidents that happen at it. I went through a set of lights at green, and a guy was driving an extended VW craft van, over, up the other direction and he turned right into me. The combined impact speed was about 48 miles an hour.

Payman: Jesus.

Prav: If you take yourself back to that moment, can you visualise it happening in slow motion? Or, is it all a complete blank?

Dominic: I say it’s a blank, I’ve got retrograde amnesia. What that means is, that because I have a moderate to severe head injury, I’ve no memory from about five minutes before it to about three days after it.

Prav: Wow.

Dominic: So, I had two different bleeds on my brain. One of them was towards the posterior part of my brain and the other was in the upper right anterior frontal lobe. I also had something called a diffuse axonal injury, which is a deceleration type injury. So, it’s remarkable that I’ve still got some good cognitive function really. I’m really pleased about that because, I suppose, from a self-worth point of view, being fairly bright… One of the ways I gauge myself is with self-esteem, I think. I think if I’d really lost that or aspects of that, I’d have found that incredibly challenging. I don’t know how I would have found it. Yeah, so I have a memory of going past the school, five minutes before the crash, and then nothing until about three days later, when I’m in hospital.

Prav: Somebody, obviously, mapped out what happened in that 5, 10 minute window, or whatever it was, at that time, and then what happened since. So, what happened? Who came to the scene?

Dominic: Well, the craft van had two different cams on it. He had a frontal cam, and it actually shows me [inaudible] them. I’m wearing the brightest orange top you’ve ever seen in your life with black and white Chevron’s across the chest. You can see it from a mile off, so you think, you can’t be looking, mate, because I’m really obvious. A lot like an angry wasp coming down the road. Then, actually, the second dash cam is actually of the driver. When you see him, you actually see him jump at least three inches off his seat and you see the whole cab… and that’s me hitting the cab.

Payman: Oh, Jesus.

Dominic: Then, you see him start off and he parks around the corner. Then, you see him get out of the cab. An abiding memory of that, is the amount of builders cleavage he was showing as he climbed out of the cab. Half his backside are running out. Always remember that, for some reason. But anyway, what happened is, the air ambulance came from Leeds Major Trauma Centre, so the Archer Air ambulance. One of the people on board was a consultant in emergency medicine. So, she obviously assessed me at the time. She picked up my bike helmet, took my bike helmet off and it hadn’t cracked. It was very flat on the front, which she made the assessment that I didn’t have a severe injury at that time.

Dominic: I was giving ketamine because I was in acute pain because I’d had the [inaudible] forearm. So, my right forearm had [inaudible 00:27:11]. I think it was a partial [inaudible] glove and it was still attached. I had multiple compound fractures in my right forearm. My right index finger was almost amputated in an open fracture dislocation. My left wrist had an explosive compound fracture of several bones. I had a C7-T1 fracture in my neck. Had an orbital ethmoidal fracture of my left orbit which had allowed air into my [inaudible] cranial vault.

Payman: Wow.

Dominic: So yeah, and a bit of facial trauma as well, which is improved me.

Prav: So, fast forward to the point where you come around three days later, or whatever it is, when did you come to realisation of the enormity of what had happened? That alone, obviously, you mentioned that, out of everything you want to hold on to your faculties upstairs, right. That’s more important to you than anything else.

Dominic: Oh, yeah.

Prav: But, for someone who’s an athlete, who gets their buzz off… Look, I’m far from an athlete, but back injuries, wrist injuries, just the tiniest little injuries set me off mentally. How did you compute all that, and what was going through your mind at that point?

Dominic: Well, it was a funny one because I’d had an atypical reaction to ketamine. It was a combination of that and something called… it was almost a form of delirium due to my head injury so I became very agitated. So, they gave me something called an atypical anti-psychotic medication called olanzapine. So, I had some unusual symptoms from that. So, went I came around, I was rocking back and forth all the time. I didn’t know I was doing it.

Dominic: So, Rebecca, my wife, was looking at me and… I think another side effect of it was, that I was exceptionally happy. I felt fantastic. I think a combination of opiate analgesia and that, meant that I felt on top of the world, to be honest. I felt very relaxed. I felt almost transcendental in some ways. I felt like I’d escaped death and I was amused by the fact that I had this thing called a vac pack on my right arm where they were using negative pressure to stop the separation and everything. I felt amused by it all.

Dominic: So, it’ll be very wrong to say, that when I came around, I was devastated, I wasn’t. I almost felt like, Wow, I’ve got a really good excuse not to train. I can’t train. So, there’s no point worrying about it because I can’t train. There’s no way I can think I’m going to do it.

Prav: Is that because you were high and dosed up, or even when you came off that, was your mind set, that’s how you felt afterwards? That, actually, I’m just accepting what’s happened, and I’m going to say the positives from it.

Dominic: A bit. I think that the whole time in hospital everybody was so nice to me. My health anxiety, which is another side effect of my autism, hadn’t kicked in. So, the cardiologists, for example, didn’t come and see me when I was in hospital and say, Oh, by the way, when we looked at your full body CT, your aorta is slightly enlarged and we think you might have a bicuspid valve. They didn’t say that to me, so I wasn’t worried about that. The healing seemed to be happening quite quickly and I thought, well, it’s unlikely I’m never going to do dentistry again here. Because, one, I can’t move left hand at all, two, I can’t feel my left hand at all. So, [inaudible 00:31:09].

Dominic: It was only once I came out of hospital, and it was only when I got home, that it hit me like a tonne of bricks, and I just felt devastated. I had something called atypical PTSD which is where you don’t have flashbacks to the event because I can’t remember anything. But, I have very unusual night terrors, and I used to wake up… I had something called Early Morning Awakening syndrome so I used to wake up every morning at about half one, and that was it, I couldn’t go back to sleep. After a few weeks of that, you start getting a bit… it’s hard to explain how low I felt really.

Payman: Dom, did you go in to, Dom mode, and fully research everything and try-

Dominic: Oh, yeah.

Payman: Yeah.

Dominic: I did. I’ve done that on so many different… unfortunately, it became very unhealthy. So, one of the things I did is, I did discover I had a congenital heart issue. I must have spent about six hours a day researching aortic dilation, bicuspid aortic valves, all the rest of it, long-term sequelae of it. [inaudible 00:32:32]. Then, I became the absolute expert on it, there’s no doubt. I could have a very detailed conversation with any cardiologist you want and I can discuss papers with them at great length. However, that’s not good. That’s not good at all.

Prav: Does it help your health anxiety a bit?

Dominic: Not at all. But, I suppose, I think, in a way, because I’ve become a little bit more accepting [inaudible 00:33:00]. I felt almost immortal before this happened. I felt like I’m doing everything I can to live forever. I’m going to have the longest health span of anybody because I take supplements hardly anybody bugger knows about. Secondly, I trained so well. Thirdly, my diets fantastic. And, fourthly, I sleep well. All these things. So, I’m really optimising everything here. Then, I got smashed to bits. I realised, it don’t matter what you do, because it can just happen around the corner. [inaudible] all taken out of your hands. That sense of being immortal is gone and I’m trying to, a little bit, more, these days, thinking, every day has got to have a better meaning for me.

Prav: Dom, this has been a common theme throughout this conversation, which is the topic of death. So, you mentioned it very early on in the conversation when you mentioned your mom, and she said you can’t cope with it, with medicine. Then, you’ve talked about being immortal. Then, you’ve talked about escaping death. Is there a theme there in terms of this been throughout your life, in terms of mortality or wanting to live forever? And, that’s why you invest in these supplements and all the rest of it. What’s the theme there?

Dominic: Well, I think from a scientific point of view, we’re almost on the cusp of proper health span elongation.

Prav: Yeah.

Dominic: I think that we’re near there. I think that, perhaps, we’re a little early, or, perhaps, our generation will benefit. It’s hard to know. But, I think we’re close to it.

Prav: Yeah.

Dominic: So, from my exciting scientific point of view, I feel like if I can persevere for a bit longer, I might benefit from that. Secondly, I think on a… not a sadder note, but it is sad, quite oddly, I was the person who was holding both my parents when they died. So, when my mom died of recurrent breast cancer, for example, in Cookridge Cancer Hospital, as it was called at the time, I was at the foot of a bed and then I just noticed her breathing changed and went and cuddled her. She died in my arms. Then, only 2017, my father who I’ve had such an awful relationship with, I was in his final room in hospital in Bradford, and he died in my arms, again, as well.

Dominic: And, being from an Irish Catholic family, uncles who died, we did something called awake, which meant that the corpse was presented to the family and we used to sit around all night. So, the dead body is not something that bothers me in the slightest and the transition from life to death is something that I’ve become a bit obsessed about from a young age. I don’t know, I think it’s an obsession with not conquering the fear of death, exactly, but just… I don’t know, it’s hard to say. I just think about it a lot. [crosstalk 00:36:21]-

Payman: You said you were agnostic, but do you have any spiritual belief about life after death?

Dominic: Well, I’ve gone through phases in my life of being agnostic when I was a young boy and then becoming a very strong atheist and becoming quite combative with people. I’m sure, you’re probably aware, I’ve done that on Facebook and the rest of it. I’ve been combative with people who’ve got faith. I’ve almost had, in some ways… I’ve wanted to get an argument going because I want to try and convince people and I want to try and… But lately, I’ve started to become, in the last few years, agnostic. The limits of human understanding is such, that how dare I say I’m an atheist. Do you know what I mean? It’s like a priest his atheist. Well, what the hell’s it got to do with anything.

Dominic: So, I think it’s a more pragmatic view, but who knows? Will we ever be able to comprehend what’s really happening? Who knows? Will we use artificial intelligence to augment what we’ve got, to allow us to have the cognitive function to comprehend things we just have no ability to at the moment. So, I think it’s fascinating but I also think, at the same time, I’ve tried to soften my outlook towards other people who have got faith because I think it was remarkably, almost, unemphatic of me. It’s almost the psychopathic side of autism where your empathy switches off and you’re just very black and white, and you don’t really appreciate the feelings involved in other people’s thoughts. You just say it how it is. I think I’ve come a cropper with that a lot in my life.

Prav: Has that changed post-accident, Dom? Was that a turning point for you in terms of the way you looked at things, in terms of both being combative, and religion?

Dominic: Not religion. I think the agnosticism had been happening for years before the accident, and nothing’s really changed there. But, I think that the accident did allow me to reflect on my own persona and my own shortcomings. I think one of the things that I did notice was, I saw the best in the very worst of people after my accident, and, by far, the majority was the best. All these friends of mine who just stepped up and just did [inaudible 00:39:00]. Going to my practises and finishing my cases and doing it for no price and just labs doing the work for nothing. All those people were my medical indemnity… not medical indemnity, [inaudible] helped me out.

Dominic: I just realised, [inaudible 00:39:23], why do we deserve that? What have you done to deserve this amazing outpouring of love? Then, I, also, in some cases… I won’t go into this, but I saw the very worst of people as well. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. I started to think, Well, I’ve got to be a bit more forgiving of myself. Because, sometimes, I think that it’s my own incredibly high standards that I’ve got for myself, and my, really, almost pathological perfectionism that comes across in such a negative way to other people and I judge them by my standards, and it’s disgusting, really. So, I decided, the best thing to do, is to stop being like that. And, start trying to take a breath a bit more. Take a breath and not be such a-

Payman: A lot of times in life, your biggest strength ends up becoming your Achilles Heel as well.

Dominic: Yeah.

Payman: It’s being aware of it, I guess, is the clue for that. [crosstalk 00:40:26]… Go ahead.

Dominic: No, I was just going to say, you’re very right there. I think it’s the awareness of it that’s become better since my accident. I don’t know whether my autistic brain has been slightly rewired and I’m more self-aware than I was. Perhaps.

Prav: Tell us about… its Humphrey, isn’t it?

Dominic: Yes.

Prav: So, from the day he was born right up to now, not living at home. Is that right?

Dominic: No. Humphrey born, second to last child. Jemima’s my youngest child.

Prav: Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Dominic: Humphrey was born, he was very small for [inaudible 00:41:05], but then he caught up very quickly. When he was born, he was only five pounds. A little lad. He had a couple of physical issues at birth. Something called Hypospadias, which is a congenital abnormality of the ureter. He had to have that fixed when he was a toddler, young lad, now he’s a little boy. But, even from the age of about three, we started to know that he was different. They say, in autism, sometimes, they reach their milestones, then they seem to regress, and that happened with him. When his speech started to go and he didn’t gesture. We call it the blank face of autism where he had a neutral expression all the time.

Dominic: You’ll often say, old artistic people are not wrinkled much because they [inaudible] but I do. But, it’s weird. But, anyway, as he got older… it’s been the greatest thing in my life and my wife, Rebecca’s, life without a doubt, but also the hardest thing in our life without a doubt as well, because a combination of different things. I think, the degree of his disabilities, his hyperactivity, severe learning difficulties and nonverbal autism, and this predilection for self-harm and very disturbed sleep, very difficult for him and also for us. When he started, then, becoming quite violent towards his siblings and to his mom, it became harder.

Dominic: Then, we’ve had a bit of misfortune with the fact Rebecca was also diagnosed with a pituitary tumour [inaudible 00:43:02]. For years, before that, she’d been having something called atypical migraine [inaudible] atypical migraine. But, actually, we think now that they were tumour headaches from a growing macroadenoma of the anterior pituitary glands. So, we had a lot on our plate, really. Then, when Humphrey started, before he was just getting to puberty… he’s a big boy, and his self-harm and his aggression to his family got to the point where the best idea for him, really, was to go into a residential school. So, he’s been there three years, down in South Yorkshire.

Dominic: What happens is, before lockdown, we went to visit him every week and, just in the last year, he was starting to come back and visit us as well for day visits. We haven’t had an overnight one yet. [inaudible] so hard, I can’t tell you. Taking down on the 18th of December for the first time… I took him down with my son, Gabriel, who’s 21. We took him down in the car. That was the hardest thing in my life, that.

Dominic: Then, I went to visit him. Rebecca was very ill with a migraine, one of these atypical migraines on Christmas Day. He’d been down a week and I went to visit him on my own. So I drove down, visited him and, I always remember, he was absolutely full of cold and he;d obviously got a cold meeting new people. I sat there with him and he ate his Christmas dinner with me. I’ll be honest with you, I think, when I left there, it’s the one time in the life, rather than just be obsessed with death, I actually had proper suicidal ideation and pulled up and thought, I’m going to top myself, I can’t bare with it. I [inaudible] obviously. It got to eight o’clock that night and got a call from where he was and he’d absconded, and he’d managed to escape.

Prav: Gone garden hopping.

Dominic: Yeah. It’s really quite difficult. It’s beautiful grounds, very tall fences and he’d escaped and he was going [inaudible] in the dark, middle of the countryside. They had to get dog teams out and police helicopters to get him. That was the same night, Christmas night.

Prav: That you were having those thoughts.

Dominic: A tough time.

Prav: Yeah.

Dominic: Well, I’ll be honest, let’s look at the bright side, his school there is 10 yards from his front door. We don’t have any more of the problems we used to have where he used to have a different bus driver taking him to the special school where we live. If he had a different driver and they hadn’t been told, that was the whole day ruined. He’d be completely utterly bereft and these little things such as that, where it was a different bus driver or he didn’t have his teacher at school, same one, or even such stupid little things to me or to anybody else… the bus driver’s shoes were different, they’d bother him. They’d bother him so much that, he’d not only have a bad day at school, but when he’d get home, he’d very aggressive and self-harm as well. Hard times.

Payman: Did you find you had to balance Humphrey’s interests with your other kids interests?

Dominic: Well, this is it, very much so, because a big boy and he did hurt his older brothers a couple of times quite badly. Particularly, Rufus once. Threw a boot at him and hit him right in the face with it really hard. Things like that are not… it didn’t break his nose but it could have broken his nose. Then, he went for his little sister a few times. It got to the point where I had to physically restrain him and he was almost impossible to restrain. He was a young boy, but I called him a bag of snakes. He was so strong. It got to the point where… he didn’t feel physical pain like we do, perhaps, because one of his self-harms was biting his nails off and then he’d laugh. So, he’d bite a nail off, and he’d laugh and just smile. Mentally, it’s a very tough thing. So, it got to the point where that was the best decision for everybody.

Dominic: One of my ambitions in my life, after all the accident and everything, I can do what I was going to do before the accident, which is move to a bigger place, with the grounds enough for me to have an annex built, that eventually, hopefully, that Humphrey can come over and have an annex, and we can have him back home. Whether that happens or not, I’m not sure. Well, it’s an ambition. So, let’s hope.

Prav: What’s the communication like at the moment? Is there any, at the moment, during lockdown or anything?

Dominic: Well, he don’t like telephone so he won’t [inaudible] on the phone. So, he’s got used to Skype a little bit now. So, the first Skype call was about eight seconds. The second one was about 30 seconds. Now, he’ll do about five minutes, and it’s great.

Prav: It’s progress, isn’t it?

Dominic: It certainly is. It’s actually exponential progress if you think about it. We’re allowed to go down and see him again now. So, there was a spell during lockdown when we couldn’t. So, we go down and see him now. We have to wear PPE, and he thinks that’s very amusing, which is a good thing. He finds it funny so that’s great. If he found it distressing, that would be a problem. What he doesn’t like, is that we can’t go in his house anymore. We just got to stay outside. So, he finds that difficult. So, the visits are a little bit shorter at the moment. We drive down, it’s good a 70 mile. Then, the first visit was only 15 minutes because he wanted to go inside and when he does, he wants to go in and we can’t. Not with that. But, it’s still 15 minutes. But, the last one was a good hour, and it’s fantastic.

Dominic: Well, it’ll get all right again. I’m full of hope for that. The main thing is, that he’s found lockdown not too difficult at all. It’s been a very same existence. Every day is very similar-

Prav: It’s what he needs.

Dominic: It’s perfect.

Prav: Yeah.

Dominic: Perfect. So, who’s to argue with that?

Prav: Yeah. So, going back to just health optimization and life extension, Dom, I’m sure, loads people are interested in it. What are your five top tips to push people towards living forever? What five things would you say… look, I’ve done my research, I’ve geeked out on all this stuff, whether it’s supplementation, lifestyle adjustment, diets, whatever it is. If you could just give five bits of advice, what would they be?

Dominic: One, I’m going to do few that aren’t chemical at first. So, one, to have a good circle of friends.

Prav: Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Dominic: I think it’s really important. I think that from a psychological and from certain physical points of view, having friends, throughout your life, is important. Doing physical exercise. I think doing physical exercise tailored to your age. So, I think, that trying to be a marathon runner, when you’re 49, for the first time, is probably not a good idea. Also, look at your lifetime exercise total, as if it’s a bucket full of sand, and you’ve done a lot of exercise and you’re filling that bucket up. Once it’s full, and you’ve done 19 marathons or something, don’t just keep doing it because you’ll just get atrial fibrillation. It’s because you’ve basically got micro fibrosis in your heart muscle because you’ve [crosstalk] exactly, you’ve just overdone it too much.

Dominic: I think from a dietary point of view, don’t do what my dad told me. [inaudible 00:52:01], don’t finish your plate, even if you full. It’s a bad idea. I think, leave the table slightly… I won’t say hungry, but leave it with the ability to eat more. But, at the same time, don’t be a complete disciple of a very limited diet. I’m not saying that because you’re here.

Payman: No.

Dominic: I’m not. I’m saying it because I think a little bit of what you fancy, does you good as well.

Payman: Of course, it does.

Dominic: I think it’s important to keep that in mind, because I think that if you lose the pleasure from eating, you can tend to find that you can lose the value of eating as well. So, I think that it’s important. I think, believe it or not, micronutrients that you get from a wide variety of foods, it’s surprising. One of the things I have changed is, that I really believe that supplements are great and I still do, but I think that what you get from whole foods are very important as well. I think that there’s things that we don’t know yet and it’s the combination of the different chemicals within the whole food, that’s providing us with a sum of its parts that we’re not getting from supplements. So, I think that’s important.

Dominic: Another one is sleep, I can’t overestimate it. I think if you can just try and get into good sleep hygiene pattern. I wouldn’t use sleep apps. The reason I won’t use them is, because I think they make you anxious. I think a sleep app can be a double-edged sword. For people who like to quantify every behavioural parameter in their life, it can be a nice thing. But, if you get anxious and you find that your parameters are not where you want them to be, that can then be a self-fulfilling prophecy where you start going down a spiral of insomnia. So, it’s important to try and do that. On the sleep thing, try not to eat after about six o’clock or nine if you can, maybe seven. Just don’t be scoffing food before you go to bed.

Dominic: The last one is, for me, I think, if you want a good life, get a pet. Go cuddle your dog. [inaudible] coming through. It’s not just about cuddling your wife and kids and everything, we [inaudible] get those [inaudible] microdosing, going as many times as you can a day. What do you reckon?

Prav: Good advice. Loads of great advice there. I think, although, you started off with saying, I’m going to start with some non-chemical ones, I truly believe they’re all chemical.

Dominic: Well, they are.

Prav: In one way, shape or form, having a great group of friends around you and being happy is firing all sorts of chemicals off.

Payman: I think I’m breaking every one of those rules apart from the friends one. Let’s hope the friends one’s the most important one.

Dominic: If you looking at chemicals, perhaps BCQ and [inaudible] mononucleotide, are two that I’d consider quite seriously if you’re trying to life extend.

Prav: They’re expensive. They’re bloody expensive. Dom’s cost me a fortune with his advice.

Payman: How much is your monthly supplement bill?

Dominic: Oh, I’m not telling you.

Payman: Prav?

Prav: I don’t add it up, mate, deliberately. Dom’s seen my cupboard.

Payman: Is that what you call it?

Prav: Sometimes you’re shoving this stuff down you and you don’t know what it’s doing. But, I was just speaking to Payman about this. We talk about, you need the break and you need to enjoy yourself and all the rest of it, and exercising age appropriately. Every bit of advice you’ve just dished out, Dom, I’ve just broke. So, I was going hell for leather on my thingy bike… what’s it called, Airdyne.

Dominic: Oh, yeah.

Prav: Doing a flip into batter on there, trying to murder myself on it, came off it screaming. My legs was so full of blood, I’d rather chop them off. Then, I had this incredible knee pain. Then, I’m hobbling around. This is six, eight weeks ago or something like that, right. I’ve torn my sartorius. Hobbling around, gone for an MRI, confirmed it had been torn. A tiny tear in my meniscus.

Dominic: Ouch.

Prav: Yeah, ouch. Then, started feeling really sorry for myself. So, I thought, fuck this, I’m going to stop training. Even though I could do upper body stuff and that. I just thought bollocks to it. So, I stopped training. I still ate fairly well, but I stopped taking my supplements as well. It’s funny, your mindset… the tablets are all in one of these right? Okay. When you’re going to take them. I just couldn’t be assed. I thought bollocks to it, I can’t be bothered. I carried on with a diet because my wife sorts that out for me. I’m quite lucky, in that sense, so I don’t need to worry about that. I’ve put 10 kilos on, right. 10 kilos on. My foot pain has started coming back, I don’t feel as mentally sharp, I definitely don’t feel like Superman anymore.

Prav: That’s made me realise a few things. One of them is, probably, the pills that I was taking, were having a good effect, anti-inflammatory and all the rest of it. But the other thing is, I think, my mindset, really, in terms of the way I look at it, you either turn around and say bollocks to it, I can’t be assed anymore and you go into self-destruct mode, which is what I’ve been in for about six weeks. Or, you say, let’s have it, I’m going to stay positive, screw you all. Yeah. Come at me, I’m going to win. I flipped between those two modes. There’s no half measures for me. I’m either, all the one direction or the other.

Prav: But, the one thing that has come out of this is, the Domino’s Pizza that I had was awesome when I had the break from it all, but more importantly, actually, the supplements I’ve been taken, I do feel that they’ve been having a positive… and starting taking them again. I don’t think it’s placebo. I do think they do have a profound effect on well-being and the way you feel.

Dominic: Yeah, I think you’re a little bit like me in some way, insofar, as you, not bipolar, but you’re bipolar with regard to you all or nothing, with regard to your training profiles. But, I think you might be like me, insofar as, if you do let yourself go, you’re almost excited about the fact you’ve got to come back.

Prav: Do it properly.

Dominic: So, you got to do it properly. So, it’s almost like it’s a mission. It’s the fact you’ve got this mission, that you [inaudible] again.

Prav: What’s more detrimental is, because you know you can come back, you let yourself go a little bit further and it’s a bit of arrogance. Do you understand where I’m coming from?

Dominic: Oh, yeah.

Prav: That, itself, is-

Dominic: Then, you just [inaudible 00:59:15]. So, I’m suddenly getting more injuries than I used to get. So, I’m getting things like grown strains, and then I’ve got a calf strain. I’m thinking, I can come back, I’m a glutton for punishment, I’ll run this mountain, I’ll run till I’m blue in the face.

Prav: Yeah.

Dominic: Then, I’ve got this calf strain at the moment, and I can’t. So, I’ve got into cowbells at the moment. I’m using that as a way of trying to [crosstalk 00:59:43]. Yeah, I’ve forgotten how hard kettlebells are, actually. [inaudible 00:59:48].

Payman: Dom, we’ve been asking everyone about their clinical errors, in the hope that we can all learn from them.

Dominic: Yeah.

Payman: Can you think of a clinical error that you want to share with us?

Dominic: Absolutely. Yeah. First implant ever placed. I placed it on a young female doctor. I left it four millimetres super crustal because I bottled it. I didn’t screw it in enough. So, that was a combination of hubris, insofar, as I thought I was better than I was, even though it was my the first implant I’ve ever placed. Two, it was not being aware of the fact that when I was in the middle of the surgery, that I’d get deep fear that would come from nowhere. Thirdly, I wasn’t able to control the ability to take a breath and relax into the surgery and get into the flow.

Dominic: For me, one of the biggest lessons I’ve ever learned in surgery is, going slower than you think you need to. So, rather than thinking, right, this is the surgery, I need to get it done, I need to get it finished. No, this is the surgery and I need to enjoy every little bit of it. Obviously, I don’t want to cause excess morbidity of my patient by taking too long. But, I definitely want to reflect twice on everything I do. That’s a lesson that I didn’t learn in that case and it stuck with me for the rest of my implant career. Because, I was very lucky. The patient has good biotype and never shown any issues with that, and has got no problems. But, I think it might be to do with… it was an Austrian plant and they do keep the bone well as well. So, the fact that the super crustals [inaudible] or there. But, on the other hand, that could have been a nightmare around the beginning of my implant career.

Payman: How long ago was that when you put your first implant in? How many years were you into dentistry?

Dominic: About 13 years ago now. Yeah.

Payman: So, you’d qualified a good 10 years or something?

Dominic: 13, the number that follows it. No, I’ve been qualified 27 years. [crosstalk 01:01:55]. [inaudible] that I’m 50, but I am nearly 51.

Payman: So, you’re not going to be working under Boris’s new scheme? You’re going to be one of the over 50s who’s going to stay at home?

Dominic: Well, I’m not because I’ve got the biological age of a 21 year old athlete. [inaudible 01:02:17]. He can come and try and stop me if he wants and then [inaudible 01:02:22]. The old aggressive Dom might come out again then.

Payman: Dom, you know that reading your stuff…

Dominic: Yes.

Payman: The English is superb. Where did that come from? Was that that Catholic school? Or is it that you read a lot?

Dominic: I started reading very young. I read a lot. I’ve got, I suppose, not an obsession, but it’s one of the things I do love is, language. I think language is a beautiful thing. Words, themselves, are beautiful things. Just big vocabulary. I think that, sometimes, it’s wrong to dumb stuff down. So, the fact that we live in a generation where it’s all WhatsApp and Twitter feeds and all the rest of it, and we’ve gutteralized our language a little bit, doesn’t mean that you should do that when you’re writing. For me, I think you should write and I think you should challenge your readership to… if they don’t know a word, go and bloody [crosstalk 01:03:22].

Dominic: Don’t change your style if you can. I suppose I’m a verbose person with regards to my writing. So, my style is a little bit verbose as well. I do try and reflect on it and think, I don’t want to come across as a total smart ass here as well, just using the big words, because I know one. But, at the same time, sometimes they just seem to fit the moment. So, that’s what I’ll use.

Payman: Is your style of writing… does it just flow? Like you said, you’re in that flow state. Would you consider it-

Dominic: I can write 1000 words of pro’s in three hours and just do it. Sometimes, I don’t need to change it, hardly, at all afterwards. It’s easy. It’s almost edited as I go.

Payman: There’s definitely a novel in you somewhere or a book in you somewhere. Have you ever thought about that?

Dominic: I’m 60,000 words into a [inaudible 01:04:19]-

Payman: Oh, are you?

Dominic: Yeah.

Payman: Oh, I didn’t know that.

Dominic: Originally, the title was going to be Orange is the New Black because of my orange top that I had. Also, because Orange is the New Black was on Netflix at the time. My cycling [inaudible 01:04:35]. I’ve changed the title, I won’t tell you what it is at the moment. But, I’m 60,000 words in. It’s a combination of the year since my accident and reflections on everything from my upbringing. A lot of what we’ve talked about here. I’ve had a few people read it including a couple of people who… one person is quite a big publisher in London and she says it’s wonderful. I’m hopeful something will come from it. But, I stopped writing it at the beginning of lockdown and I started reading the papers. So, I just started writing a little bit of it again.

Dominic: I think it will be… to use a phrase from Chris Sparrow, it’s a bit marmite. [inaudible] it. It’s very, very candid. Very candid, indeed. But, the style will either grab you or it won’t. I think it’s the style I use in my writing generally. There’s a lot of shorter sentences… Quite a lot of descriptive [inaudible 01:05:42]. There’s things that will stay with you hopefully. Not, perhaps, always for the right reasons.

Prav: I think what you wrote in dentistry about the accident, the way it was written, it was almost as though we you could visualise it. I could relive that moment on your bike with you. It was that well written, do you know what I mean? It just sucked me right in.

Payman: [inaudible] really well.

Prav: Also, the feelings about… that surrounded the individuals who were there for you, and those that weren’t.

Dominic: Yeah.

Prav: And, how that… it was just so beautiful, Dom. It was so well written. It was really nice.

Dominic: [inaudible 01:06:29]. To be honest, I was please with it myself. Normally, I’m all right with stuff, I read it and I thought, that’s pretty good.

Payman: Dom, when lockdown happened, we were all asking ourselves questions about the virus and aerosol and then you really took that on and we’ve kind of talked about some of that. But, as the biggest expert we know in this area, how do you see things panning out? Do you see a second peak? How do you see the aerosol question panning out?

Dominic: Yeah, when you look at aerosol infectivity, I think you’ve got to be a lot more detailed in the way that you look about-

Payman: The nuance, yeah.

Dominic: And, think about this virus is a bit of a rascal, really. In very individual circumstances, it can be infective in an aerosolized form, in my opinion. However, those occasions are remarkably prescriptive. So, in the vast majority of the aerosols that we create on a breath by breath basis, I don’t feel it is a primary effective factor in the slightest. So, I think that, where we’ve got to be careful, and we see this with super spreader events, is things such as choir practises. So, where people are, perhaps, not quite as social distanced as they should be and where they’re vocalising loudly, for an extended period of time, usually inside, perhaps with unusually static air flows in quiet buildings, things like that. Perhaps, where you’re in a meat processing plant, for example, where you’re standing with your colleagues in front of a conveyor belt in a very cold, humid environment. You probably turning and chatting to them and shouting over the noise of the machine or in the background, things like that.

Dominic: With regard to a second wave, I don’t believe there is a second wave at all at the moment. I think we never really escaped from a first wave with regard to certain parts of the geography of the UK. I think there was a certain number of cases, it never really went away there. So, I don’t think we’re seeing that. I think we’re seeing a complex political situation where, perhaps… I hope I’m wrong here, but I think that perhaps, because we’re in a fixed-term Parliament act and the government are thinking, well, it’s coming up, well, we’re going to have to get voted in or out again, the very obvious fact that, with hindsight, we can pick bits out of the way that the government have responded to this incredible crisis, means that they’re now using, perhaps, a politicised way to try and take our eye off that ball. So, I think that, in a way… maybe, I’m being cynical here, I think the second wave thing is slightly… I’m not convinced at the moment about that.

Payman: Are you not convinced about the other countries? Spain, and all of that.

Dominic: I think that there’s a few things happening. One is, it’s a slightly different demographic. So, I think it’s a younger, more healthy demographic. I think that the level of death rates compared to infectivity is different than it was in the first wave. I think, secondly, the more testing you do, and this isn’t to quote Donald Trump… the more testing you do, the more cases you find, but that’s true as well. I know that it’s not a static relationship between the two. I think you can’t just describe the death rate being lower, as due to better treatment. I think that that’s wrong to say that. I think it’s because it’s a different demographic of people who are getting it now. I think there’s a level of cross-immunity between SARS-CoV to another coronavirus. Colds and things like that. Perhaps, it’s those individuals now.

Dominic: So, for me, I’m not as worried as I was at all and I could be very wrong. I also think the virus could still attenuate and I’m not convinced it hasn’t slightly attenuated even now. That could be a reason where we’re seeing infectivity, but we’re not seeing as much morbidity and mortality.

Payman: So, you’re quite optimistic, it sounds like?

Dominic: Yeah, I am.

Payman: That’s good. That’s good news. I know what you were doing over lockdown, but, did anything happen to you as far as you’re going to live differently going forward because of what you learned in lockdown?

Dominic: No, not really well.

Payman: Oh, I like that. The first time I’ve heard that.

Dominic: I think the accident had made me change things in my life before lockdown, but the lockdown, itself, wasn’t this fundamental existential self-evaluation exercise where I’ve decided I’m going to now be a disciple of veganism or anything like that. I’ll be honest, nah.

Payman: The last time me and you spoke privately, I asked you, do you feel the weight of it? Did you ever feel the weight of it because, in a way, everyone was looking to Dom for a while there? Did you ever feel responsibility?

Dominic: A bit, yeah. [crosstalk] background. Yeah, for several reasons. I think one of them is that I’m a general dentist with no form of neurology training whatsoever. So, my absolute formal scientific qualifications to be any form of arbiter of advice are very spurious. Two, I think that I am able to captivate people with my scientific utterances. So, people think, oh, he seems to be on the ball, on the money. So, therefore, there’s a responsibility there to be actually sure you are actually on the money. You don’t want to be saying things that are a load of rubbish. So therefore, there was an element of that, is that you set the bar high for yourself. I think I had because my first webinar… I’ll be honest with you, I’m quite proud of that because some of the stuff then was way ahead of this game. I think, Wow, you did well there. You really picked up on some stuff very early on then.

Dominic: When you set the bar high, on one level, you have to keep up with your research to a very high level. But secondly, you have to be open to criticism as well. That’s something that I, in a previous life, I would have found very difficult. So, getting challenged, I used to find it really difficult. I used to think, What the hell do you know? [inaudible 01:13:27]. Well, now, [inaudible 01:13:35]. [inaudible 01:13:35], let’s debate it, let’s discuss it, and let’s try and come to an outcome that’s even better.

Dominic: At the end of the day, we’re still very early doors with this thing, we really don’t know. It’s thrown some real curve balls at us. We’ve gone from this thing where we thought, let’s just ventilate everybody and build a million ventilators, to realising that, actually, ventilating the majority of these patients in the way we were ventilating them was probably killing them. Because, we were high flow ventilating them and we were actually creating a situation where they were ending up far more ill than they would have been.

Dominic: So, like anything else, we’ve become so much more nuanced over the month. So, going back to your question, yeah, I did feel a responsibility. It’s been nice to not feel quite as much of that at the moment. So, I’m glad there hasn’t been Dom’s 19th COVID webinar.

Payman: Then, you wrote that other piece about how, as a profession, we’ve been let down.

Dominic: Yeah.

Payman: It got quite a lot of support. I remember talking to you to about it at the time. It was right about the time that that practises opened again, and you were saying, the momentum’s gone because people are so focused on going back to work now.

Dominic: Yeah.

Payman: Where do we sit with that?

Dominic: Yeah, that was [inaudible 01:14:49]. I remember writing that.

Payman: Yeah.

Dominic: I remember writing it. It took me about 10 minutes to write that. I was furious when I wrote that. I think that property comes across a little bit in it, really. I thought, we’re at a crux here. We’re at a crux point. Almost, like a pivot point where we’ll do what we always did before, which is that we’ll have all these voices and all this anger and all the rest of it. It’s like when the RF went up to nearly a grand, everybody was, [inaudible 01:15:22]. Then, the next minute, we’re all back at work, and we’re just bending over and accepting it like we did before.

Dominic: So, I was furious because I thought, we’re all just going to go back to work and we’re all going to be bothered about the day-to-day, and we’re all going to end up getting basically taken advantage of by quangoites, managers, people who don’t have a clue how difficult dentistry is on a clinical basis, people who have accepted this liability culture of the norm and [inaudible] for everything not. That’s somehow, civilizationally, a step forward. For me, it’s one of the greatest retrograde steps of being civilised that we could have. That we’ve gone from a thing where we can have a good relationship with a patient after a problem, to one where you end up in litigation and vicarious liability, all the rest of it, and it’s just hard.

Dominic: So, there was a lot of anger when I wrote that little piece, and it did appear to trigger a few reactions, mainly positive ones. But, I still feel anger. I feel anger towards the GDC. I feel anger towards the way that they’re dealing with my freedom of information request. I feel that, the fact that they’ve got one standard for us, which is a very high standard indeed, and they’ve got, it appears, a different standards for themselves with regard to their duty of candour. So, for me-

Payman: Yeah, for someone who doesn’t know about the freedom of information request-

Dominic: Yeah.

Payman: Could you summarise what that was about?

Dominic: Yeah, well, there’s a few of them. One of them was about the minutes of the council meeting where they had, basically, decided not to revisit the ARF. So, the annual retention fee. They decided not to revisit that, unanimously, as council members. Despite the fact that, obviously, the profession, as a whole, was in lockdown, our income was massively devastated. Many of us were thinking that our dental practises may not even survive. Yet, they weren’t even willing to revisit the ARF with regard to doing a direct debit option. So that-

Payman: Their reason for not releasing the minutes of that meeting, was that it was a closed meeting.

Dominic: Yeah, so they basically wanted the freedom of information request… I wanted to know what the written communications between the council members and the Board were, where this decision was made, and they basically have said, to divulge that information to me would inhibit the council members from being free to discuss these things in the future. So, the duty for public disclosure was outweighed by the fact that they had to feel free and uninhibited to speak candidly with regard to these topics. I was almost gobsmacked with that, to be honest.

Dominic: So then, I went on and did a second freedom of information request regarding their second [inaudible] which was in Birmingham, where they’ve now got a very prestigious office in the most… well, the most prestigious office block in the middle of Birmingham. I’ve tried to find out some information about that as well, and I’ve, so far, received very little accurate data, so I’m taking that one further as well. It just makes me a little bit cross that they’ve ended up in such a prestigious office building when they’re not willing to revisit our ARF, and, as a profession, we’re struggling at the moment, financially. I think it sets a precedent, which means that we’re even more… in some ways, perhaps, there were the slightest green shoots showing that the GDC might be listening to us again, and all that appears to have been entirely devastated in recent weeks by what they’re doing there.

Dominic: So, to me, they’ve a lot of hard work to do. I hope that if I do end up having a fitness to practise case for my candour… I’m not going to say anymore, I’m digging a hole here. I can see I’m digging a hole.

Payman: Our time’s nearly over, guys. I’ve got one more question for Dom and then Prav has one more question. My last question, Dom, is, what would you have been if you weren’t a dentist?

Dominic: A philosopher. I think I would have liked to have been a philosopher, with hindsight. A lot of time thinking, writing, being on my own, and irritating a lot of people with my writing. That would have a nice job. Perhaps, the education side of that as well, because, I think, I have got some great benefit from the educational side of my knowledge that I didn’t think I was going to get and I have got that. Okay.

Prav: So, Dom, my final question for you… You know what’s coming next.

Dominic: I don’t.

Payman: He’s never listened.

Prav: Oh, right, fair enough. Listen, mate, you’re 251 years old, and it’s your final day on the planet. You’ve got your kids by your side, and two things-

Dominic: Are they in their coffins because they don’t have longevity like me.

Prav: No, because you’ve given them the supplements, mate.

Dominic: Fair enough.

Prav: You’ve been funding them in this massive estate that you created that’s part of the ambition, remember.

Dominic: Yeah.

Prav: So, you’re 251 years old, they’re all next to you, and there’s three pieces of advice that you can leave them to stroke the world with. The next question is, how would you like to be remembered?

Dominic: All right, so the first one is the three pieces of advice.

Prav: Yeah.

Dominic: Male or female, any age, if somebody bullies you, punch them in the face. Okay.

Prav: Yeah.

Dominic: Especially when you’re young and at school. Don’t take it. Don’t hurt them, insofar as, when they’re down, do something, but punch them in the face. Then, whatever repercussion you’ll get, it’ll be worth it.

Prav: Love it.

Dominic: For various reasons, that will enable you in a lot of ways in your life. Two, [inaudible 01:22:09], get a pet, look after it, and be kind to it. Remember that many pets are more sensitive than you think. So, treat them with love and affection. The third one is, don’t piss on my grave when a die. You don’t have to put flowers on it because I’m not half-fussed about that.

Dominic: And, how I want to be remembered. Perhaps as, who was that COVID geek? He used to be a right asshole, him, but he was all right when he got a bit older. At the end of the day, when I met him, I realised he was actually quite kind. That’ll be good.

Prav: Lovely. Beautiful. It’s really nice, Dom. It’s been a great conversation, mate.

Dominic: I hope so. Thank you very much.

Prav: It’s been brilliant, mate. Thanks for sharing a lot of that depth that you did with us. It can’t have been easy. But, it’s pretty powerful stuff.

Payman: Thank you so much, Dom. I really enjoyed it.

Dominic: I really enjoy speaking to you both. So, I hope it’s onwards and upwards now with the rest of your conversations today.

Payman: We look forward to the book.

Dominic: Oh yeah, well, if you want, I can always send it to you, as long as you don’t facilitate it anywhere. I’ll send you a little preview if you want.

Payman: Yeah, for sure.

Prav: Love to.

Payman: Thank you very much, buddy.

Dominic: All right.

Payman: Thank you.

Prav: Thank you.

Speaker 2: 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.

Prav: Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, you must have listened to the whole thing. Just a huge thank you, both, from 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.

Payman: 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 much for listening. Thanks.

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

Nik: Long story short, started making websites for people, expanded into different industries and bigger clients. And now we’re fortunate enough to be-

Payman Langroud…: All along you were a dental student, you were doing this as a dental student?

Nik: Yeah.

Payman Langroud…: In Hungary?

Nik: In Hungary, yeah.

Saeed: Dentistry must have been really easy in Hungary. Had the time to [crosstalk 00:00:19].

Speaker 4: 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.

Prav Solanki: Welcome to the dental leaders podcast, and today we’ve got the pleasure of Nikunj and Saeed from the Wise 360 group. Just want to start things off by just asking you guys really how you both got into business together, how you first connected, heard about each other, and then how this all started. So could you just tell us your backstory, please?

Saeed: This is actually a very funny story. So I came up with an idea of doing an award ceremony for dental students and young dentists, because the whole idea was to bring the fun back into dentistry. And I thought my idea was unique and nobody else had told about this idea. So I had [inaudible] some time back and say, “This is the idea, what do you think?” I said, “Well, it’s a good idea. It’s always good to contribute in the education of dental students and young dentists.” And before I even had any chance of doing any preparation, somebody else somewhere else launched a project called Dental Student Awards at the time. And it seemed really interesting actually, Payman sent me a message saying, “Mate, the idea you had, somebody else has already done it.

Saeed: So I saw a picture of Nikunj in some Instagram post, and I had already spoken to Nikunj before about another project, so I knew of him. So I thought, you know what, he’s a great guy. I’m sure he’s going to do a good job. But let me contact him, see how things are going. So I contacted him. And we had couple of meetings, and we actually decided to do it together, which actually turned out really well. And for those of you that know, it’s been a great success last year, and we are holding the next one this year in October.

Nik: Yeah. And I think since the future of dentistry awards was the first thing that kicked things off, and then as we’ve grown both as people and in work in things, we’ve just allowed that relationship to mature and doesn’t get involved into more other businesses, and expand it accordingly.

Prav Solanki: So I think that was a really interesting exchange there, because other people may see that as competition. Other people might see that as a rival and think, there’s someone out there who’s stolen my idea, or beat me to it. I need to work even harder now. But you took a different approach. Can you talk us through that initial exchange of contact, what it was like, what that initial … Was it a phone call or a meeting?

Saeed: For me, dentistry in the UK, or business in the UK, there’s so many different opportunities. You don’t really need to be saddened by the fact that somebody else launched something sooner than you. You can always do something else. There are great ideas and as long as you can execute something properly, you can just move into something else. So first of all, there is no hard feelings if somebody started something before you, you still have to try. And then the second thing is I had so much passion about this, I wasn’t thinking of doing this for money, which is not a profitable organisation. I had passion for it, so I thought if somebody else has passion for it, there must be some common ground here so if anything, I should connect with this person.

Saeed: And it was quite simple. If you’re living in a technological world, their Facebook message was quite sufficient to attract Nik’s attention.

Nik: Yeah. And also, I think having complementary skills as well was very helpful, because there are things that I’m very good at, and there were things that Saeed was good at. And we were essentially quite a good fit because my weaknesses were covered by Saeed anyway. And one of the [inaudible] I’ve always had in businesses like, always do somewhat take more of a collaborative approach rather than a competitive one. Because you’ll kind of go stuck in a rat race with competition, never find satisfaction, fueling your insecurities and collaboration allows you to not go down that way.

Payman Langroud…: So I was at that first awards, and it was a fun night. But more interesting than that was how big it was, for the first time of doing something like that. Because I remember telling you that, “Look, forget the first year you’re going … just work for the second and third,” but it was a huge number of people. How many people turned up?

Saeed: We had an excess of 400 people. Actually, we had to stop people coming. Well, a few people couldn’t actually join because we were overflown to be honest with you with the venue. The venue has a capacity of 400 people and we were definitely above 400.

Payman Langroud…: And with all the cynicism around awards, did you get any bad vibes from people about that as well that you starting awards at the student level?

Saeed: Obviously we did our homework very well. We spoke to quite a few people with more experience in dentistry, including yourself and we wanted to come up with a project where it was actually genuine, and we didn’t want to approach it commercially at all. And most importantly, we didn’t want to get into clinical aspect of dentistry. We are celebrating other achievements of dental students and young dentists. We leave the clinical dentistry to the universities. They are best place to assess individuals on clinical dentistry. We are assessing individuals on other great experiences and achievements they have which otherwise is not seen, because everybody gets stuck into the bubble of dentistry.

Saeed: So that’s the reason we don’t get any heat because we’ve got the best sports man, the best sports woman of the Year. I mean, nobody, people usually care about that, but you would be surprised to find out some of the dental students are in Olympics and they do other amazing things. That is a contribution to dentistry because that tells you who they are as an individual, not necessarily whether their occlusal composite is the best.

Payman Langroud…: And what are the some of the other categories? Have you got CSR … well, charity?

Saeed: We’ve got contribution to charity, we’ve got ethical students. So that is for a student to be able to demonstrate what measures they’ve taken to be able to develop in an ethical manner and provide ethical dentistry. We do have the audit of the year but that is something that is selected by the deanery. We don’t have any judging over that. So we are very careful not to impinge on something that we are not an expert on.

Prav Solanki: And so what was the selection/submission judging criteria and who was involved in all of that? How did you go about setting all that up?

Nik: Yeah, so the first thing that we wanted to do was to make sure that [inaudible] organisers of the event were essentially very hands off of all of that process. So we scouted around and found judges and spoke to a variety of people who are basically everyone from deans of universities, to actual clinicians in practises. And so people who would have had quite a multidisciplinary skill set with them, and not just all clinical and also with business or other skills. And so after creating this judging panel, then we allowed them to come up with a criteria and we provide … basically just passed on the applications to them. And the applications got judged by them and they did a rank, schooling system. And essentially the top scoring individuals were the ones who were the winners.

Payman Langroud…: So now your new project, Wise 360, talk us through that. What’s that all about?

Saeed: Sure. So Wise 360 is at the heart of what I was just saying with collaboration over competition. So Wise 360 group is basically our main parent company that essentially houses tooth wise, medical wise, which are our different brands that we advertise, tooth wise being in dentistry. And so with Wise 360, we are creating an educational platform where people can basically discover courses to go on to, to learn about medicine, dentistry, or whichever field that they’re in. And the whole point of this is for them to actually find courses which are suitable for them to make better decisions, and then also have a more powerful platform because a lot of learning is now becoming digitalized.

Saeed: So we’re helping these course organisers to actually take time away from the admin. And we’ll manage the admin side with the platform and with technology, and then instead they can actually focus their time on the clinical teaching of itself.

Payman Langroud…: The problem you’re solving with it is that … I don’t know what courses are available, firstly. All right?

Saeed: Yeah.

Payman Langroud…: And then with the CPD bits and all that? [inaudible 00:09:12]?

Nik: Yeah. So there’s a part of automating the CPD certificates and things like that. So imagine, for example, the best way to describe it is booking.com, Airbnb. So the same way you would go into one of these websites to find a hotel for you, you would go onto our website and just search a course. So let’s say you want to composite course, you would just go ahead and search that. And then there’s filtering options, so if you want to filter it based on certain criteria, so price, location, if there’s verified or non verified CPD, if it’s a online or in person course, things like that. Or even reviews and the star rating.

Nik: And so then that way, you’re able to tailor your search based on what you want. And then we’ve already started including the things necessarily to be able to use AI so that you will able to actually guess the course for them before they’ve even thought about it themselves, stay tuned.

Saeed: Before Nick gets into algorithms and AI and everything that you don’t understand, he is very technical. For my point, I did dentistry in London and been a dentist almost 10 years now. I used to ask as a student to older generation, “Which course do you think I should go for? What should I do? And whether it is good or bad.” Nowadays there is this drive in dentistry. As soon as you qualify from dental school, you think that you should do further courses to even get better. And so I get asked this question very often, said, “What do you think? Which course should I do? Which one is the best one for me?”

Saeed: I think this platform will enable people to make their own decisions by being able to see the reviews of the courses, to make comparisons to understand where they are located, how much they cost, and create a long term career pathway for themselves. And that will be their decision. Alternatively, you’re going to have to ask 10 people, but if you have the opportunity of seeing all the courses in the UK and also abroad, you know that it is a golden opportunity for you to plan for your career.

Payman Langroud…: And it doesn’t cost anymore, the user doesn’t cost me any more to go through the platform?

Saeed: No, it’s absolutely free. Doesn’t cost you anything. You don’t even have to sign up to search the courses. But of course, if you want to book it makes sense that you need to sign up, but it doesn’t cost them anything.

Payman Langroud…: And so the business model is that you take from the course organisers?

Saeed: Yeah, we think that’s fair. We are going to also help course organisers to fill the seats that they wouldn’t otherwise fill, because they are welcome to do their own marketing by all means, if we are just an additional help. And yes, they will cover the cost of booking but we know that the average transaction fee whether you use PayPal, Stripe or any other measure is already about 5% anyway, and we charge something just above that, so it’s a no brainer. If you are a course organiser, you don’t get a booking from us, you don’t get charged, you get a booking, you get charged. There is no lacking in contract. You join and leave whenever you want.

Payman Langroud…: Then what if a particular course organiser doesn’t want to join it? Then that detracts from the service in terms of you’re not going to have as many … you’re going to have all the courses on, let’s say this six composite courses, and any three of them sign up.

Saeed: I think as I said, it’s a no brainer. Why wouldn’t you? If you’ve got pride in your course, and you think you’re doing a great job, you think your delegates are really happy with you, this is an opportunity for you to actually get on a platform where you can show off how great you are, get reviews from users. If you don’t want to join then, by all means, then you can go direct. But in our opinion that wouldn’t be a very smart move.

Payman Langroud…: So I see as a no brainer as a course provider and pay you, you’re on courses as well, let’s say so a little over 5%. As a course provider, would you give a 5% discount to a delegate who is ready to book a new course?

Prav Solanki: Of course you would. So you’re providing that booking at that rate you would normally give a discount for anyway. So that’s-

Saeed: That’s absolutely right. I mean, 5% is I think very, very generous. I know people that-

Prav Solanki: Give much, much more.

Saeed: … more than that.

Prav Solanki: Yeah, of course.

Saeed: We’ve done our homework very well. We’ve been working on this project for the past two years. This is not something we’ve come up last month, and we’ve already done extensive market research. I personally spoke to close to 50 course organisers across the UK, and understand to see whether this was something that would help them. And I would say 90% of them said they are on board, they are happy to get on board. We have had a couple of one or two people say “Well, my courses are already fully booked. Why do I need further bookings?” And the simple answer to that question is one, you can expand, just do more courses, get more tutors on your course and expand.

Saeed: And the second question is, if you’re really passionate about dentistry, you’re reaching people that are within your close proximity. You’re not reaching people from outside the UK, you’re not reaching people from other cities. And if you’re really passionate about dentistry, why would you want them to be disadvantaged? Reach them as well.

Prav Solanki: I see two big challenges for this project. So I’m sure you guys have overcome those. And I’d just like to hear how you have approached them. And the first one is, how do you reach the audience of dentists to make the booking? So one is lead gen. And the other one is probably for you, Nikunj is the technical challenges of building that platform must be immense. How do you overcome those challenges, and the bug, and all the techie programming side of things?

Nik: Yeah. So to answer the first question in regards to essentially what we [inaudible] this will in marketplace end of the day, and there’s two ends to a marketplace. One is the supply and the other is the demand. So the demand is where from the consumers and the supplier is from the actual course organisers. And so like any good shop, you have to have both of these things there. So, we’ve been building tooth wise for the past two years in terms of a social media plan and creating lots of content and really making sure that we have both that online and physical presence. Things like running the awards, which has been a fantastic success has also been a firsthand experience for us, as a company to understand from a cost organisers point of view what it’s like to run event.

Nik: This is a very larger scale event, but it still helps. And on top of that, so I always had that expertise where he’s organised multiple courses and events himself as well as listening to people. So, through that, building that initial brand, we will be using that and using those techniques, as well as doing a collaborative approach with the course organisers. So by providing them with a tool, which essentially allows them to fill delegates into our portal, we’re able to then provide different offerings, which creates a positive feedback cycle, which allows those people who have signed up to go ahead and discover more courses. So essentially we’ll kind of snowball our user-ship on them.

Prav Solanki: So if somebody registers for, let’s say, my course, and then they take that course, they become a contact in your database, essentially?

Nik: Exactly, yeah.

Prav Solanki: Which allows you guys to maybe make them aware of what courses are coming up next month or in a year’s time?

Nik: Exactly, yeah. And we would understand as well, their occupation, subspecialty and interests. And once we have this data, and we understand this data, we’re able to recommend better courses as well for them.

Prav Solanki: Okay, so playing devil’s advocate, I run a mini smile makeover course. And the only course I want anyone to do is my composite course. And so somebody books through your platform and my anxiety there is, they’re going to go and do my competitors course. What would your play off be to that? What would your response be to that?

Nik: Yeah. So for example, one of the biggest key decision factors is word of mouth. And what word of mouth actually brings to people is credibility on a course. Reviews is basically the modern day version of word of mouth. So it becomes a very black and white system where if you’ve got a composite provider A and composite provider B, and you’ve got … one’s got 400 reviews at 4.7 stars, and the other one has got 700 reviews at two stars, it’s kind of a no brainer to realise which one is the better course to go to. And so you’ve [inaudible] that’s what we’re doing is, we’re giving people the ability to transparently provide the views and give their opinions about courses so that they can be shared with other delegates just like themselves to then go on to the course.

Nik: So to answer your question, the question is, keep running better courses and encourage better reviews, period.

Payman Langroud…: What about the second part of his question regarding the actual building of the thing, and the startup world that I guess you guys are now in? What have you got? A group of developers? How much runway do you have? Are you raising finance? What’s-

Nik: Yeah, no. So my background, as you know applies all, and mostly being in the startup world and tech and things. So with the technology, and to answer the question, with the technology stack that we’re running, it’s a very versatile thing where we’re using Facebook’s React Native platform, which has recently been released a few years ago. And now that’s open source. And what that’s allowed us to do is be ready for mobile, when we’re ready to create actual mobile apps and things for the future. At the same time, you’ll realise … I’m sure you’ve done it with your own software’s that you developed or the dentists’ listing when they go and make a website.

Nik: A lot of the pricing in technology is done on an hourly basis. So the more you can reduce the hours, the cheaper the product that is going to be. So we have a mentality called lean in our minds, which is basically, running everything in a streamline and as efficient way possible, where we create the minimal possible version of basically a platform that’s going to achieve the goal. So long story short, we’ve got a team of developers, which is with my own agency, based in Hungary and the Ukraine, which are developing very hard and well for us.

Payman Langroud…: So how long will it be before it’s ready?

Nik: A few weeks.

Payman Langroud…: A few weeks? Wow!

Nik: The platform is actually ready to go. We are creating the supply on that now.

Prav Solanki: Just to give us an idea in terms of, to get your MVP or your minimal viable product out, which is I’m assuming going to be your initial beta version, that you’re going to improve on and add features to how, many developer hours has gone into that?

Saeed: To answer that question, actually, that is a very interesting question with regards to the MVP. Whatever project we do, we set quite a high standard. You would have seen that from future dentist [inaudible] like Payman was explaining. First year one of the best awards that anywhere ever seen in the UK. With the courses booking platform, we started with the MVP idea, but we wanted to make it so perfect. I’m not actually sure even if it is an MVP anymore, it’s probably a fully blown platform. So, for an MVP, it is pretty developed.

Nik: Yeah. So to answer the question, it’s let’s say a couple of thousands.

Prav Solanki: And that’s how many developers working on that at the same time?

Nik: So we’ve got six developers or a team of six in total, including a project manager, excluding myself and the designer.

Prav Solanki: Wow! Whilst developing that, have you come across any major challenges? I know we’ve developed software in the past, and sometimes we make some technical decisions that throw us completely off than anything, “Oh geez, if only I’d have done it this way or that way.” Or have you circumvented that by planning and mistakes that you’ve made in the past?

Nik: Yeah, it has been a lot to do with the planning in my experience with things, with the previous projects I’ve worked on and other clients and things. I think the biggest challenge that we faced with this is probably the payment side of things. And ensuring that the entire platform is so secure, especially with that payment. And one of the things that we wanted to actually overcome was end of the day, when you’re course organiser, they want money in their bank ASAP, right? And that helps their cash flow, it helps a variety of things. And so we were able to thankfully create a system and partner with a fairly big payment provider to actually be able to facilitate that for them. So that, as soon as a transaction is done by a delegate, we will get our commission and it automatically goes straight to the course organiser.

Nik: So it reduces that time delay for them. And the end of the day cash is king, right? So, yeah.

Prav Solanki: That’s pretty impressive. So we’ve worked with payment processors or in the past, and as you probably well know, more so than we do is that they hold on to your money for five to seven days or maybe even longer, and then pass it on. And you’ve developed a system that allows people to get paid same day?

Nik: So we work with whatever the payment provider’s rules and regulations are. There is obviously always going to be that delay when you transfer money from one place to a bank account.

Prav Solanki: Sure.

Nik: There’s always going to be that delay. But in terms of other platforms and things, for example, what they would do is the payment provider or whoever the platform is, for instance, they would actually only pay out at the end of every month or so. So we’ve been able to actually go out to them.

Saeed: What we’re basically been trying to do is to keep things the same for the course organiser. The course organiser currently, those that claim online bookings, they already take payment over their website. We’ve just tried to keep the time the same. So nothing is disturbed for them with regards to payment.

Nik: So there’s no disadvantage to them.

Saeed: Exactly. That’s the whole idea.

Prav Solanki: Let’s talk about reviews. This comes up in conversation for me loads, so practises come and go. I’ve got a negative Google review, somebody’s left. And then other practises say their competition are getting people to leave fake reviews. Just talk to us about your review system and how you’ve developed that so that it’s watertight and verified.

Saeed: Obviously, with regards to that, the reviews environment is a very vibrant environment and that needs to mature over time. So we have to see what the user behaviour is. Do we even have that problem? We hope not. With the people joining, with their registration number we know individuals, they are not random people. But we have already discussed this. This is very important for us. And Google is so big now that they either don’t care or they don’t have time to look at a single review anymore. But, before we get to that stage, there will be a few years. So in the initial instance, we are going to make sure that their reviews are genuine, because there are big platforms like for example, Amazon have systems in place where the reviews are actually genuine. They can check. Google isn’t one of them.

Saeed: But that is the approach we are taking to ensure that nobody can come and badmouth someone that they haven’t been to their course.

Payman Langroud…: Just to clarify, if I was to book on the say, mini smile makeover course or say [inaudible] ABB course, in order for me to leave a review for that you will be able to verify that I had taken that course or registered on your platform in order to do that?

Saeed: That is one of the routes, because there is also the argument that you may have had been to the course two years ago. You still have a right to write a review. The course is the same course. So as I said, that’s something that we have to look at the environment and make a decision according to that. However, being a practise owner myself, and having had multiple bad reviews sometimes left on multiple clinics-

Payman Langroud…: You know the pain.

Saeed: I feel that. I know the pain. So I definitely make sure that doesn’t happen to anyone else.

Payman Langroud…: Brilliant.

Nik: And we have a reporting system as well. So people, including the course organisers or other delegates, or people who’re just visiting the site can actually go ahead and review the course, I mean report to review. So then once that review is reported, then our team will then find out and then they will take the necessary steps. So the first thing that we will do is ask them for proof, “Have you been on this course?” If they went three years ago, for example. And if they haven’t then that review is obviously taken down and their star rating and things are restored back to what it was.

Saeed: Which is very fair. You work really hard for your brand and the last thing you would want us to leave yourself on the role.

Nik: Yeah.

Payman Langroud…: Is the plan to then scale it up to medical and international? What are you studying, dental in the UK?

Nik: So initially dental and medicine is the plan. So we will be-

Saeed: That’s the plan.

Nik: Yeah, absolutely. So medicine is a huge market as well. And there’s a great demand. Very interestingly, I’ve got friends studying in medicine and he had to do a course in hospital. And they asked him, “Could you pay for this course?” And they asked him for a piece of paper to put their card details on. And he was shocked. And he was, “I’m not doing this at all.” And he called up the admin person and gave the card details through the phone. But it tells you, the paperwork that we’re dealing with, but let’s put GDPR aside, let alone anything other like security, right? So-

Saeed: Well, the question sometimes we ask ourselves is, why are we launching in dentistry where medical business is much bigger and much bigger market? And the simple answer to that question is because we have passion for dentistry, because I’m a dentist and they used to be a dental student. That’s the only reason that dentistry industry is going to benefit from this first than medicine, just because the creators are kind of dentists.

Payman Langroud…: Yeah, good to start somewhere where you know what’s going on more, for sure. So let’s go to the past. Nikunj, you’ve done a lot of interesting things tooth wise, with some of your partners, right?

Nik: Yes. So tooth wise is something that I had initially started by myself-

Payman Langroud…: As a dental student?

Nik: As a dental student, finally … tooth wise has a very long journey. I was a very keen bean student in my first year, like most, [inaudible] that fades away, I guess sometimes. But I was very keen, and I wanted to essentially be very smart at dentistry, and I got really into learning and reading every single other magazine here and there. And so I wanted to create a platform that brings all of these resources and everything together. Just what resources? I wasn’t sure. And then further working with people Saeed and things and actually listening and talking to a lot of people and studying what the dental market is, we realised that the course’s platform is the best thing to do.

Nik: And so we’re fortunate to have been able to create a content driven brand up until now. And tooth wise, we wanted it to be very engaging, because I’m sure you guys know with social media views are one thing, engagement is a far bigger thing. And so when we created content we wanted to create content that was relatable and emotionally driven for people. The best way to describe it is we have this mentality of being the BuzzFeed of dentistry. So we’ll create 10 problems that dentists have, and then [inaudible] a funny caption with that. And it’s great because I’ll be, “Saeed, you’re number four, and this is hilarious.”

Nik: And the great thing that fuels though is that I am then commenting in Facebook and social and sharing that with people, so not only is my audience seeing it, than Saeed’s audience is seeing. And that creates a snowballing effect in terms of the engagement and the reach that your content has. So I think that’s why we’re able to be quite fortunate enough to be able to get about 450,000 unique visitors on our social every single week, because purely we’re creating great content, period.

Payman Langroud…: And also, as you were studying you started this marketing company as well.

Nik: Yeah, well, it was a tech … well, I say tech agency. It wasn’t even a tech agency at that point. It was just me making websites for people.

Payman Langroud…: How did that even start?

Nik: Okay, so that’s quite an interesting story. So I was in my first year, and I was studying in Hungary. I had a lease and I was studying in Hungary. It was probably because I messed about a bit too much in my school, honestly speaking, and then I met a great dentist called Sameer Patel. He runs Elleven Dental. And I shadowed him for a few days and I fell in love, because he showed me both the business and the dental side of things, and I absolutely loved what he did. And he’s treating all these celebrities and looked really cool. So this sounds quite good and I became very passionate. And then I realised … I looked at my results cards for A-levels and I was like, “I don’t even have biology or physics or half the sciences I need even study dentistry.”

Nik: So then I did a one year intensive A-level course, and thankfully I got straight A’s and all that stuff. So then gone … I’m conditioned off to go ahead and study in Hungary. And then so once I was in my first year of dental school over there, I basically left home for reasons I’ll probably not go into right now, but circumstances caused me to essentially leave home, and I was faced with position where okay, I have to make ends meet. What the hell do I do? And so I had to learn a business in the past which I basically exited to make money for university and then I restarted another major, started making websites for people.

Nik: Long story short, started making websites for people, expanded into different industries and bigger clients. And now we’re fortunate enough to be-

Payman Langroud…: All along you were a dental student? You’re doing this as a dental student?

Nik: Yeah.

Payman Langroud…: In Hungary?

Nik: In Hungary, yeah.

Saeed: Dentistry must have been really easy in Hungary. [crosstalk 00:31:30].

Prav Solanki: Your story really resonates with me because I’m my brother, right? So when we were at uni, I was ordering in 20 kilos sacks of whey protein from New Zealand, separating into one kilo sacks and selling it on eBay. My brother was building computers and business was ingrained through our blood, through my dad driving taxis and us working in the corner shop. Is there anything about your childhood that was influential in you being what seems to be like you have an entrepreneurial spirit?

Nik: It’s probably to do with the fact that, as people, we’re quite innately wanting to be providers for the loved ones and the people around us. And so, trying to like fulfil that for people, we want friends and family around us to be proud of us. And then we also want them to have the most comfortable life possible in both wealth and health. So I think that is the thing that really pushed me forward, was, I had my brother and my grandma and my girlfriend, everyone who’s around me, and just wanting to be able to deliver for them was probably one of the biggest driving factors. And then realising that business is probably one of the most efficient ways in a way, when those are the riskiest but then you look at the risk with the reward as well, and it’s basically, you’re taking cumulative risk for the award. So you’re hoping that the reward’s going to grow.

Prav Solanki: And so what you say there is completely selfless, right? You’re talking about you doing something for the benefit of others, in order … when people go into business it’s like, “I’m going to be rich. I’m going to make loads of money,” and you’ve just said that, actually, I’m looking at my loved ones, the closest people around me on wanting to do the best for them.

Saeed: Yeah, it’s very interesting, actually. I asked that question to Nik about two weeks ago, just before we had a business meeting. I said, “Well, Nik, you’re doing very well. You’ve got a team of so many people working and you’ve got enough money. If you make more money you’re not going get any happier than you are now. You know that perfectly fine. So what is the reason that you want to set off so many other projects?” And the answer to that question is because that is a way of life. You enjoy doing what you’re doing. He loves business. He’s selfless. He can provide for his family already. There’s no further need for business. And I keep telling that to him all the time because I’m a bit older. But when you do something well, and you enjoy doing it, I think that’s the reason you probably do it at our level rather than any sort of financial way.

Nik: Yeah, definitely, because end of the day once you get over that hurdle, because having been through it firsthand as well you get to a point where, okay, it’s all about meeting the demand, demand, demand. And then you’ve met demand, and then what do you do after? And then you realise that way, I’m actually happy doing what I do. And once you realise that, okay, this is something I’m very content with, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love dentistry, but it got to a point where I had to make a decision when I left school was that which one was I more happier doing end of the day, and which one would be a better use of my time? And I found that technology and business was the thing that filled me, so I took the plunge.

Nik: It was a very risky move, very difficult to explain to people because especially Asian parents and stuff like that-

Prav Solanki: Totally mate, totally. You’re right.

Nik: Yeah, they don’t understand startups and they’ll just throw the dice, the whole statistic like one in three businesses only succeed and all that stuff. And yeah, so that was a difficult conversation to have. But I think being very passionate and happiness driven is the thing that really fuels both side and life forward.

Prav Solanki: And what is it about your mindset and your makeup that makes you say, you know what? Against all these odds, I’m going to do it. Have you been on any mindset coaching journeys or are you spiritual in any way? What is it about you that makes you say, “Do you know what? All these people think I’m going fail. One in three fail. I’m not going down the traditional Asian parent; doctor, lawyer, dentist, medicine, whatever. What is it about you that’s different?

Nik: I think one, it comes from having people like Saeed next to me who really fuel that. Because when you’re a leader essentially, [inaudible 00:36:12], your team will sometimes not actually believe in your business and your thing as much or as passionately as you. And so having a team which is able to actually really fuel the passion and the drive that you have, and actually say, “You know what? This is actually bloody possible,” despite whatever the odds of them that may be. Then that’s also very reassuring to have. And then a lot of it comes down from you’re essentially just weighing down inside, what are the facts, what are the data and what are the strengths that we have and how can we build on it? Now, I like to take it from a very OCD logical way of thinking.

Prav Solanki: You sound like a programmer.

Nik: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: What are the facts? What are the data? What is it [inaudible] my risk profile? Boom! I’m going to go.

Nik: Absolutely, yeah.

Prav Solanki: And having worked with lots of developers, you literally sound like such a logic minded guy that just weighs his risk [inaudible 00:37:10].

Nik: It’s a blessing and a curse at the same time.

Payman Langroud…: What about the work on the Brushlink?

Nik: Yeah, so Brushlink was exciting. So first year, I started Oxo, my agency. Second year, I co-founded Brushlink with the team, so that was very exciting. So I had the opportunity to basically take care of the technology for Brushlink. So for those who don’t know what Brushlink is, it’s a small device that attaches to the handle of a toothbrush, and then monitors the way people brush their teeth, and it connects to a mobile phone app. And so we recently completed a survey, so in our survey research study that was done by Liz Kay. And what we found was that brushing helped reduce pluck by 70%, which was a phenomenal thing and with the study basically there was another part of it which was just without Brushlink and that was only all the health instruction and that reduced pluck by 30%.

Nik: So to see that Brushlink reduced pluck by like a massive amount like that was insanely phenomenal. And that was a very interesting journey for me because that was to create a product and I have no idea how to make a product at the time. I knew tech, I knew software at most. I had no clue about manufacturing [inaudible 00:38:33].

Payman Langroud…: You did that as a dental student too.

Nik: Yeah, second year was the hardest. But pilot, you know in second year, in Hungary, okay, no joke. I don’t mean to-

Payman Langroud…: [inaudible] agreeing with Saeed about your dental [inaudible 00:38:49].

Nik: So that was just about-

Payman Langroud…: Too much for your time.

Nik: So that what was about to say, I don’t mean to bad mouth the Hungarian universities and things, but the dropout rate in second year 40% passed, period. Like, that’s it. 40% of students passed. It was immensely tough to actually get through.

Saeed: That’s what I heard. Very, very few people actually finish Hungarian dental courses in the normal time period.

Nik: Yeah. In second year you have anatomy, physiology. I was learning anatomy of the polonium and the legs, and constantly asking my teachers, “Why do I need to know this as a dentist? But yeah, it was tough, but I think just again, realising that like wow, this could be such a phenomenal, amazing product, really drove me to create something like Brushlink. And it was great because I’m waking up in the morning, having conversations with China, trying to take care of manufacturing between lectures talking to [inaudible] else, talking to developers and things every single … I remember being between [inaudible] had glasses at times. It was just responding to emails, being told off by the teacher to put my phone away and then came back at it.

Saeed: Don’t set bad example to the [inaudible 00:40:16].

Nik: Yeah, don’t do that, kids. Don’t drop out of school.

Saeed: Don’t try that at home.

Payman Langroud…: To say, your past also very interesting. I mean, to make a dentist, charity to the foundation, that came about because of the work you were doing as a dental student as well?

Saeed: That’s right. Yes.

Payman Langroud…: So what were you doing?

Saeed: We were-

Payman Langroud…: I was not doing this stuff when I was a dentist student. God ahead.

Prav Solanki: I’m just wondering why I was just weighing whey protein. [crosstalk 00:40:43].

Nik: Whey protein.

Payman Langroud…: Go ahead, Saeed.

Saeed: I think what you do in the next 10 years of your life is sometimes a reflection of what happened in the past 10 years of your life. I went to a state college in Ladbroke Grove called St. Charles Catholic College. Some of you might know that from the adulthood film. Before I actually started college, the headmaster of the school was stabbed outside the college. I went to an absolute gangster college. And I studied really hard for two years and it was, great because the library was always empty. I had that library to myself. And they were amazing to me. They were really supportive and I was the only student actually got into any sort of dentistry medicine from my dental school.

Saeed: It was such a big achievement for them that there is actually a massive picture of me on the entrance of the dental school. I was one of the successful students, so quite proud of that. So when I went to dental school I always had this thing that if people, if they are held, they can do amazing things. Because it’s people helped me and I could make some good life out for myself. And I always wanted to go back and help the students. The first ever project I set actually was to go back to the dental school and help the students to get into medicine and dentistry.

Saeed: And after a year of work we actually managed to get seven students into medical school, which was amazing. I mean, these students are people that came from really rough backgrounds and they had no idea what it means to sit down and study. I had no clue, but after the second year of working with them, they were sitting in the library for 12,13 hours studying for medicine. And having that background of wanting to help people for potentially also for my personal pleasure just to give something back, I had a conversation with Prof. [inaudible 00:42:35], which was the dean of Boston London at the time. A great lady, and she said, “Saeed, you did all this stuff in the UK, but how about doing something in Africa?”

Saeed: I said, “Well, what do you mean?” She said, “I’m from Zimbabwe, and is there anything you can do?” I said, “Yeah, of course, they may have a thing.” So I had a thing, and emailed her then the same evening, I said, “Yeah, I’m going to do something for Zimbabwe because people there definitely need the help much more than a lot of other people in Europe.” And we set up this project called Make a Dentist, and the idea was we would help the education of dental students in Africa. And it was very simple, we were collecting stuff that people didn’t want to use here anymore, recycling educational resources.

Saeed: And every year we were shipping tonnes of stuff to Zimbabwe. That was amazing for them. And that was books, scrubs, instruments. There’s so much money sometimes being wasted here in the European system where an instrument is a bit blunt, they don’t want to use it anymore. They put it in the bin. So we said, “Don’t put in the bin, give it to us. We’ll send it.” We send it off. And obviously to raise money to be able to ship those goods we had to set up events. And there was nothing better than setting up conferences. We set up conferences for, again, education of dental students in this country.

Saeed: So we were helping the education of students here and in Africa and also holding some social events for young dental students to bring the fun back into dentistry, because we don’t like the whole negativity in dentistry in our group anyway. And that’s how Make a Dentist started 2009.

Payman Langroud…: Before that you were putting out this booklet on how to buy a practise with [inaudible 00:44:10], but you hadn’t bought a practise yourself yet. It was really interesting notion. It was this detailed booklet, wasn’t it?

Saeed: Yeah, I had to send it to-

Payman Langroud…: What was it called?

Saeed: [inaudible] assessment. It’s actually been downloaded by over 1000 people. It’s quite-

Payman Langroud…: And you were just giving it out for free?

Saeed: This is really interesting because I got tired of working for someone else, as much as I love my boss. He’s an amazing guy and he helped me so much.

Payman Langroud…: Who was that?

Saeed: Mansur Kanji, very nice guy and I’m still in contact with him. But I told, “You know what? I want to run my own clinic.” So first option was to buy a dental clinic. So we started with Sanny, every single weekend, Saturday, Sunday planning, because we didn’t want to just buy a clinic. We wanted to buy a clinic and make it the best clinic in the UK. That was the plan, always be the best. And as a result, you will be surprised that we went and looked at 80 clinics. I think we went a bit over the top. We enjoyed doing it. We were just learning from all these businesses all the good and bad things because they tell you. But the funny thing is, we couldn’t buy any of them. Not because we didn’t have money, there was always something not quite right when we wanted to actually proceed.

Saeed: And as a result, we came up with a criteria, which was a set of questions we would ask when we went to the viewings. And once we went to the bank, we were going to buy this clinic in Milton Keynes 1.6 million pounds. I don’t own a clinic and I’m only an associate for three years. And I put this question in front of this lady, the general manager of healthcare in Metro Bank. And she said, “This is amazing. Where did you get this from?” So well, these are the questions we are asked when we go to look at the clinics. She said, “This is I mean. This is a business plan, it’s really good.” So we thought, actually, you know what? These questions could become like a booklet, like a questionnaire, like a business due diligence tool.

Saeed: And we always worked more on it. And we provided it for free, because for me … Okay, we could have sold it for five [inaudible 00:46:01], people probably would have bought it. But for me, it’s very important I think the young dentists to have the opportunity to buy and set up dental clinics. I don’t like the fact that you qualify, and then you’re going to have to go and work for someone else or corporates for the rest of your life. I just don’t like it. I don’t think that creates competition in the UK. I don’t think that helps with the quality of provision of dentistry. And I think that destroys a lot of young dentists’ dreams.

Saeed: It’s a majority of people’s dream to own their own clinic, and we just wanted to help them. And I think we’ve helped a lot of people because majority of the bank managers you go tell them about filing system, they’ve seen it, they know it, and that is a brilliant business plan that you can offer. That’s how I could afford 1.6 million being a dental associate for three years. But the funny thing is eventually I ended up setting up my own clinic actually. I didn’t actually buy a clinic. And I have bought a clinic since. We do have the experience in that as well. But yeah-

Payman Langroud…: What’s your top tip for someone who’s looking to have their own practise? Download them.

Saeed: Download the assessment. Make sense, download as is free. Well, the top tips are planning ahead. Don’t expect to jump in and be successful. It doesn’t work like that. Don’t work full time as an associate, work three, four days. I made more money working four days a week, compared to working five days a week. Because I was burning myself out working five days my brain wasn’t actually functioning. When I dropped my days, some of my friends told me I couldn’t believe my income actually went up. You can’t work four days a week as a dentist, you got three days left. You can either go and have fun, which is by all means really good. If you’ve got the financial, do that, I didn’t. Or you can plan. Plan ahead, keep your expenses low.

Saeed: Don’t go and buy a Porsche 911 second year out of the dental school, because by the time you pay for the finance of that and by the time you pay for a mortgage, you’re not going to be financial well place to be able to either set up or buy a dental clinic. You need to plan financially before hand as well.

Prav Solanki: Saeed, just offline you mentioned to me earlier that you’re now helping new practise owners. So what started as writing a booklet you’re now actually giving services and active advice, and helping younger, old dentists set up their practises and almost handhold them, right?

Saeed: That’s right, just to mentor them.

Prav Solanki: Can you just tell us a little bit more about that, how it works, how people get involved, and maybe two or three of your key top tips to somebody looking to sell their own squat?

Saeed: Sure. When I started with Dr. Sandy [inaudible 00:48:44], my business partner, when I started with him our plan was to open and buy 50 clinics before we stopped, okay. And then after three clinics, we stopped that for a variety of reasons. I didn’t want to get into the corporate model which I was always against from the start. And then we came up with this idea that we are such experts in actually setting our mind and our clinics, because the third dental clinic I set up, it broke even in the second week. Now, for those people that know, an average business in the UK takes 18 months to break even. So to break even in the second week is something completely unheard of. It is the most successful squat clinic in the UK.

Saeed: And if we can do that we thought, you know what? We always had the passion of helping and helping ourselves also in the same time helping young dentists set up clinics. So let’s just set up a practise incubator programme where we will partner with an individual who’s got the passion, but they don’t know how to go about it and set up clinic with them. Our first project just started in [inaudible] and it’s going to be an amazing project. We are working with an amazing dentist who is very passionate, very good clinically, but he just didn’t know where to start.

Saeed: And I went and asked people when I wanted to open my first clinic, I went to people like James Goolnik, like Seema Sharma, to people who I taught were successful in the business of dentistry. And that it was funny that they offered … well, Seema Sharma certainty did. She offered us money, and she said, “You know what? I’ll invest in you guys, you are smart, but I’m not going to invest any time.” Well, I didn’t need the money, the bank would have given the money anywhere. I needed the expertise. I searched for this, nobody would offer it at the time when I started. So we are offering something that we searched for, we couldn’t find it. There are other people searching out there.

Saeed: It’s a brilliant experience, because my business partner … well, your likelihood of becoming very successful is much higher, rather than doing it on your own.

Prav Solanki: Yeah. And I think what you’re doing is you’re accelerating people, maybe 18 months, if not just 12 months ahead of where they would be. It’s such a short period of time, it’s a great idea.

Saeed: It certainly is. I think it’s a good idea. But again, going back to the same thing that I said, the most important thing is I like doing it, because I’m really good at doing that. That’s the reason I’m doing it. I’m not doing it for money. Between me and Sanny and Nik, we probably run about eight businesses. There’s going to be another after finance year. We just like to do something that will keep up our reputation. I don’t want to do a project that I’m not successful. I want to only do things that is going to be greatly successful.

Payman Langroud…: I mean, it’s well and good, right, you want to do only things that are going to be successful, but projects do fail all the time, yeah? All the time. And maybe you kill them before they get to a point of being called the project.

Saeed: Yeah, sure.

Payman Langroud…: But we’ve all had it.

Nik: Yeah.

Payman Langroud…: Product projects. For me, if something is not failing along the way, I’m not trying enough things. But you are trying lots of things, it’s true. Why don’t you two just stick to being dentists?

Saeed: I am the dentist. I am practising as a dentist.

Payman Langroud…: So why do you stick to being a dentist? I mean, what is it about you that … Hell, I didn’t stick to being a dentist either, but what is it about you?

Saeed: I think it goes back to Prav’s first question to Nik, what’s your background? My family been in business for 100 years. My granddad was a banker. My father was a banker, he’s retired now. And not the banker in the sense of in this country, so they were in the exchange of currency business. And I grew up in meetings in our living room, there was always meeting and a variety of people coming and going and asking questions about business and doing business. I have a passion for that. I definitely have a passion for business. And I love dentistry, I’ve got so much respect for dentistry. Dentistry has given me so much than any other occupation wouldn’t have given me otherwise.

Saeed: And I wouldn’t for a second say I would stop being a dentist. I love doing dentistry, but I like to do dentistry while I’m enjoying it. I like to have financial freedom. I like to go to the clinic, do the treatment just because I enjoy doing that, not because I’m dependent on the money that is going to make from that treatment. Not everybody have had luxury. And it hasn’t been easy for me. I’ve been working seven days a week for the past 15 years to achieve that. I’ve recently cut down on my days.

Prav Solanki: You can tell he’s a grafter because he says work four days a week and then you’ve got another three days of week to work.

Payman Langroud…: But, be honest, if I gave you a billion tomorrow, would you still drill teeth?

Saeed: I would. And I tell you why. One of my cousins is actually a son of a billionaire family in Iran, and he’s a dentist. He’s one of the reasons I actually do dentistry. He does still practise, and they own over 50 factories, he still practise. And I saw one of his patients recently in London, because he would only send his patient to me because they moved to London. And my hands were shaking just not to make a mistake. I had to do a very deep feeling. So, yes, because it’s not about the money. I definitely know, from my background, I know more money does not bring you happiness 100%. It just doesn’t. If I do have a family, I’ve got kids, I would never ever work seven days and I don’t recommend anybody doing that. But in the same time, everybody’s different.

Saeed: I’m just not going to sit there every night watching Netflix until I fall asleep. It’s not my character. Some people like that and they might do that. Nothing wrong with it, everyone is different.

Prav Solanki: Guys, you’re too young to ask this question, both of you, but I’m going to ask you anyway. If you could turn the clock back and do it all again, what would you both do differently?

Nik: That’s a very good question. What would I do differently if I could turn the clock back? Probably study a bit harder during my A levels. I would probably … When I was in university, I would have probably taken more time to myself. I was really working my ass off during that time, to a level where, I can probably openly talk about when I was coming close to burning out, and it wasn’t healthy. So, I think taking that time and now I’ve obviously developed these techniques and figured out how to do this, but being able to get to a point where you’re able to balance the life a bit better, because it’s all great having all this passion and work, but it’s a hard game and it’s not easy.

Nik: You’re taking meetings and there’s people shouting down the phone and things like that, when things aren’t going right. And a lot of the times, things aren’t going right, and that is always more painful than any of the successes that we can talk about now. So I would probably just say, taking better care of myself when I was younger.

Payman Langroud…: But you’re still very, very young [inaudible 00:55:50].

Prav Solanki: How old are you?

Nik: I turned 27 last month.

Saeed: So when he says, “When I was young,” he’s talking about when he was 12. I definitely will second that. I did work seven days a week for a very long time. If I could turn the clock back I probably wouldn’t have done that. But it is easy to say now that-

Nik: It’s what made you, right?

Saeed: Exactly, it’s easy to say now, but what is very important for at least people in dentistry profession to know, because we’re talking about business at the end of the day, and startup [inaudible 00:56:28]. But it is definitely not a sprint. You definitely need to take your time. It’s a marathon. You don’t want to burn yourself out, because you’re going to be there for a long time. Spend more time with your family. That’s probably what I would have done. I’m definitely guilty of that. And have more hobbies and do more things that you enjoy outside. I think my problem or also Nik’s problem is that we’ve got caught in the crossfire between dentistry and business in the same time, trying to do two things in the same time and run out of time. Probably concentrate on one thing, and leave the other three days a week that you’ve got free to enjoy life rather than mourning.

Prav Solanki: Guys, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for your time today. And it’s amazing. I always find it’s amazing that you sit down with people who you’ve met as acquaintances at parties and events, and you learn so much in an hour.

Nik: Thank you.

Payman Langroud…: Thanks a lot, guys.

Nik: Thank you.

Saeed: Thank you very much, guys.

Speaker 4: 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.

Prav Solanki: Thank you for tuning in guys to the Dental Leaders Podcast. Just got a little request to make. If you’ve got a suggestion of somebody else who we should be interviewing or somebody who’s got a really strong story, powerful story to share with us, please send us a message and help us connect with that individual so we can bring their stories to the surface.

Payman Langroud…: Thank you so much for taking the time, guys. If you got some value out of it, think about sharing it with your friends and subscribing to the channel. Thank you guys.

Prav Solanki: Don’t forget that six star review.

Zaki: To young dentists, I would say life is like sliding doors. The film where you either enter the tube and your life goes in one direction or another. Life, for me, is like that, because if my mom didn’t have that chat with my dad, we would have been in the Middle East and I would have not been a dentist and I would have ended up… If I didn’t have that chat in the lift with Richard Palmer, I wouldn’t have been where I am. If I didn’t do Newland Pedley Prize, he wouldn’t have thought this guy is good and I wouldn’t have been accepted on the MSc. If I didn’t get all those knockbacks from the interviews to get into private practise, where I thought what’s the quickest thing I can do, diploma in sedation, I wouldn’t have been in that lift. Everything you do leads to something else.

Speaker 2: 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.

Payman: So, Zaki, nice that you came in. Unfortunately, it’s just me today, no Prav.

Zaki: Yeah. I was looking forward to meeting Prav.

Payman: Have you not met him before?

Zaki: I have.

Payman: We go back a long way, all the way to VT, and I remember at the time, even, [inaudible] were pretty ambitious VT. It’s a bit interesting actually, what I remember about you and what you remember about me. I remember you being quite an ambitious guy.

Zaki: Do you want me to say what I remember about you? Yeah, ambition, I suppose everyone needs to be a bit ambitious, don’t they?

Payman: Yeah, but out of the 12 people or whatever in the group, I felt like you stood out as being ambitious. I don’t think at the time you were talking about implants.

Zaki: No.

Payman: No, I remember you saying, “I want a multi-surgery clinic.” The funny thing is, you didn’t open a clinic for years and years after that. But, let’s start at the beginning. Where were you born? Where did you grow up? What kind of a kid were you?

Zaki: I was born in Beirut. My dad, back then, had the choice of… He was working in a bank in Lebanon. He had the opportunity… Two choices, either to go to London and start working in the bank that wasn’t even set up yet, back then in the 70s, or, just, to take the easy route and go and work in Amman in Jordan. He chose the easy route. He said, “No, I’ll go to Jordan. I don’t want to go and set up a new bank in the UK,” and he chose Jordan. My mom, at the time, said to him, literally, the night before we were going to fly to Jordan, or a couple of days before… she said to him, “Listen, there’s so much opportunity you hear about in Europe and all that in London.” Actually, my parents got married in London. They had to elope, but that’s another story. She said, “Let’s go there. If it doesn’t work out, we’ve always got this option.”

Payman: How old were you at the time?

Zaki: Three. So, we came to the UK when I was three years old.

Payman: Okay.

Zaki: He just looked at her and said, “You’re absolutely right,” and that’s what we did. Two days later, he phoned up and told his bosses at the time and said, “Actually, I’ll give London a go.” We never looked back.

Payman: Do you remember?

Zaki: I remember-

Payman: Your first day in London?

Zaki: I do remember London, but I don’t remember Beirut much.

Payman: Oh, you don’t remember Beirut at all?

Zaki: Yeah. The only things I remember from Beirut were the times, all the-

Payman: There was a lot of trouble.

Zaki: Bombings and-

Payman: Which year was that?

Zaki: We came ’76.

Payman: It’s the middle of the civil war.

Zaki: Yeah. So, there was a lot of… I remember the sounds, and my parents have photos of us… whenever the bombing came and we had to either go to a shelter or lock yourself in the house. We’d hide in the bathroom. We have photos of me and my sister with my mom, literally, curling up on the floor of our bathroom, just to hide from all the sound and everything. So, I remember the sounds from those days, but I don’t remember anything else from Beirut. But, I remember our first flat when we came here and where we stayed and all that. Yeah.

Payman: Where was that?

Zaki: Marble Arch.

Payman: The same one you-

Zaki: No, we rented when we first got here, just to suss the area out. It was a small flat. My sister was two, I was three. Literally, every time we moved or bought another flat, it was in that area. My parents still have a flat in that area.

Payman: Yeah.

Zaki: They just got used to it. That’s where I was brought up, basically, in around Marble Arch and Mayfair and that area, yeah.

Payman: Then, as a kid in school, were you a swotty kid?

Zaki: I don’t think I’m a swotty kid. I was never a swotty kid, but I always seemed to have pass all my exams-

Payman: Hard worker?

Zaki: Yeah, I used to work, but nothing excessive. I wasn’t super intelligent. I wasn’t back then and I’m not now. But, I seem to get through the exams and somehow get through anything that was put to me.

Payman: Yeah.

Zaki: But, I wasn’t swotty. I wasn’t a geek or anything like that.

Payman: So, what do you remember as a kid? What were your highlights? Were you a sporty kid? What kind of kid were you?

Zaki: Yeah. I was quite sporty, but not in the mainstream sports. Not rugby. I was okay at all those things. But, racquet sports, badminton and squash, and that sort of thing.

Payman: Tennis-

Zaki: I used to love that. Tennis was the weakest one out of them. But yeah, I used to love badminton, squash, all the other… table tennis, all that sort of thing.

Payman: We’ll have a game upstairs now, we’ll see.

Zaki: We will. I have one at home, so-

Payman: Me too. We’ll see how well you do. All right. Do you remember when you decided to do dentistry?

Zaki: Yep.

Payman: What was the story of that?

Zaki: I like the sciences. I remember, at my careers day… GCSE, I got an A in French. I did French a year early. I got an A in French. My sister went to the [lycee] so I was-

Payman: Like my kids.

Zaki: Yeah. I was all right at French. Funnily enough, my parents sent her to the lycee when she was three, or four. Then, they put me in an English school and said, “Oh, boy has to go English school, girl goes to French school. Then, they said, “Wow, she speaks fluent French, let’s put Zaki into French school.” I went there when I was older, maybe, about six or seven and my French wasn’t good enough, thank God. Because, otherwise, I would have ended up in French school. So, I stayed in English. So, my career’s advisor basically said, “You got an A in French, A in Spanish, an A in Arabic, English, you need to do languages.” I just said, “Well, what am I going to do with languages?” He said, “You could work for the United Nations, you could be a translator, you could”… I just thought, what am I going to do with my life with that?

Zaki: Languages is good to have, and it’s very useful, but it wasn’t a career. I liked the sciences. That was my thing. I said, I want to do the sciences. Then thought about medicine. That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a doctor, but my dad didn’t want me to do it. So, he just spoke to me and he said, listen, why don’t you become a banker like me, do business, something like that. Something general that you can find your way. I didn’t want to do that. I had a bad experience that put me off banking when I was much younger, and I said, there’s no way I’m doing banking.

Payman: What does that mean, bad experience?

Zaki: So, when I was about 9 or 10, he took me into his bank. Now, if you Go to Kensington High Street, there’s a store Massimo Dutti.

Payman: Yeah.

Zaki: That was my dad’s bank. Literally, that corner plot was… it was called Arab Bank Limited. I used to get picked up from school. We had to a driver back then, that was with the bank. He picked me up from school, we went and picked my dad up from work, and, sometimes, if I’m early, I’d go in, I’d sit on his desk in his big armchair, swinging around. I just saw this red button under his desk, and I didn’t know what it was. I was just messing about on his computer and stuff. So, he went to get his coat and whatever. So, I press this button, nothing happens. It wasn’t one of those buttons, like a click button, it was just one that went in.

Payman: Yeah.

Zaki: And, that was it. Thought nothing of it. Anyway, he gets his coat, we’re walking out the door, and it was, literally, like those movies, the doors opened and police cars came from everywhere. Not with guns, but almost… as a kid, I thought they were holding guns at me.

Payman: It, literally, scared you so much you didn’t want [crosstalk 00:09:09]-

Zaki: All these police cars came and they’re asking my dad, was there a burglary? My dad just says, no. Then, literally, one minute later, I was just standing there-

Payman: It clicks.

Zaki: Imagine, five, six police officers and my dad, everyone’s face just turned around and looked at me and I went bright red, didn’t know what to say. So, that put me off banking.

Payman: It would have been interesting. You could have done so many things around business. Medical and science, did you have anyone in the family who was a dentist or doctor?

Zaki: No, not at all. Not a single-

Payman: It was off your own back, you were saying, I want to be a doctor.

Zaki: Not a single person. I just knew I loved biology and physics and that sort of thing, chemistry.

Payman: Which school were you at?

Zaki: I was at [Dulwich] College.

Payman: Oh, yes.

Zaki: Yeah. I was at boarding school as well. I didn’t need to be, but, funny thing is, I actually said to my parents, I wanted to be a weekly border because it’s not far. We were living around Marble Arch area, it’s not far, but I was too lazy to carry my bag for sport every day. So, I asked them to be a weekly boarder. So, I’d come back home on Friday and go back on Sunday night. Yeah. You know what? It was the best times for me because the people I… it’s like a family, boarding school.

Payman: Boarding school, some people love it, and some people hate it. Do your kids go to boarding school?

Zaki: No, that was a big debate with that.

Payman: Would you?

Zaki: Well, I think it depends on the child because, for me… and also the age. I know some people put their kids in when they’re seven, which I think is too young. But, I went in at 13, and best years of my life. 13 to 18 at boarding school. It was nice because it was weekends, I could go back. I’d have my Middle Eastern friends that I’d hang out with and go clubbing and stuff. Remember the Henry J Beans days? You know those days.

Payman: Yeah, man.

Zaki: Yeah. So, I loved it.

Payman: How old is your oldest now?

Zaki: 14.

Payman: This is what I mean, if he was in boarding school now, that would be… My oldest is coming up to 13, I’m already aware that we’ve only got another three or four or five years with him. We’ve only got another two or three years where he’s paying any attention to us.

Zaki: Yeah.

Payman: So, if you ship him off to boarding school… ship him off’s the wrong word… If he goes off to boarding school now, you’ve lost those years with him.

Zaki: Yeah, there was a big debate with my wife, Dominique. I said, I want him to go… I’ve got two boys. I want them to go at 13. Not before, I wasn’t even thinking before, but she just said no. I said, “Why?” She goes… Exactly, the reason you said, “I want them around.” When they’re 18, they can go off. I want them… you know?

Zaki: So, it’s a big debate and, actually, boarding schools so expensive now anyway. I was, “Okay,” when I saw the fees. I backed down pretty quickly. But, no, they’re happy where they are now. I wouldn’t change it actually. I think it’s good being a day boy. Yeah.

Payman: Then, you decide dentistry. You applied to all London places?

Zaki: No. I applied-

Payman: There was only three in London at the time, wasn’t there?

Zaki: Yeah, I applied to Kings and Guy’s, and I applied to, actually, more outside. I think it was Manchester, Liverpool.

Payman: So, why did you decide on Guy’s?

Zaki: Well, I actually decided on Kings first, because one thing I hated about Guy’s, when I went, was the 30 floors. I just thought every single day. When I went for the interview, and when I went to look around, I was waiting ages for that lift. I thought, if I have to do that several times a day, it actually put me off. I don’t know, I can’t remember what it was, I actually didn’t like the Kings Campus either, Denmark Hill and all that.

Payman: Yeah.

Zaki: I got an offer at both, and, in the end, I just chose Guy’s. I don’t know why. I just liked the location more-

Payman: What were you like in dental school? Did you have a great time? Well, going to dental school in the same town as you live, for me… by the way, I tried to do that. I applied to Guy’s and the London-

Zaki: I know you ended up in Cardiff.

Payman: Ended up in Cardiff because I didn’t get the grades, as it happens. But, I was really happy, now, in retrospect, that I left home for university. But, at the time, as a kid that I was, I definitely didn’t want to leave London. I was a Londoner, and I wanted to go out with my buddies and all of that. But, did you end up spending more time with your existing friends, or did you really get into the university?

Zaki: So, no, I actually didn’t get into the university life as much as I should have. That’s one regret I have. I think, definitely, if my son, even if he was in the university next door to where we live, I’d tell him to stay in the halls or something, which I didn’t do.

Payman: Oh, you lived at home.

Zaki: I lived at home.

Payman: [inaudible 00:14:03].

Zaki: Yeah, it was a massive error. But, you know what, I lived behind Selfridges-

Payman: I would have done the same. If it was me, I would have been the same because I loved my life as a 17 year old. I thought I was the bee’s knees. I had everything I wanted.

Zaki: Yeah, I had my car, I had everything done for me. It’s, just, a bit of a mistake, actually, because I… and don’t get me wrong, I went out, I was in the bar with everyone and all this but not as much as I should have.

Payman: Yeah.

Zaki: So, that’s a bit of a regret but I’m still very friendly with all those people at Guy’s to this day. But, yeah, I wish I was there more.

Payman: At Guy’s. What kind of a student were you? Did you take to it like a duck to water?

Zaki: Yeah, I did. The thing with dentistry is that, if you don’t like it, you are a bit stuffed. If you don’t like dentistry while you’re studying, you’re, what am I going to do? But, I liked it. I never ever thought, no, this isn’t what I want to do. But again, you’re probably going to ask me, how were you at uni in terms of, were you a swot. So, I got through all my exams. I was never the brightest guy in the year. I wasn’t the bottom of the year either. I just got through all the exams. I didn’t fail any. I passed everything first time and that was it, just by doing, maybe, a little bit above average work at home, got through.

Payman: It’s an interesting thing, when you look back on your year now, did you think the people who were top of class are the top dentists? I don’t think so.

Zaki: No.

Payman: Some are, by the way.

Zaki: They’re probably going to listen to this, so I’ve got to be careful. No, honestly-

Payman: We were talking, what does it take to be a great dentist? What are the key skills? They’re none of the ones that get tested in college, really.

Zaki: No.

Payman: The key skills are humans skills. Like, soft skills.

Zaki: You learn that afterwards. A lot of what we did, whether it’s clinical and non-clinical, what you learnt and what you did at uni, is very different to when you leave.

Payman: What advice would you give now, someone who’s in undergrad?

Zaki: The main thing is, you have to like it. You have to have a passion for this sort of thing.

Payman: You actually interview as well, don’t you?

Zaki: Yeah, I’m there in a couple of weeks.

Payman: Would do you look for?

Zaki: As an interviewer, you can either be like Simon Cowell, a Mr. Nasty sort of thing.

Payman: Yeah, you try and put people [inaudible 00:16:31].

Zaki: I’m Mr. Nice Guy. I, sometimes, interview with Dominique.

Payman: Oh, really.

Zaki: It’s multiple mini interviews now.

Payman: Oh, really.

Zaki: So, I’m in one booth and then she’s in the next. I often make a joke and say, she’s a bit stricter than I. I’m Mr. Nice Guy, I want everyone to pass. So, I suppose, I’m not the best person for the job. Yeah.

Payman: Is it the same at home? Is she the bad cop and you’re the good cop?

Zaki: Oh, yeah.

Payman: With the kids?

Zaki: Yeah, you know Dominique, but she’s very… I couldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for her, without a shadow of a doubt. It’s probably like that for a lot of people you’ve interviewed. We qualified together, we studied together, we qualified together. We should be at the same level in terms where we all but you get married, and, inevitably… this might be a bit cliche, or I don’t know, anti-feminist, I suppose, but she took a step back, she looked after the kids. Her career took a step back, that allowed me to continue and do the BACD stuff that I did and be on the board for 10 years and become president. That’s allowing me to sit on the board of the ADI. All these things take time out of your family time, work time and all that, and I couldn’t do it without her.

Payman: Sure.

Zaki: You said you were ambitious even back then when you were younger. You thought I might have multiple practises, multiple surgeries. It’s hard enough. I go into my practise, and it’s a small practise… I go in and she does everything. I go in like an associate. I do my work-

Payman: It’s her practise more than yours, right?

Zaki: Yeah. I do my work, I leave, I don’t get paid, she pays herself, but she runs it. She hires, she fires, and it’s the same thing at home. A lot of a lot of us couldn’t be where we are now without them.

Payman: That’s a team. I was talking to Jenny [Pinda] this morning and asking her, is it harder to be a woman than a man in dentistry? She didn’t seem to think so. She doesn’t have kids. Kids, in the end, are going to slow down a career, for sure. But, for me, dentistry is one of the best careers for a mother.

Zaki: It is.

Payman: Because, you can do part-time. The relationships with the patient and so forth. But, you’re right.

Zaki: I lecture, actually… sometimes they do careers days, BDA do one and some others, where they get a dentist and they get a doctor… they get various people in healthcare and each person gives like an half an hour lecture to sixth-formers. Some of them come with their parents. The case for dentistry is compelling. The parents come up to me, saying, my son or daughter really wanted to do medicine, but after listening to you, they want [crosstalk 00:19:34], or they’re thinking about it.

Zaki: So, the case is, like you said, it’s such a flexible job, and it’s a really nice sort of… if you’re into medical, it’s a great profession to be in.

Payman: Do you reckon either of your sons are going to-

Zaki: I don’t know.

Payman: Would you like them to?

Zaki: I don’t know. I wouldn’t put them off if they said, look, I want to do it. I’m not going to say no. Definitely, dentistry is very different now to how it was when we qualified. A lot of people say it’s not a nice profession to be in anymore and there’s so much litigation and you’re always worried when GDC… all those sorts of things. But, I still think it’s a great profession. I’m still glad I’m in it.

Zaki: Whether I’d encourage my kids to do it, I don’t think I’d say, I want you to do… you know. But, if they wanted to do it, I wouldn’t stop them. But, I’d be happy if they wanted to do business and something broader that they could find their way.

Payman: It would be a massive advantage, though, to them, with both of you.

Zaki: Yeah.

Payman: I think about this all the time. Does it make sense or doesn’t it make sense? This question of, push them. No, I don’t want to push anyone to do anything that they don’t want to do. The other thing comes along of, maybe, you want your kid to do something grander than being a dentist?

Zaki: Yeah.

Payman: If such a thing exists.

Zaki: Yeah. If you said to me, what your preference is? Dentistry is very… it’s a narrow field. Like I said, if you don’t it, you are a bit stuffed, you’ve got to like it. I see a lot of people that just do it because that’s all they can do. That’s all they’ve been taught. It’s hard to just change to something left field. Some people have done it, but it’s hard. So, I’d prefer them to do something much broader that gives them the opportunity to do various things, and then they can find their way.

Payman: You do so many different things. You work as an implantologist in lots of different practises. That roaming-

Zaki: Yeah, peripatetic.

Payman: Yeah, is that what it’s called?

Zaki: Yeah. I used to do that. I don’t do that… not much anymore. But, funny story, is that, when the recession kicked in 2009 and I’d meet a lot of my friends that did implants, and they’d be, yeah, it’s a bit slow, it’s really hit us and I’m not doing that many, how about you? I’d be… I was busy as hell. I was, “No, it’s great, it hasn’t affected me at all.” The difference was, is that they sat in one room in one location in one clinic.

Payman: That area-

Zaki: That area, yeah. Whereas, with me, I got off my ass and actually found the work. A lot of people said, Oh, yeah, do you like what you do, going around, whatever. Like, you know what, at least I was busy, at least the money was coming in, and I made lots of connections and networks. Then, we opened our practised up, I started reducing all that. I didn’t want to travel so much. Back then, I used to even go up to Scotland. I used to do all on fours.

Payman: Really?

Zaki: Yeah. Even, Fairlie, [inaudible] up there in Cherrybank, when I was… we go to Gleneagles every year. We’ve got one of these timeshare things up there. Even, once, I was there for a week, she’s, can you come over?

Payman: I was just going to ask you though, you visited lots of practises, you can see lots of different ways people work, what are some of the takeaways? What are some things you learned that you then put into your own practise?

Zaki: Well, one thing I learned was, the bigger the practise, the harder it is. It’s, obviously, just common sense, but it was exponentially harder because you’d have to keep everyone busy and you’d have lots of staff turnover. It just seemed a lot harder. On the face of it, people look at these practises from the outside and think they’re running smoothly and whatever. However, when you’re on the inside, it’s not always like that. That’s why we did something small.

Zaki: So, when there’s a recession, when times aren’t great, or there’s less patients coming in, I don’t have to worry. I still remember, shortly, after setting up my practise with Dominique, my dad got ill. I had a phone call from my sister. I was actually at a BACD Board Meeting. I had a call, she said, “Zaki, you got to come right now.” I, literally, took the next flight out. I was away from our new clinic for seven weeks on the trot. All I was thinking about is, God, what’s going to happen? I’m the one doing the high-end implant treatments, thousands of pounds, and I’m not there. The nice thing was that the rent is low, it’s a small practise, there’s not a huge monthly expenditure on staff wages and all that. There is, but it was manageable.

Zaki: Now, if I had a much bigger set up… and I remember talking to several people, and they’re, you know what, you’re so lucky, you’ve done something small. Whilst, you say I was ambitious and wanted to open up multiple surgeries, that’s my comfort zone. I’m happy like that. I’m happy, also, working and placing implants for other people, which I still do to this day.

Payman: Tell me about when your dad was ill? Where was that?

Zaki: He was in Amman, in Jordan. December, we have a BACD retreat, the two-day retreat that we always do just to plan the year ahead. Yeah, my dad was a smoker his whole life until he was around mid-50s, where he actually had a heart attack while we were on holiday in South of France. He had a triple bypass then, and the doctor said, he’ll have about 18, 20 years max after this. So, when he got to mid-70s, in my mind, I was thinking his heart would go, but, actually, what it was in the end, was lung cancer, which was missed. He was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, just fibrosis of the lungs. So, whenever he had a symptom of coughing or whatever-

Payman: Autoimmune thing.

Zaki: Yeah, it was just idiopathic. They didn’t know the cause. He had difficulty in breathing but he was carrying on as normal. But, the problem is, when you get diagnosed with something, every time you cough or… Oh, it’s your fibrosis. So, the cancer was missed. I remember I got really upset about this, that he went to his GP, my mum told them that he was coughing blood last night, oh, it’s his fibrosis. Now, all I remember from dental school when you learned medicine and all that, if there’s blood in your urine or stools or coughing, it’s serious. You need to… and they didn’t, they just said it’s the fibrosis, and it was missed. They said he’s got a week or two and he lasted, maybe, six or seven weeks, which is why I was there for that long.

Zaki: Yeah, it was a tough time. It’s funny, when you lose someone, you realise what you’ve lost, and you think, I wish I did this, I wish I said that, and all of that. So, tough time for me and my sister and my mom. But, yeah, life goes on.

Payman: The regrets you’re talking about. Do you mean, things you wish you’d said in that six week period or things you wished you’d done?

Zaki: Things I wish I’d done. We had a fantastic relationship with my dad all along. But, there’s always something-

Payman: Regrets are a feature of grieving.

Zaki: Exactly. There’s always something [crosstalk] I wish I did this, I wish I did that. I wish we went out for… I was going to say, I wish we went out for dinner more, but my dad was a-

Payman: A foodie.

Zaki: He would have gone out every night to a restaurant. He used to go to Nobu every other day. Nobu, Zuma, Chinese.

Payman: Sounds like a real [inaudible 00:27:39], your dad.

Zaki: Yeah. He really was. He loved that sort of thing. Every summer, we’d go to South of France and he loved it. He loved that life, going out and restaurants and stuff. Yeah.

Payman: Do you feel now that he’s gone, more responsibility with regards to your mom or…

Zaki: Definitely. My dad was a banker so my mom never had to-

Payman: Take care of paperwork and things like that.

Zaki: Never. She never had to pay any bills. It was all done by him. So, yeah, when my mom is here, I look after her and do all that side of things. When she’s in Jordan… my mom just goes back and forth, which is what my parents used to do when he retired. Half the year here, half the year there. My sister would look after my mom in Jordan because she lives there.

Payman: She lives there right now.

Zaki: Yeah.

Payman: [inaudible] about BACD, ADI, why are you the kind of guy who ends up on these boards? Do you enjoy that?

Zaki: You know what, I do. I wouldn’t be doing it, because when I finished the BACD presidency, why would you join the board of something else and do the same thing in a similar organisation?

Payman: But, what is about it? Is it knowing what’s going to happen before it happens?

Zaki: No, I just love being part of something. I love-

Payman: Contributing to-

Zaki: Yeah. I love contributing. I love teaching. I love imparting-

Payman: Your experience.

Zaki: My experiences over the years. I just love that sort of thing. A lot of people, even, think that we get paid being on these things, we don’t. It actually reduces our pay because it’s time out of work, time out from family. So actually, you’ve got to want to do it. It’s not because you want to be president of something. You don’t go in there and say, right, I’m going to start because I want to be president. I never thought that when I first joined. You just want to be part of something, and I really enjoy it. It’s like another family, BACD family or ADI or whatever. It’s just something I enjoy.

Payman: I think, being a dentist, one of the things that we all suffer with, is that Four Wall Syndrome. It’s one of the reasons I stopped doing dentistry. I was young and stupid, really. But, one of the reasons I stopped doing dentistry was, because I thought, was my whole impact going to be in these four walls, and four miles around the practise. I felt like, I got to do something bigger than that or something. I could have done 100 practises, right? But, at the time, I wasn’t thinking that way.

Payman: But, the question, I’m sure you enjoy going out to an ADI meeting and talking to people and whatever it is. But personally, I feel like I’m an outsider kind of person. I don’t enjoy those sort of meetings and preparing for them and talking in them and so on. So, what is it about you? How come, when we were in VT, there was 11 other guys and us… how come those other 10 are drilling, and you’ve gotten teaching, you’re doing the ADI thing… what’s this London fellowship thing, by the way? What’s that about?

Zaki: London Dental Fellowship. London Dental Fellowship is just an old organisation that, basically, a group of dentists set it up. There’s two things, London Dental Study Club and the London Dental Fellowship. London Dental Study Club used to meet on a first Tuesday of every month at the Saville Club. Then, as people got a little bit older, a couple of them veered off and started the London Dental Fellowship for the older dentists. In the end, it just became too similar but separate organisations. All it is, is that you meet six times a year, every month at the Saville Club. You have a three course meal, a speaker is invited to give a lecture so it counts as CPD. But, the main thing is, apart from learning a little bit, just the networking and being around other like-minded dentists and stuff. But, yeah, that’s-

Payman: You’re the most connected dentist I know. You really are though.

Zaki: I know it seems like that.

Payman: You definitely know more dentists than anyone else I know.

Zaki: The reason being is-

Payman: It’s the social animal.

Zaki: Yeah. The reason being, like you said, dentistry is boring, otherwise. If you’re just in a room with four walls and-

Payman: Some people are [inaudible] dentists, aren’t they? They love that. By the way, I’m sure, being an implantologist, you are that cat, too, right. But, different things, get us in different ways, don’t they?

Zaki: Yeah.

Payman: What do you enjoy the most? You enjoy the patient piece? The clinical piece? The teaching bit? The president of the board bit? Travelling and teaching?

Zaki: I’ll tell you something, a little bit, which I’m not sure if I should say, but you said about the patient bit, about the building up rapport. The one thing I love about doing implants is the rapport. Is that I like going in, placing the implant, and then leaving, and that’s it. Then, someone else restores or I restore. I got a distinction in orthodontics, finishing dental school, so I thought I was going to be an orthodontist. Two things that put me off that. One thing was, back then, there was no such thing as adult orthodontics. It was kids. So, I thought, can I go through my whole life treating children? My whole life. I love kids, but I couldn’t do it the whole time. So, that was the first thing.

Zaki: The second thing was, it was this every month for a year or two or three, I’d have to see the same patient. Look, I like building rapport, but it was that sort of thing, every month you see the same person and it was making chitchat. It was too much. That’s what I like about implants, is that it’s far fewer appointments. I love the patients and all that. But yeah, that’s not the thing. I like doing clinical dentistry. I like them coming in and you transform things which, I suppose, a lot of dentists say.

Payman: No, not everyone says that. Some people say the treatment planning bit, is what really gets them, some people want to actually drill. But, implant work can get hairy as well.

Zaki: Definitely, yeah.

Payman: Speaking to Andy [Moore 00:34:14], he was saying, he does 750 implants a year, and, yet, he still needs to sleep early the night before he does a big case and he still got to have his wits about him.

Zaki: Yeah, definitely.

Payman: For me, it takes a bit of a… again, it’s a funny word for it, adrenalin.

Zaki: The funny thing is, if tomorrow, I had a whole day of patients, whether it’s single tooth implants or a full mouth case, or grafting or whatever, it doesn’t faze me, I’d be fine with the next day. If I had the next day of root canals or… I’d be sweating the night before.

Payman: Because, you’ve become an expert at it now. But, there was a time, wasn’t there? You chose to go into that surgical bit. I was scared of blood as a dentist.

Zaki: I didn’t think of implants at all. So, the story is, I finished dental school, I did VT and I was applying for… I wanted to do private as everyone does. I just thought, let me get a day a week or somewhere private. I applied to so many places, I got knocked back every single time. They just looked at me, they’re, you just qualified, you’re only a year out, you’ve got no further qualifications. So, I, basically, just thought, what am I going to do? I thought, the easiest, quickest thing for me to do, was to get a diploma in dental sedation. It was basically one day a week for six months at Guy’s hospital with David Craig and Mike [inaudible 00:35:50]-

Payman: Just to get something-

Zaki: Just to get a few letters. Yeah, just to get a slight difference to everyone else that qualified at my time. So, I did the six months. I got the letters. I kept on applying and went for interviews. Then, I started getting phone calls to say, I heard you’ve just done this diploma. If I give you a job, would you do the dentistry on your patients, but would you sometimes do some sedation for me? I was, yeah, of course. That was my foot in the door to get into private practise. I got phone call after phone call, saying, oh, you’re doing sedation for so and so, could you come and do it for me? I’ll offer you one day a week. That was my way in.

Zaki: So, it’s the best thing I did. I did a diploma in sedation shortly followed by a diploma in hypnosis. Because, I was just fascinated by… I wasn’t sure if I believed it. I don’t like doing the weekend course or whatever. I like to get a diploma or something or learn a lot about the subject, which is why I did an MSc in implants. I didn’t want to, just, do one of these-

Payman: That is the right way to do it, isn’t it?

Zaki: Definitely.

Payman: The people I know who’ve done the MSc, seem to be the ones who-

Zaki: What I was getting at is, the reason why I went into implants was, actually, while I was doing my diploma in sedation, I bumped into Professor Richard Palmer, who’s now retired… he taught me as an undergrad. He said, “Oh, what are you doing back here?” I said, “Oh, well, I’m doing a diploma in sedation.” He said, “What are your plans for the future?” The good thing about Guy’s, is that you could have a proper conversation in that lift because it was-

Payman: Such a long way.

Zaki: It’s a long way. So, we had a full-on conversation in the lift. I said to him, I’m thinking of going to the Eastman to do an MSc in [inaudible 00:37:40], crown and bridge. He said, “Well, you already know how to do that. Why do you want to do the same thing?” I just said, “Well, I want to do an MSc. And, secondly, I’ll just get better at it.” He said to me, “You know what, you’ll get better at crown and bridge, by just doing it in practise. You know how to do it, you’ll get better. Why don’t you think about doing implants?” I said, “I don’t know, it’s surgery”, and, like you said, “blood and all that.” It was not on my radar.

Zaki: He said, “Are you going to go through your career with referring every single patient that you see with a gap, whether it’s one tooth or more or whatever, to someone down the road, for them to do the implant and to get all the money from the implant. And, every single case you’ve got to refer out, why don’t you do it?” Anyway, I went home and I thought about it. I thought, actually, you know what, he’s right. It’s going to open up a whole new avenue for me to be able to do. In the lift, I said, “Look, I qualified ’96”, and this was ’98 when I was doing the diploma. I said, “I don’t have FDS, I don’t have anything. I’m going to have a diploma soon. But, I don’t have any qualifications, I probably won’t get accepted.” He said, “You never know, just apply.” Wink, sort of thing.

Payman: He had an MSc to fill.

Zaki: Yeah, probably. Back then, it was expensive at the time.

Payman: The best thing he could have done for you, right?

Zaki: But, it was oversubscribed so I applied and I got in.

Payman: Amazing.

Zaki: So, that was my foot in the door.

Payman: When did you go from scared of blood, and I would really love this? Was it during the course, was it afterwards?

Zaki: Okay, so, the reason why he liked me is because, at Guy’s, there was something called the Newland Pedley, [Madeline] Prize. There was a lot of prizes that students could enter in their final years. But this one, I suppose, is the most prestigious one because what it involved was, you had to write a 10,000 word thesis. You also had to treat a very complicated case that involved multiple disciplines. It had to involve dentures or crown and bridge or surgery or root canals, several different things. So, I remember Bernard Smith at the time… I think it was him, yeah. He said, “If you can treat this case for this prize, I think you’d do well.” So, I looked at it, it was crown lengthening. Imagine, as a student, doing surgical crown lengthening, because this guy ground the hell out of his teeth, and involved crowns and it involved dentures, bit of perio, involved quite a few things. He said, “If you can pull this off, you’d get it. I wasn’t even thinking about it at the time.

Zaki: So, I used to spend hours in the lab. I still remember, all my mates would go down the bar, and they’re, come on, Zaki, come, and I had to finish the lab work.

Payman: You did all the lab work for it as well?

Zaki: You do the lab work yourself. All the lab work was done by you. I did crowns, I did my own denture.

Payman: All of that work, or just on this case?

Zaki: No, no, just this case. If you’re going for this prize, you had to do the lab work.

Payman: Bloody hell.

Zaki: I used to stay till eight o’clock at night, and all my mates drinking in the bar. There was so many times I gave up… well, I was about to give up, and someone would come in… the guy who won it the year before me was James [Invest 00:41:11], fantastic dentist. They’d come in and people would see you, the year above, and say, stick with it. If you get it, it’ll be good. Luckily, I stuck with it, and I got it. Richard Palmer was one of the examiners.

Payman: That’s how he knew you.

Zaki: So, the sort of lesson in life is, that you’re always going to meet people who you’ll meet later on in life and he remembered. He thought, this guy’s got something. I suppose, it was that chance meeting in the lift while I was doing a diploma in sedation, and it was the Newland Pedley, so one thing leads to another.

Payman: Yeah.

Zaki: Yeah. That was it.

Payman: Very, very true. Tell me about the first time you met Dominique? Was she in your year? Was it first year?

Zaki: Yeah. You know when you don’t do biology or chemistry-

Payman: An extra year?

Zaki: No, she did an extra week.

Payman: Okay.

Zaki: So, she had to just get a bit of an orientation or something. So, she was there a week before me. So, when I came in, she was there for a week. She had met people already. So, when I go into my freshers week, I saw this girl and she knew everyone. She was smiling with them, laughing, joking and all that. I thought she was the year above. I thought she was older. It wasn’t love at first sight or anything if that’s what you’re thinking, but it was just, what a fantastic girl. She knew everyone already. Then, at Guy’s, because there’s 100 students per year, they split you into groups of 10. I was K… and O. She was Dominique O’Leary. We were in the same group. So, we practised injections on each other, cleaning, hygiene, all that. We’d practise on each other. She actually became my best friend in terms of just friends. We never dated while we were there.

Payman: For the whole five years?

Zaki: For the whole five years.

Payman: Oh, really?

Zaki: Yeah, we never ever… we were just friends. But, she was my good friend. If I wanted advice about girls or something, I’d asked her. She knew me backwards. Yeah. That’s how we met.

Payman: So, when did it go from friends to friends with… Yeah.

Zaki: So, what it was, is that, you know when you’ve seen someone for five years and dentistry is an intense degree-

Payman: So, this was after [inaudible] now? VT, was that when you…

Zaki: Yeah.

Payman: Oh, really.

Zaki: So, it was during VT, when I thought, I’ve seen this girl every day of my life for five years. All of a sudden, she’s gone. She went down to do VT in Brighton and I was in Kent, Northfleet. Do you remember? Anyway, so I thought, actually, I miss this girl. So, I gave her a ring, months into VT. I went and said, can I come and see you, and went with a friend as well. Went down and visited her. I don’t know, that’s when I realised, actually, I do like this girl, and that’s when things started.

Payman: How long after that did you ask her to marry you?

Zaki: Well, qualified ’96 and we got married in 2002, engaged in 2001. So, I suppose, started dating ’97. I can’t remember when I actually proposed but it must have been 2000. Something like that.

Payman: Dominique’s half-Irish.

Zaki: Yeah, her dad’s Irish. She’s an O’Leary and her mom’s Iraqi, actually.

Payman: Okay.

Zaki: She’s more in touch with her Iraqi side.

Payman: Okay. So, you asked your parents or you told your parents? Well, how did that go?

Zaki: Yeah, when I started thinking, actually, this might be the one, obviously, in the Arab culture, you speak to your parents and say, look, what do you think? I told my dad, I still remember vividly… my dad was Muslim. He said, “No, I don’t think she’s the right one.” I said, “Why?” He said, “I prefer you to marry a Muslim girl.” I said, “But, why, mom’s Christian?”-

Payman: Maybe that’s why.

Zaki: Yeah, maybe. So, he said, “No, my preference is”, and you know. Actually, you do what your dad says in that Middle Eastern culture. What your dad says, you do. I didn’t question it, I just said, “Okay.” I remember, I went out with Dominique that night, and I told her, I said, “I really like you, but I don’t think we can go that way. But, I’d still like to go out with you.” She just looked at me and said, “Get out.” That was the first and only time I ever saw Dominique cry, or had tears in her eyes. She’s got very nice green eyes, and I saw her well up, and I left, and the whole way when I was driving home, I made a promise to myself… I was gutted, and I made a promise to myself that I never ever want to see her cry again, or have tears in her eyes. And, touch wood, she never has.

Payman: What did you do next? Did you tell your dad, forget it, I’m doing it.

Zaki: No, I went back, I was just upset. My mom, day in, day out, for that next week, she said, “What’s wrong?” I said… I spoke with my dad, not my mom. She said, “What’s the issue?” I told her. She said, “He said what?” I said, “Yeah, he said, he preferred me to marry a Muslim girl.” She goes, “After what we’ve been through?” Now, what my parents went through… my mom was Christian, my dad was Muslim. He loved my mom at university and he wanted her but the Christian side, her family, weren’t happy. They said no. To the point where she actually set him up with one of her friends and they actually got together and all this. He kept coming back saying, “I want you.” He even got engaged and married for a very short time.

Payman: What do you think was going through his head then?

Zaki: I don’t know.

Payman: Was he living out his duty to-

Zaki: I don’t know what it was. So, in the end, my parents, actually, did get married. They had to come to London and they had to elope, get married here.

Payman: Back there, there’s no civil ceremony.

Zaki: Yeah. So, they got married here. So, having run away to London, back in those days, to get married, and then he’s saying no to me, I didn’t get, and my mom didn’t get. So, in the end, she talked him round. The funny thing was, is that, he ended up loving Dominique, as much as my sister, as much as his own daughter. He made sure she knew it, because he knew he… I think his mistake was that he wanted me to marry someone that was, maybe, same culture. Actually, Irish people are very homey. They have that tight family-knit community. That’s what he wanted, it wasn’t the Muslim-Christian thing.

Zaki: But he said, Muslim. When we spoke about it later, that’s what it was. She’s very much like that. She’s very in touch with the Middle Eastern side and all this. He made sure that he told her all the time that, I love you like my daughter, and everything was fine after that.

Payman: Nice.

Zaki: Yeah.

Payman: Tell me about your week. Now you’ve moved out of London. How does that feel? From a central London guy. Where are you now?

Zaki: Weybridge.

Payman: Weybridge.

Zaki: When I went from living at home, behind Selfridges, to Fulham, I thought that was far enough. So, when I had to move to Weybridge, that was… It’s bad to think but my son… The teacher said to us, do you want us just to choose London schools that are suitable for your son or should we choose somewhere… we said, “No, choose somewhere outside but not too far.” They said, St. George’s College in Weybridge would be fantastic for him. So, we took him around all the schools, St. Paul’s and Kings, Wimbledon and all that. Then, we took him to St. George’s College, and he loved it. He saw 100 acres of land. Out of all the schools, immediately, looked at us and said, “I want to come here.” He thought, at the time, that we’d just pay and he can get in. We said no, you got to pass an exam. So, deep down, it’s bad to say this and I hope he doesn’t listen, but I thought, I hope he doesn’t pass to get in here because I wanted him to stay… well, I wanted to stay in London.

Payman: He will listen to this, you know?

Zaki: He probably will. But, he passed. We did 11-plus and he got into a few and he chose St. George’s. It was a bit of a shock to think, oh God, I got to leave, but, you know what, I actually love it now, because, as you know, there’s more space and all that, and I love living there. It’s a bit of a hassle with the commuting, but it’s not too far.

Payman: Much bigger place and all of that.

Zaki: Yeah, a little bit bigger.

Payman: It must be. In London, we’re so squashed, aren’t we? We’re so squashed, we don’t realise how squashed we are.

Zaki: Yeah, look, we had a five-bed house in Fulham, which, when we moved, I said to Dominique, I’m keeping this because, as you know, in London, once you sell, you can never buy because it just gets, exponentially, more expensive. So, I said to her, I’m keeping the house, because, in 10 years time when they finish school, I think I’m going to come back. So, we kept it and we rent it out now. But, actually, you know what, I can’t go back because-

Payman: Once you spread out-

Zaki: Once you’ve got the size, and you get used to… I like the lifestyle there. You can’t go back to having a smaller place. Yeah, I think I’ll probably sell it.

Payman: What do you miss the most?

Zaki: London. It’s just that ease of, just, staying out till midnight and not thinking, is there a train to go back or having to catch a cab back or whatever.

Payman: What about things like restaurants and things? Are they good ones out there? Not enough. When I lived outside London, that was the thing that used to bother me. Not enough.

Zaki: There’s a lot of nice gastropubs. When we first moved there, every Sunday we were trying a different… roast beef and all that sort of… I love that. But yeah, you can’t compare London. But, we still go out. It’s half an hour on the train. At night, when there’s no traffic, it’s a 35-minute drive. It’s not bad. So, we still go out for dinners.

Payman: It’s a nice area, man. It’s a nice area.

Zaki: Yeah.

Payman: I was there recently, actually.

Zaki: You should have called me.

Payman: Yeah. It was our anniversary, I didn’t want to call you.

Zaki: No.

Payman: Tell me this buddy, if, say, your kids says he wants to be a dentist, what advice would you give him regarding career? Would you tell him to go into implants? Do you think implants are a good way to go?

Zaki: Yeah, definitely. I’d say to him, now, that there’s adult orthodontics, I’d say orthodontics is good. Dominique loves doing orthodontics. She’s not a specialist but that’s what she likes to do. She got a bit disillusioned, actually, with just doing general dentistry. She went on Anoop Maini’s course, and, God bless him… she went on his Six Month Smiles course at the time. She did that and she came back and she said, that’s what-

Payman: Invigorated.

Zaki: Then, she became a Six Month Smiles mentor and, all that, and she found her mojo again. She loves doing Invisalign and braces and stuff. But, yeah, I’d tell him to do something like that. I don’t like endo and that sort of thing, but just ortho, implants or general restorative work.

Payman: Tell me about when you got into whitening? It was surprising. [inaudible] surprising because you used to do thing in Selfridges, right?

Zaki: Yeah. Selfridges, was great working there. We worked there. It was only open for three years, but it was fantastic.

Payman: You and Chris [Haw 00:53:33].

Zaki: Well, it wasn’t Chris Haw to start with. Sorry, it was [Aura 00:53:40], owned by Julian Perry at the time. He then sold to [Dentix 00:53:43], and then it went on to James [Holland 00:53:46], and all that. But, when it sold to Dentix, Chris Haw was clinical director of dentists. So, his course, which is a fantastic course that every young newly qualified dentist should do, by the way… If anyone wants advice, to do his course because it’s a very nice, broad, well-researched, well-structured course that I recommend every new graduate to do. But, at the time, we were his guinea pigs because when he was starting to do the course-

Payman: He started in Dentix, didn’t he, teaching the associates?

Zaki: Teaching the associates. Since, we were just bought by Dentix, we did his course, which was obviously much smaller.

Payman: Yes.

Zaki: Yeah, so that’s how it started.

Payman: But, then, getting into whitening as a teacher?

Zaki: This is the thing, a lot of people think that, why is someone with an MSc in implants doing whitening? It’s just two things that are far apart. But, what it was, remember in 2008 when hygienists and therapists were allowed to do teeth whitening, there was no courses.

Payman: That’s right. [inaudible 00:54:50].

Zaki: Exactly. So, the hygienist that started working for us said, there’s no courses out there for us. So, I said, Well, look, I’ll train you. I said, look, I’m not going to just train you. Get some of your friends and she got together five or six hygienists. In our practise, we had a screen, I did a lecture for them. Me and Dominique did a hands-on you course of, even, how to make the trays-

Payman: Suck down.

Zaki: Yeah. Not as good as your tray.

Payman: Cheers, buddy.

Zaki: How to make the trays, how to put it on models, how to do the whitening, A to Z of whitening, and they loved it. Then, their friends start saying, can you do a course for us? We thought, actually, we could do business out of this. So, we started K2 dental seminars. We started doing a lot of courses for hygienist, hands-on courses. Then, we were working with Discus Dental at the time which was, as you know, Zoom and all of that. Discus Dental then got bought out by Philips. Philips knew nothing about teeth whitening and I thought the courses were going to stop. Because, we used to do our own courses as well as all the courses for Discus Dental. But, then, we stopped our courses because it was so busy with Discus. I thought that would fizzle out. We’re going to stop because we used to do our own courses and as well as all the courses for Discus Dental, but then we stopped our courses because it was so busy with discus, and I thought that would fizzle out.

Zaki: But then, got a phone call from Philips to say, could you do the courses for us because they literally knew nothing about teeth whitening. That’s how it started. So, I started doing all the courses and lecturing for Philips, and actually-

Payman: Still teaching hygienists, or had you moved on to dentists by now?

Zaki: The whole thing was set up for hygienists but, all of a sudden, people that… even consultants in hospitals, who were so experienced in crown and bridge and doing restorative and occlusion and all that, knew nothing about teeth whitening. So, some of them started doing the course as well. So, it became hygienists and dentists. Then, it just continued.

Payman: You’re at the Enlighten office now. Is it as good as the Philips office? I’m joking. Don’t answer that question.

Zaki: The Philips office is a bit bigger.

Payman: We don’t do tickets to Wimbledon either.

Zaki: That was a nice thing. They had a box at Wimbledon and a box at Royal Albert Hall.

Payman: It was a weird thing when Philips bought Discus, man, because I thought… this is a massive brand, right? So, on its own, it’s a good enough reason to buy it.

Zaki: Yeah.

Payman: Because, it was a huge brand.

Zaki: Yeah.

Payman: But, I got a feeling it had something to do with the fact that they’re light bulb manufacturers, and Zoom is a light.

Zaki: Yeah.

Payman: I thought, back in the day, before was in business, I thought these sort of decisions were highly researched. But now, as you get further on, you realise, a lot of stuff happens because of this sort of thing.

Zaki: It wasn’t the light. I thought the same as you, but it was, just, they wanted something-

Payman: The sales team or something.

Zaki: They’d go to these dental trade shows that you go on, and they just had toothbrushes. They just thought-

Payman: Complimentary.

Zaki: Complimentary. They actually bought Discus Dental, which was not just whitening, it was impression material… a whole load of things. They sold all those off and just kept… they bought it for the whitening. They just saw that it was a good fit and that was it.

Payman: So, you carried on working with them all that time. How long was that for?

Zaki: It was meant to be a one year deal, one year contract, and, actually, it went on surprisingly, because I was actually on their payroll… I kept thinking year-on-year, I’d have a meeting with Mary [Cotton] at the time… she was in charge of… between the dentist, she’d be the link between us and the company. Every January, we’d meet and have brunch. Every time, I’d think, she’s going to say, that’s it. It went on for six years. So, it was good. It was good while it lasted. But, I’ve cut back from the lecturing side because my son’s doing GCSEs now and you need to spend more time with them.

Payman: Lecturing takes it out of you. Not that I’m a lecturer but I hang around a few lecturers. Then, the nature of it is weekend work. It tends to, just, do the family side in.

Zaki: Yeah, I used to see you on social media… you’d see all these guys, yeah, I’m flying off here, I’m flying off there, and I thought… before I started lecturing properly, I thought I want a piece of that. I wanted to travel around and the thing is, you start doing it and, as you know, I used to do a lot of it, but then you realise it’s not as glamorous as it sounds. The pays never enough. You could earn more, probably, working doing your day job. By the time you left your family… there was times where my two kids, my two boys, would, literally, one would hang on to each leg, when I’d say, guys, I’m going off tomorrow morning. They’d say, not again. When they hold on to your leg and you look down, and you start realising, actually, you got to be at home more.

Zaki: So, it’s glamorous when you don’t do it, and it’s nice… every now and then I accept a nice South Africa or something that I’ve never been to. It’s lovely, and you meet people and you’re saying, how do you know so many people? That’s how you know. But, there gets to a point where you need to actually calm down and I’m at that stage now where I’ve cut all that out. You need to be more with your families, better work life balance.

Payman: Do you work five days a week as well?

Zaki: I do, Monday to Friday, don’t do weekends. I used to do a one-year implant course teaching, which was literally Friday, Saturday-

Payman: Oh, you don’t do that anymore?

Zaki: No, because, again, for the same reason, Dominique would say, oh, in September on that weekend, can we do whatever and I’d be, look at my calendar, implant course. Then she’d say, oh, March, that weekend. I’d be, implant course.

Payman: That’s me with Mini Smile Makeover.

Zaki: Yeah. The thing is, by the time we do other… That was just the implant course. By the time you lecture on teeth whitening for Philips… and you attend courses because learning never stops-

Payman: You’re gone more than you’re there.

Zaki: You look at your year and you think, how many weekends have I actually spent with my family? I used to do it with [Kori] and [inaudible 01:01:32]. It was a great course-

Payman: Feedback was very good from that course.

Zaki: Yeah, I love teaching. I love doing that. But yeah, well, something’s got to give. So, I cut that out and, actually, work-life balance was restored after that. So, I couldn’t do it for a long time.

Payman: What would you say motivates you now? What gets you out of bed?

Zaki: My kids. You do all of this for them, really? Because, I do worry about how my kid’s going to afford a flat? What job are they going to get? So, I’m doing everything I do now for them. What gets me out of bed is I still, actually, really, enjoy what I do.

Payman: I remember asking you once, I said to you, if you had a billion dollars, what would you do every day, and you said I’d still include some element of implantology.

Zaki: Yeah, I love it. A lot of people say, what’s your exit plan? What’s your exit strategy?

Payman: You want to just keep going?

Zaki: When do you want to retire? A lot of people say, yeah, I want to retire at 55 or whatever. I wouldn’t do five days a week but as I get older, I’ll always do two days a week, even when I’m in my 60s or whatever. I just enjoy it. So, I can’t see myself retiring fully. I think with my dad, I saw that he worked every day and then one day he just… at 68, I think it was, he just stopped. So, it was full week to nothing. I don’t think that’s good. I’d taper off and I’d always have my hand in there at least two days a week.

Payman: Prav’s not here to ask his famous question, but I’m going to ask you, what would you like your legacy to be? What would you like people to say about you once you stop?

Zaki: Look, the things that you want to be remembered for… obviously, you have the family side. So, you’d always want to be remembered for being a good husband and a good father to your kids. A good role model. So, all of that, I’d love to be remembered as being a good sort of family guy. Yeah. So, that’s one thing. I’d also love to be remembered for being a good clinician. You hear a lot of people that have now retired or are not with us anymore… Yeah, he was a fantastic dentist or fantastic educator, like [inaudible 01:03:59]. He was one of those, and Mike Wise and all this, he’s retired now.

Zaki: So, you’d love to be known for being a decent clinician. I’m not saying I’m at their level by any stretch of the imagination, but I’d like to think that, hopefully, people would see me as, actually, Zaki, was one of the decent dentists out there. So, that’s the other thing. Hopefully, along the way, you’ve also inspired some people to find their passion in dentistry, whether it’s encouraging them to go into implants or to go in a certain direction. Hopefully, along the way, I’ve achieved that. So, I suppose, those three things.

Payman: Nice. Interestingly, the definition of being a professional is, what you do when people aren’t looking? You know, [Depesh 01:04:55], who does the [inaudible] for us? His associate passed away, unfortunately. He’s 40-something. He says that, now, he sees his patients. He says the quality of the work is just superb, absolutely superb work. That notion of, this cat wasn’t a teacher or… no one outside of his patient group knows him, particularly, but he was telling this wonderful work when no one was looking. It’s a wonderful idea, isn’t it? It’s a wonderful thing.

Zaki: There’s a lot of those out there.

Payman: Of course.

Zaki: A lot of people that we know that are on the lecture circuit or high-profile-

Payman: People we don’t know, right?

Zaki: Yeah.

Payman: People we don’t know who are amazing.

Zaki: Yeah.

Payman: Then, someone like Andy Moore, yeah, not high profile at all, really. I asked him to lecture for us about 15 years ago, and he said, it’s just not me. I don’t want to do that.

Zaki: Yeah.

Payman: But, putting the quality in.

Zaki: Yeah. No, he’s a top dentist. I know him. But, yeah, he likes to keep a low profile, and people do what they enjoy. I enjoy lecturing and all that. I enjoy going to functions and stuff. I love meeting people, that’s how you’re saying, how do know so many… I love networking. If anyone wants a bit of advice, it’s, just, surround yourself… there’s a term where they say like-minded. Surround yourself with like-minded people.

Payman: Yeah.

Zaki: In a way, yes. But, you shouldn’t surround yourself, just, with like-minded people, surround yourself with-

Payman: Diversity.

Zaki: Diversity, and people that are higher achievers than you.

Payman: To inspire you.

Zaki: People that are at a different level to you, as in, they’ve achieved the knowledge-base. People that you can tap into their experience and their knowledge, not like-minded like you. Otherwise, it gets very, well, how are you going to progress? What are you going to get from them? I always say surround yourself by people that you aspire to be like or that you are motivated by?

Payman: Tell me about some of your mentors. Prof. Palmer.

Zaki: Yeah. I don’t think I had-

Payman: By the way, a mentor doesn’t have to be someone who’s literally your mentor. A mentor can be someone whose book you’ve read. Who would you say are some of your people that inspired you the way you’re talking about?

Zaki: Yeah, look, my dad, definitely. Professor Palmer. Someone, anyone who, like you said, doesn’t have to be a mentor that guides you-

Payman: Day to day.

Zaki: Yeah. But, someone who’s actually given you that nugget of information to steer you in a certain direction. Richard Palmer was one of those and, obviously, my dad, so I don’t think there’s been one person. A lot of people say, oh, yeah, he was my inspiration or he taught me everything I know. For me, it was just-

Payman: For me, my VT boss, [Nick Mahindra 01:07:59].

Zaki: Yeah.

Payman: Made a massive difference in my direction. First boss is sometimes… sometimes does that.

Zaki: Yeah. No, I didn’t have that during VT or whatever. But yeah, just people along the way. When I give these lectures to sixth-formers, or to young dentists, I always say life is like sliding doors. The film where you either enter the tube and your life goes in one direction or another. Life, for me, is like that, because if my mom didn’t have that chat with my dad, we would have been in the Middle East and I would have not been a dentist and I would have ended up… and, also, if I didn’t have that chat in the lift with Richard Palmer, I wouldn’t have been where I am. If I didn’t do Newland Pedley Prize, he wouldn’t have thought, this guy’s good, and I wouldn’t have been accepted on the MSc.

Zaki: If I didn’t get all those knockbacks from the interviews to get into private practise, where I thought what’s the quickest thing I can do, diploma in sedation, I wouldn’t have been in that lift. So, everything you do, leads to something else.

Payman: It resonates with your kids, you’re always trying to protect them from pain. But, actually, pain is what defines them in the end.

Zaki: Yes. Yeah.

Payman: It’s an interesting, weird thing as a parent, you always try to mollycoddle them in a way. But, actually, when you look back in your own life, it’s the bits that were really painful or difficult that actually-

Zaki: It moulds you-

Payman: Moulds you into the character that you are.

Zaki: Yeah, yeah.

Payman: It’s been lovely having you, man. I’m sorry about Prav today, but it was a last minute emergency.

Zaki: Understandable. I’m flattered that you-

Payman: It’s been an enjoyable conversation-

Zaki: Inviting me.

Payman: Of course. You’re a lovely conversation.

Zaki: Thank you very much.

Payman: Thanks.

Speaker 2: 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.

Prav: Hey guys, and thank you for listening to today’s episode of the Dental Leaders podcast. A vision that myself and Payman had over two years ago now. If you have got some value out of today, just hit the subscribe button in iTunes or Google Play or whatever you’re listening to. Let us know in your comments what you actually got out of the episode because we love sitting back and reading those reviews. It really does make our day.

Payman: It’s a real pleasure to do this. It’s fun to do, but I’m really humbled that you’re actually listening all the way through to the end, and join us again. If you got some value out of it, please share it. Thanks a lot.

Visal: Well the mum actually said, come on kids we’ve got to go swimming. I don’t like swimming, I’m scared of the water, this and that. I turned round, why are you scared of water? I turned round to the mum I was like, look I used to swim, here’s my achievement scrap book and it had all my certificates for swimming in Kenya and stuff like that, and I showed it to her, she goes, you can swim? I said yeah, I said how do you think I got here?

Speaker 2: 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.

Payman: It’s my great pleasure to have my good friend Vishal Shah on the show, thanks a lot for doing this Vish.

Visal: Ah it’s a pleasure, thank you for inviting me.

Payman: I don’t think you and Prav have met before, have you?

Prav: No.

Visal: No.

Prav: You’ve met my brother, right?

Visal: Yes, absolutely, great fan of him [crosstalk] good guy.

Payman: So Vish we met each other long time ago, when you were building Dentality, I think when you were putting the thing together. How long ago was that?

Visal: Well the new site was actually 2013, so that’s when we properly met.

Payman: All right, but we met once before that.

Visal: But we’d bet a few times before then yeah.

Payman: But let’s go from back … take us back to where were you born, what was your childhood like?

Visal: I was born in Kenya, a little town called Nakuru, it was a little village town sort of thing, grew up in a … to be honest I think was a very, very privileged environment, I went to the equivalent public school there, all my teachers were from England. But the thing was, there was … my dad’s got a joint business with his brothers, so there was nine kids to pay school fees and all the rest for, so it wasn’t a plush as you’d like it to be because obviously you were in one of the best schools in the country, even in the region, sort of thing. And we had students coming from all over Africa and everything, but paying for nine students at the same time is a big, big ask on the family business.

Payman: Did all nine of you go to the same school?

Visal: Yes we all went to the same schools, yeah. But my fondest memories, by dad he never missed a school day, he was the one who was up in the morning and we do the rounds of all the family houses, so me and my brother would get into the car first, go to my uncle’s pick up two cousins. Then go to my grandma’s and pick up three cousins, so it was lovely like that. I was very, very lucky, my dad and my mum as well. My mum would be at every single sports match, cheering me on the sideline, and stuff. And I played a lot of sport, that was my main thing. So from an opportunity point of view I can only thank my parents for where I am now, they’ve been every reason why I am where I am. Because I was a bit of a lazy so and so.

Payman: Were you?

Visal: Yeah.

Payman: You’re not lazy any more.

Visal: Well no I think I’m paying for me issues from before but generally it was all fine, I was a mediocre student, I was one of these kids who just always wanted a bit of acceptance, because I used to be the short, fat kid who used to get bullied at school.

Payman: Same as me.

Visal: You don’t look it [crosstalk 00:03:17]. You look amazing man. So there’s always this push to try and prove myself and all the rest of it, and I suppose that’s where a lot of the drive comes. But again none of it would have been possible if it wasn’t for my mum and dad, they did everything they possibly could to give me what I wanted, within reason. Nothing was every easy, I couldn’t just say yeah, can I have this or can I have that, and it’s done, absolutely not.

Payman: So when did you move to the UK, how old were you?

Visal: So I was 18, I moved in 1998, and literally just got a place at university, I actually missed my grades, I actually got, I missed a grade for my original place that was offered to me, and I actually ended up getting into dentistry through clearing. So at the time, it was Bart’s in London, they weren’t necessarily the best placed university in terms of the rankings and stuff. But I was just happy to have a place, and do what I wanted to do. And yeah, got the place, I think it was first part of August, and in September I moved to England.

Payman: As a foreign student. Paying those fees.

Visal: As a painfully paying those fees [crosstalk 00:04:26].

Payman: How much was it, do you remember?

Visal: Yeah, so the first year was 12 and a half thousand pounds, that was just for tuition, and then you had accommodation and living expenses on top. The second year was roughly about 15, 16 thousand pounds. And then after that it was 25 thousand a year, 20 thousand a year.

Prav: Just going back to growing up with nine cousins, brothers … what was that like in terms of family community spirit, all the rest of it? Because for me it was me and my brother mainly that were brought up, and I just wonder what it’s like growing up with nine cousins and having that where you’re just always thick as thieves together, lots of fun. A really good family community spirit, and are you still close to each other?

Visal: Yeah I mean, growing up it was awesome, we didn’t need friends as such. On my mum’s side of the family there’s 81 cousins. [crosstalk 00:05:24].

Payman: … massive.

Visal: So my mum’s one of 10 kids, and my dad’s one of eight, so times were fantastic. Wherever we’d go so it would always be a family affair, and one thing I really admired from about my dad was, he was one of the go getters, he’ll push the boundaries and he didn’t care what people thought or how he had to go about doing things, if he wanted to do something he’d go find a way to get the job done. So a lot of his push for me personally was didn’t want me to do what he does. I’ll come back to that later if we’ve got some time, but he always pushed me to do other things, and sport was a huge part of it, so we all used to … all of us cousins, we’d go to our grandmother’s house on Sunday or Saturday, or whatever it is. We’d all sleep over, so the girls would do the girls things, the boys would actually do whatever they’re doing. So a typical day would be, we’d play cricket during the morning, and then have lunch with the whole family, so literally 40, 50 of us sitting down together, plus family friends and stuff would just come in.

Visal: And then in the afternoon we’d play hide and seek and stuff like that. And then once we got a little bit older and stuff, it was great community, it was a great environment because we never, ever needed money. So if I wanted something, if I wanted to buy my school uniform for example, dad would just go, oh go to that uncle’s shop. And I’d just walk in, and everything’s done, and I walk out. And initially you think you just think okay fine, dad’s told you to do that, so go and do it, and then you come back home. But then when you get a little bit wiser, you think hey I can get a way with a bit of stuff. So I just used to go to the shop and like, yeah put it on my dad’s account. The uncle would be like, yeah no problems, he knows he’s making money out of it anyway. So round about the age of about 14, 15 it got a bit out of hand, especially going to the local club because again everything there was a chit system, so you just sign your name on it, dad’s membership number was there and everything else.

Visal: All the waiters knew us because they’d seen us grow up, so it was quite easy. And one memory that actually comes up, me and all my friends we were actually at the club, so our routine weekend would be, Saturday morning get up, we all get dropped round to the club by all the mums. Mums going to whatever they’re doing and dads would go to work. My dad however, he was nicknamed like the CID officer basically because he’d keep an eye on everyone, and he’d come to the club every day at lunchtime. So he’d come to swim, obviously, but the plan was that we’d be swimming, and then we’d have lunch together et cetera, et cetera. And the funniest story is one of my friends who actually moved back to Kenya, but he came here to study as well and he ordered 20 samosas between four of us. And that was just the starter, and when my dad walked in, he just like, what is this? [inaudible] you’ve got to sit right there-

Payman: Eat them all.

Visal: … and if you don’t finish them, I’m going to actually stick them up where the sun don’t shine. But it was really, really nice because it wasn’t a situation where these are my kids and those are your kids, or whatever it was. Everyone’s parents were all disciplinarian in their own right. My best friend for example, we got up to a little bit of naughtiness, when we’d just finished our O levels, our GSCEs, and we decide to go out and we wanted to go and have a couple of drinks and celebrate. And his car broke down and in the end we had to actually call his dad up to say, look the car’s broken down, what do we do? And he’s like, where are you? We’re actually in the next town, but we’d said we were going to play golf. So his dad dropped everyone off and obviously I lived closest to Ricky at the time, and got home and he turned round to my dad and he goes, listen, don’t give him a hiding, give my son a hiding because he’s the culprit.

Visal: So it was really nice in terms of community feel like that, and to a certain extent it kept us all in check, because you couldn’t do anything naughty anywhere without-

Payman: Without someone finding out.

Visal: … without someone finding out you know? I was 14 years old, we all went to the nightclub in the city, and we bribed our drivers and everything else. People were in the club, and I remember seeing one of my dad’s mates, and he was being a bit naughty himself, so I was just like, right uncle, you’re going to buy me a beer-

Payman: Got one on you.

Visal: … and none of this is going to go anywhere, because I’m going to put you into it as well. And I remember coming back the next day and we were all excited and I was just like, I don’t know how my dad, the CID officer, hasn’t found out. And he was sat in the living room, reading his paper, and I just walk in, hi dad. I was probably stinking of booze or something, or at least my clothes were, and just as I walked into the corridor to go into the part of the house where all the bedrooms are, he was like, so what was Carnivore like? Because Carnivore’s the name of the club. And I was just like, oh crap I’m in so much trouble you know. But he let me push my own boundaries to a certain extent, but education was a huge thing to him. My grandad passed away when my dad was 14, so he started working from that age, so he’s seen a very, very hard life, helping to look after the rest of the family and all the rest of it.

Payman: How did it feel when you then arrived in the UK without all of that massive support structure, by yourself? That must have been a big shock.

Visal: Do you know what, it was to a certain extent, but it wasn’t. Growing up in Kenya, anyone from England was the coolest thing ever. They got the nice trainers, they’ve got all these things, and we’re walking around and begging and pleading to dad, dad can we just buy one pair, we keep it as best as we possibly can. So I was really excited-

Payman: So you were ready to leave at that point?

Visal: I was ready to leave to a certain extent. I didn’t realise how ready I wasn’t until I got here. But one thing that always sticks in my mind, was as I said, my mum and dad were real hard core disciplinarians, and I vividly, vividly remember the night before I left, and my bedroom wall and my dad’s bedroom wall are the same wall, right? And normally it’s just like [inaudible] things, you just knock on the wall, that means get yourself into my bedroom, and he’d be like, give me the remote. I’m like, seriously? What the hell yeah? But on this day, his exact words were, you packed? Yep. You done? Yeah. You ready? Yep. Excited? Yeah. Sit down. And I was like, dad what did I do? And he goes just sit down, I said but dad I’ve been at home all day, I’m thinking I’ve done something wrong, not knowing [inaudible] something wrong. And I sat down, and I said, dad I didn’t do anything wrong. And he just said, quiet.

Visal: He goes two things. The first thing is, never ever go back on your word or break someone’s trust. And if that happens, doesn’t matter what the world thinks, doesn’t matter what you do to actually regain that, the fact is you broke it the first time. It’s never going to be the same again. And I was just like yeah, I understand, didn’t really. And the second thing he said to me, which actually makes me realise now, and it makes me realise every day what he actually meant, and how incredibly wise he is. And he said, you’re leaving tomorrow as my son, but when you come back I want to be known as your dad. And I was just like dismissive, I was like yeah can I go now? The typical teenager [inaudible] yeah all right dad, you’ve done your thing, now let me just go. But I got onto the plane, and that’s when it hit me. Because my dad is … as far as the town’s concerned, we’d been in that town since … well in Kenya since the 1800s, late 1800s, so we were one of the first Asian families to colonise that town, and everyone knows by dad. Literally the priest has a weird bowel movement and my dad gets a phone call.

Visal: If someone’s murdered, my dad’s the first one there on the scene, and the police are letting him through the crime scene and all the rest of it. And it just made me realise that, my dad is actually an absolute super hero, this guy is there for everyone and anyone. Middle of the night he gets a call, and he’s out. He negotiated … where we are, the town we are, between that town and the two main cities either side which is Eldoret and Nairobi, is part of the trans African highway, and there’s no intensive care unit. And in Kenya a huge amount of road traffic accidents, just huge amounts. And dad actually negotiated from a charity in Salt Lake City in America to donate us an intensive care unit. And just to see stuff like that and the impact that he’s ended up having on other people’s lives. The friends that we’ve made, I’ve got people I call God Parents in Canada, these guys were our neighbours and he just emptied half our house of all the furniture when they move in because their furniture was lost on a shipping container somewhere. I haven’t come across many people who do that.

Visal: He is truly selfless, and am I ever going to say that I can go back and be known as his son, I don’t know about that. He’s a true gem.

Payman: So then you weren’t with him, you were by yourself. Were you a good worker in college? Did you go crazy partying? [inaudible] new found freedom, or were you one of those swotty kids because you were paying, right? You knew how much it was worth.

Visal: No, not at all, I do remember that we had a little bit of trouble with the finances and stuff initially, because there wasn’t only me, it was myself and two other cousins who came over, so they were paying overseas fees as well. So one was doing engineering, and the other one did actuary, and then there was two in the pipeline the following year who were coming. So I actually remember asking my dad, I said dad can we actually afford this? And he goes, you go what you need to do, I’ll sort out the rest. But I knew that it was going to be a tough time, so despite that, I was not a swotty guy, I was always late for lectures. The tutors used to actually get one of the students to come in and actually wake me up in the halls and stuff. But a lot of it was to do with what unravelled throughout the university experience. But I partied hard, I had this new found freedom, okay I have a lot of family here. The majority of my mum’s side of the family live here, and a few of my dad’s family live here.

Visal: But one person that was actually instrumental was my dad’s eldest sister’s husband, and he was an amazing gentleman. He was going through his own stuff in his life, and whatever he did, always said do it four times. I remember my cousin was actually out in Dubai and he was buying a stereo system, and at that time there was these tape decks with the CD on top, do you remember those?

Payman: Yeah, I remember those.

Visal: And he phoned up and we were all standing in the kitchen and he goes … because my cousin, so his daughter was going to university as well. So there was his daughter and three of us, and my cousin phoned up and he goes, dad this is a really good one, but there’s a better quality one. And he goes, buy the best one, and buy four. My cousin’s flying in from Dubai, and I could hear him on the other side of the phone saying to his dad, are you mad? He goes, there’s four kids here, no matter what happens … and the way it all started out was, there was four piles on that kitchen floor every single week. And not many people get that man, so I’ve got a lot of love for a lot of people.

Payman: That’s lovely man. So then you told me the money dried up coming from Kenya.

Visal: Yeah so it was quite a difficult time, so this came towards the end of my first year, and it was difficult because the way things work in Kenya is very different to how it works over here. And in Kenya you’d be just like look, we’ll pay you next month, we’ll sort out it, we’ll clear it out, and we’ll barter here, and barter there sort of thing. The money just dried up. Now initially we didn’t know anything about it because what was happening is that my uncle started funding all of us, but when it comes to 20 grand a year-

Payman: Each.

Visal: … as well, well at that time it was coming up to the 16 grand. That became quite difficult, because it becomes an embarrassing situation, for everyone involved. If dad’s looking to borrow something and my uncle’s got his other kids and this that and the other. So it can create a little bit of discomfort as well. It never did, everyone pulled together.

Payman: In the third world, one of the characteristics of it is, you can make a lot of money. But another characteristic of it is that instability where you can suddenly lose. It’s one of the characteristics of living in the third world-

Visal: Absolutely, and this-

Payman: … both sides.

Visal: Yeah, when the banks collapsed and stuff, like BCCI and all of this. That really hammered us, we lost a lot of-

Payman: So you were left having to pay the school fees yourself?

Visal: Well I was actually left with no idea what was going on.

Prav: End of year one or …

Visal: Well, end of year one, start of year two, so the first instalment was due for year two, and it came to December in my second year, and I started getting letters from the university saying, you haven’t paid your fees, what’s going on? And I’d be phoning dad, and he’d be like yeah, we’re sorting it out, we’re sorting out. I was just like, dad these guys don’t wait yeah? And he was like, look just tell them, just explain to them that we’ve got a little bit of a situation and we’ll sort it out, don’t worry, we’re good for it. And I said, dad they don’t care who I am, there’s about 50,000 students here you know? But eventually it dawned on me that, holy crap this is serious. And didn’t know where to go. There’s no support for international students at all, nothing at all.

Visal: I did something about it later on, I started the ball rolling for overseas students afterwards, but it was scary. Because you just think, 16 and a half grand, plus whatever your accommodation is costing, plus your spending money and stuff.

Payman: So what did you do?

Visal: Found ways. So there’s loads of things. At the time when I moved here, and at the time of this crisis when it started, we weren’t allowed to work as overseas students, we just didn’t have right to work.

Payman: Permission.

Prav: Permits, or whatever it is.

Visal: There was nothing.

Prav: Nothing.

Visal: And it only changed about two years later, so when I was coming into my fourth year that all students were allowed to work 16 hours a week, and you can supplement your income. Didn’t have any of that, I started doing all sorts of stuff. I remember going into the university and just thinking, what sort of job could be … this is not going to go to revenue is it?

Payman: 25 years later.

Visal: But it was just like, what sort of job can I get a bit of cash in hand for? And I remember seeing this advert, and I’ll never forget it, it was on a yellow piece of paper, and it was a lady who was actually looking for someone to tutor her son, teach him how to read and write and all the rest of it. So I phoned her up and I said, look this is me, I’m at the university, I’m studying dentistry. She’s like, oh cool let’s meet up, and stuff, so I met up with her. And didn’t know what to expect. Had I done tutoring before? No, could I get cash in hand? Well do what you have to mate, just get on with it. And I went to meet her and we got on really, really well. So she goes, okay, fine how much would you like? And I said, I charge £8 an hour, and that’s what I do. So she said, okay fine. Every Sunday come in here for an hour. So I said, brilliant.

Visal: And then slowly, slowly what happened is, she started introducing me to all her friends, and all the rest of it. So I had, and she was ferrying me around to everyone’s houses, so I had about five hours during the morning where I was tutoring the kids. Well probably about six, six and a half hours if you include travel time and everything. And then one day one of the kids turned round and said, well the mum actually said, come on kids we’ve got to go swimming. I don’t like swimming, I’m scared of the water, and this, that. I turned round, why are you scared of water? And I turned round to the mum, I was like, look I used to swim, here’s my achievement scrap book, and I had all my certificates for swimming in Kenya and stuff like that. And [inaudible] she goes, you can swim? And I said yeah, I said how do you think I got here? No I’m joking. And yeah so I said I’ll take all the kids swimming. So we’d actually get dropped off at York Hall in Bethel Green, and I’d take nine … Health and Safety would have gone absolutely crazy to know me.

Visal: But I had nine kids in the swimming pool at any one time, and that too was £8 an hour each, and we only swam for an hour. So that was good-

Payman: Good earner that one.

Visal: It was a really, really good earner. And then slowly, slowly things started changing. Oh there was another place actually-

Payman: So you earned all the money to pay your tuition fees and … no.

Visal: No it wasn’t enough.

Payman: Your dad came through?

Visal: So dad borrowed and people who we thought would help, didn’t. It’s often the case, you do find that, that you have expectations of people and you get let down. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, or it’s a common thing, or people will always disappoint you, but people have their own issues going on too, and it happens, it’s life. But there’s some people who came across, who I never ever in my life imagined. Some people I’d not met. My mum’s sister in law, so her brother’s wife, sorry her sister, she just came in and just yeah, here’s 10 grand. And I was like … the guys I call my god parents in Canada, they sent me money. And I was just like, how is this working? And all along dad’s just trying to … he’s obviously trying because he’s got to pay for all three of us as well. Uncles were trying to help and stuff, but dad generally had more sort of connections, in Kenya and stuff. And somehow it came through, we paid off that first … sorry second year, and just as you thought right breathe. Boom, another letter from the university.

Visal: Because you were late, we want the payment up front.

Payman: Oh dear.

Visal: And I just thought to myself, how am I going to do this? I can’t ask dad … I know what he’s done, and I know how much he’s had to go through to just get this year paid off, what do I do next? So I thought okay fine, well work more. So there’s this place I went to in Farringdon once, it was after a night out, it’s a little place called Tinseltown, a lot of people know it.

Payman: Yeah.

Visal: But at that time they actually were nothing, like literally it was a basement little café where they used to give the cab drivers teas and coffees and stuff, and they used to get it for free so long as they brought customers with them. And the waitresses were quite hot, so I was like, I want a job here. And I just went in there, I was like, look guys have you got any cash in hand in jobs? And he’s just like, what?

Payman: Did you say it just like that?

Visal: Yeah, I just said look, come on have you got any jobs going? And they go-

Prav: Sure.

Visal: … no. And I was like, come on man, I’m sure you do. You’re open at four in the morning, I’m sure there’s plenty of people coming in pissed, I’m sure you can sort me out. I said, anything, I’ll take anything. And he goes, look you’re not going the like but if you want it you can have it. And I said what? And he goes look, exactly what you said, people like you students come in here pissed, and then they create a mess sometimes, so if you want to clean it up, you’re more than welcome to. I said, done, when do I start? He goes when do you want to start? I’ll start now, I don’t mind. And me and the owner, who was an elderly lady, she was lovely, she was like, everyone used to call her mum, so I just jumped on the bandwagon and started calling her mum too.

Visal: But we started establishing quite a relationship and the youngest guy, there’s two sons, Sahil and Shiraz. Sahil was quite militant, he was quite strict about everything, so we’d all stay away from him. But Shiraz was the young guy, he’s got all these ideas. He just set up a business to recruit actors and actresses over the internet, and he goes yeah, I can phone Steven Spielberg and this that and the other, and I was like, really? But we’d sit there at five, six in the morning when it’s all quiet, and we just talk about our dreams, what we want to achieve and stuff. And believe it or not, Shiraz is actually in Hollywood doing what he dreamt about. It’s beautiful, and Tinseltown became something huge, and I was like, Shiraz why don’t we do this, I’ll get … why don’t you guys get some leaflets printed out, Farringdon Station, the market’s open early, all the city workers are coming in. I’ll hand out flyers from four til eight in the morning, and I’ll go to Uni from there.

Visal: He goes that’s a bloody good idea, okay fine. So I used to hand out flyers as well. I never threw any away, never ever threw any away, because it’s about trust. And it was an idea I gave him which was my responsibility so effectively I had to show him some sort of return on interest, on investment and stuff. But it’s great, many, many years later I went back with a few of my friends, just nostalgia sort of thing, and this guys, Sahil, the elder brother, the really militant one just stopped me and he goes, hi. And that was it. I was like, what did I do to this guy. And I think the last time I’d actually turned up to this place I was pissed, so it wasn’t nice. And he then just pulls up a chair out of nowhere, turns round to all my mates and just pointed at me and he goes, you all know what this guy’s been through to get to where he is. We love him. And just walked off. What’s wrong with this guy? First of all he just completely blanks me. But there’s a lot of instrumental people, there’s a lot of instrumental people.

Visal: I ended up actually curving my way through negotiating a professional studies loan as well, I wasn’t allowed it, but when I went to the bank, I still remember the name of the bank manager, his name’s Adrian Tourer, and I walked into the bank and I said, Adrian I want a professional studies loan. 25 grand’s a lot of money, I thought, that’ll sort me out for the next year at least. And I walked in, and I just looked at the form, and he goes yeah go and fill out this form, and I’ll fill it out for you. And it came out, taking out details and it says nationality, and it thought Adrian, what’s wrong with your tooth? And I kid you not, this is a true story, right? I said what’s wrong with your tooth? And he goes, I know. I said, it looks horrible, and you’re a manager. I said listen, let’s fill this form out in the dental institute while I do your tooth. I’ll just fill it all out.

Visal: So I took him across to the emergency clinic, sorted his tooth out, and he skipped that. Because I was quite well spoken, having had an education in a British school effectively. He just assumed that I was English. Ticked that, and I got a professional studies loan.

Payman: Nice.

Visal: So a lot of wheeling and dealing-

Payman: So I’m thinking back at my college days, where it was free, and then-

Prav: We got a grant.

Payman: … well I got money from my dad, and much more money than everyone else around me anyway, and how carefree I was regarding that whole side, and then to listen to you every year, struggling. And I’m sure it made you, shaped you as well, right? Because they say adversity shapes you, but it’s admirable-

Visal: Do you know what? The thing is, if you’ve got to get somewhere you’ve got to, by hook or by crook you’ve got to get there, you’ve got to do whatever you’ve got to do. And if you sit there, I think, feeling sorry for yourself, everyone will feel bad for you, but everyone’s moving one. And it’s up to you what you want to do.

Payman: So then when you finally qualified, that must have felt like an amazing moment.

Visal: The day I actually qualified I actually … I remember sitting in my room and I’d done all right in all the exams, and my biggest nemesis was oral medicine, I was so weak at it. And I just thought, man if that one hasn’t gone right I just hope the ortho side of it, because it was ortho, peds, oral med together, I thought hopefully I’ve aced the ortho and the paediatrics and that’ll cover up what I’ve done, what I’ve messed up on in oral med. And I just stayed in my room, I was too scared. Because it was like, having been through all this, and at any one time at university, because I didn’t know where my next money was coming from, I had no idea, I had five jobs at the same time as full time university.

Payman: And call me a conspiracy theorist yeah, but they like to fail foreign students so that they another year.

Visal: No, not really actually. Not really because of course they like foreign students, but I think at the time when I actually joined, there wasn’t that much of an emphasis, they actually upped I think their intake of foreign students because they saw the money coming in. But for me I wasn’t turning up to college, I got myself into a lot of trouble, I almost didn’t get signed up because I got into a fight at the halls of residence just before the exams and stuff. And so I was in front of the disciplinary committee, and all sorts of stuff that happened. I missed a meeting with the academic registrar for Queen Mary’s. And obviously Queen Mary’s have come just put their stamp on Bart’s in London, I was just like, I don’t care who you are, being quite laddish as far as the university’s concerned, and I went into his office. I said look I’m really sorry, this is the situation, he goes sit down. What happened? So I told him what happened, my version obviously, and he just pulled out this massive thick pile of paper, saying well according to this report, that’s not true.

Visal: So I said you think I’m lying then? He goes, yeah. I said you’ve already made your decision before I’ve walked into your office, tell you what we’re done with this conversation, and I walked out. And as I walked out, and I didn’t know what the academic registrar is, as far as I was concerned the guys at the dental school were my teachers, tutors, heads, whatever bosses, whatever you want to call them. And I slammed his door, his door was made of glass. Smashed.

Payman: Oh bloody hell.

Prav: Oh dear.

Visal: I just kept walking, I just kept walking. And then I went back to the university, I saw one of the tutors who I was quite close to, and was, you never do anything half way do you? When you mess things, you really screw it up. And I was like, yeah I’m sorry. And he goes, look you’ve got to go and tell the secretary of the dental school, everyone was scared of her. Everyone was scared, and I was like, I ain’t telling her, you’re telling her. He was like, I ain’t going anywhere near that, and we had a little [inaudible] on the clinic, and he goes okay let me go and speak to her first, and then we’ll take it from there. But I think they saw what I was going through, the amount of hell that was there, but eventually I wrote 400 letters, I wrote to David Beckham, I wrote to Mike Tyson, I wrote to anyone who had money.

Visal: Even students who were within the university and I just said look man, you seem to be pretty well off, would you mind helping me out? I didn’t care about being embarrassed.

Payman: Do or die.

Visal: This is do or die you know. I’d saved up £500, which is the cost of the ticket back home, and I’d given it to one of my friends, and I said, keep this. He goes, what’s this for? And I said I don’t know when I’m going home, I have no idea, but it could be tomorrow, I don’t know what the university’s going to say. I said I don’t want to phone home and ask my dad for that money, I just can’t be doing that. So it was stress, but do you know what, I had a bloody good time too. I had a really good time.

Payman: So then you qualified, where did you work?

Visal: So I qualified and again, most people were doing their vocational training, which was at the time, I had to pay 25 grand to do it.

Payman: No way.

Visal: So I’ve just come out of university, I’ve paid up all these fees.

Payman: And not earned anything.

Visal: Nothing.

Payman: Blood hell, I didn’t know that.

Visal: Yeah, and I just thought to myself, there’s no way. Now basically what happened, through a person at university, a university contact I found out that this guy [inaudible] in fairly well to do circles, and I talked to him and he goes, tell you what I’ll go and speak to my dad. And he spoke to his dad, his dad spoke to his friends, and turns out that one of his friends was married to someone from the same town as me in Kenya. And he decided to help out and pay my fees. So what happened was, when I actually qualified, the idea was not to actually to go into vocational training, it was to actually go in and join on as an assistant under his number, and then I get grandfather to cross in due course. I only found out that you actually need that VT number when you’re actually registering as a performer, but they grandfathered my across on everything, so when I bought my practise, this is actually when I did my VT equivalences, seven years after qualifying. So I was doing VT equivalence then.

Payman: How funny.

Visal: But yeah, so qualified 110 grand in debt, no place to stay, didn’t know where I was going, and ended up in a practise in Clacton on Sea as an assistant.

Payman: Assistant being, [inaudible 00:33:45]? [crosstalk 00:33:45]-

Visal: You were an associate effectively,

Prav: You didn’t have a-

Payman: Because you don’t have that number.

Visal: Yeah, but my bank accounts were frozen, I was already threatened by HMRC to have a deportation, I’d no work permit, so for six months I couldn’t work, and you had to advertise the job in the papers for there months beforehand, make sure there was no one in the UK who could actually apply for it. So I’m sitting there man, and I’m going to and from Clacton to London working as a medical-

Payman: Did you consider going back to Kenya to be dentist there?

Visal: No.

Payman: Why?

Visal: I’d fought too hard to be here. And it just never … it was just not an option. Sometimes I do think, why didn’t I just do that? Because there’s a lot of dentists that do very, very well out there. Funnily enough my own dentist, he’s done exceptionally well, but-

Payman: You were a man on a mission.

Visal: But yeah, that was it, you had to get there, and I became quite tunnel visioned about it, because I hate the idea of someone saying you can’t do that. Because [inaudible] question in my mind innately that comes up is who are you to tell me that? You haven’t even see me try yet.

Payman: Do you think that’s some sort of reaction to the bullying and all that?

Visal: Absolutely, I think every single experience in life shapes us to a certain extent, I think recognising it is important, you’ve got to recognise where you’ve come from, what you’ve been through, why you are like you are. None of us are perfect-

Payman: Self awareness.

Visal: Absolutely.

Payman: So fast forward to when you bought a practise.

Visal: Yeah so the guy I was working for in Clacton, he decided to sell up, the new guys came on board, they were very business orientated. I was the lead associate so … and I could do anything that I wanted, why? I was doing 17,000 UDAs a year, so that’s just on my own. The average I think is about 6,500 if that, per person.

Payman: Wow, bloody hell.

Visal: So when I actually left, they had to actually replace me with three dentists.

Payman: Were you working ridiculous hours?

Visal: No, basically every single appointment I had was effectively 10 minutes, and then you catch up on the time and make it up somehow. So my days were between 50 and 70 patients a day.

Payman: Bloody hell.

Visal: Every day. And then at the weekends, I’d actually all the nursing homes in Tendring, in the whole of Tendring District Council, I did every single nursing home, 32 of them. Dentures, extractions-

Payman: Visiting?

Visal: Yeah, from one to the next to the next to the next, yeah.

Payman: So then you saved some money by this time so you went to buy a practise?

Visal: Yeah so mum and dad came home obviously for graduation and stuff, and that was really, really nice. That’s when I actually … again it was that second hit of, and wave of the love I’ve got for the university now, because I walked in and remember the Dean of the dental school, in the last six months he said, right Vish, we’re going to give you £150 a month. I looked at him and I said, what? And he goes, well you’re going to tell me what you’re going to use it for. I said oh, I’ve got this to pay for, that to pay for, that to pay for. He goes give me the cheque back. He goes I want to see you in the Student Union every Friday having a couple of drinks at least. That’s what you start off with, whatever’s left you can do what you want with it. And that was lovely. My graduation, I didn’t have the money to pay for it, so the guy who was running the whole graduation thing, he said, we just forgot to charge you. I went in the day after, to actually say to the guys at the accommodation office, that look guys I haven’t got the money, but here’s a self-filled affidavit, I’ll pay it as soon as I’ve got the money.

Visal: No, it’s been comped. And I just thought wow. Mum and dad were here, my friends gave me their credit cards, just spend whatever you want, man, it’s fine, we’re all doing this together, you know. So it was fantastic, it was absolutely brilliant, but when mum and dad came, I took them over to Clacton and said look this is where I’m going to be staying, and funnily enough I was staying with the boss, and I stayed with him for three years, and I just saved. Saved and saved and saved. So within four years I actually paid off the 110 grand, and I bought two houses.

Payman: Paid off all the cousins, and people who-

Visal: I had a ledger, actually and I paid off every … in fact funnily enough one guy, he gave me £80 and I phoned him six years later. I just happened to remember his number of the top of my head, and I phoned him, I said hey buddy how’s it going? He goes, Vish? I goes yeah. He goes how the hell are you man? I say yeah I’m just glad you’ve got the same number, and we had a bit of a catch up and he goes, what’s going on? And I said listen I’ve called you for reason, he goes what? And I said I borrowed £80 of you in 2000, and this is like 2008 or something like that, and I paid him £80 back. So I don’t forget, if someone helps me out, if someone does something for … it doesn’t matter how big or small, that’s not what I’m about, it’s more about the gesture, the thought, and being human.

Prav: I guess the message is from your dad right? That last day?

Payman: Yeah, that’s what I was just thinking, that right now.

Visal: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Payman: So then the Dentality that I saw being built, this state of the art private looking thing, was when you’d moved site.

Visal: Yeah that’s right, so I-

Payman: The previous one wasn’t called Dentality-

Visal: No so it was called Hogs Hall Dental Practise.

Payman: Nearby it, wasn’t it?

Visal: Yeah it was just around the corner sort of thing, it was the usual dental practise setting, estate agent downstairs on one side, funeral directors on the other. Hairdressers behind them, and through a dark deep corridor you go up to the dental practise which just stinks and looks horrible. So I left my associate job because I didn’t like the way things were run. And it was no fault of the guys who took over, they were there to make money, which is fair enough. Some people do it for business, some people do it for the love of dentistry. And I just thought, I’m going to be horrible here, and I’m going to fall out with these guys big time, so before that happens, just go. Because they’d paid their good will, and at the end of the day they don’t need crap off any associate. So I just thought, off I go. And the only practise that I could afford was this one that I bought. I always wanted to be in Hertfordshire. Why, because I’ve got family in East London, Surrey and mum’s family’s all in West London. So I thought nice half way house, I could go and keep in touch with everyone.

Visal: So moved there, when I bought up, and the change in name was very, very personal to me. Because I’ve been through a lot, through university and all the rest of it, spoken to a lot of people who are just … they’re just disgruntled, they’re just unhappy with dentistry, and I think generally that’s the way the feeling is. Dentists are not generally a happy profession. And I just thought, do you know what, I want to change the way people think. And not only patients but your team, and your peers and your colleagues and other dentists, because everyone has something that goes not according to plan at some point in their lives. I said, I just want to change the way they think. And the word mentality came up in my mind-

Payman: Interesting.

Visal: … so I actually just took the M off and put a D on it, and that was it, and that’s how Dentality-

Payman: So when I saw it, it was a triple shop front.

Visal: I remember that conversation.

Payman: Like the biggest shop I’d ever seen, on the high street, and like super modern, and there were people drilling away, people working, and I said to him, wow look at this man, I said you’ve really gone out of your … you’ve gone for it, man. And he goes, have I? I say yeah, yeah, you’ve definitely gone for it. And he goes, ah you know I just thinking I should build it and they’ll come.

Visal: I remember exactly what your words were, actually.

Payman: What were they?

Visal: So Payman actually said to me, he goes, I don’t mean to be … I care, I’m here to help you. I remember you had your six series BMW that you drove into and parked half of the back. And you said, Vish with all due respect, you’ve got a corner shop, you could have just bought a freaking Tesco Extra. What are you doing? And I said, yeah I know it’s big, but there’s a reason for this. And he goes, yeah you but you know that Tesco Extra needs to be stocked, you can’t have an empty Tesco Extra, with newsagents five foot by five foot, right and you just put everything in one place within arm’s reach right? He goes you can’t just have a dedicated corner and this open shop floor for the rest of it.

Payman: But to your credit, how long did it take before you filled it up? It was full, properly fully running within two years or something?

Visal: Yeah so it just, you know what the practise went from strength to strength, and it was all to do with just being open and honest and trustworthy, you know?

Payman: In a small town, good news travels fast.

Visal: So does bad.

Payman: We’ll come to that. Vish tell the story of the receptionist who came for a job, one of my favourite stories, even though I’ve heard it before, I want Prav to hear it.

Visal: So I had a girl came I for interview, and I spoke to her for a little while, and I was just like, realised actually she’s a very, very bright young lady.

Prav: She was interviewing for reception role?

Visal: Yeah, she was interviewing for a reception job, and I said, so what made you drop out of school and decide that you want to start working? And she said, I just wanted to go to university but I’m not sure about it, et cetera, et cetera. And said, well what are you interested in? She said to me, I’m interested in forensic medicine. I said, that’s amazing. Anyway we carried on talking and all the rest of it, and at the end of it I actually said to her, I’m going to be completely open and honest with you, and she goes, what’s that? And I said look, I’m not going to give you the job. And she was like, what? And I said, please hear me out. And I said to her, I said if I gave you the job, which I know that you’re more than perfectly capable to do, every time I say hello to you, or every time I walk past you I’ll feel guilty. She goes why? I said, because you’re better than this, and I don’t denigrate a reception job or anything like that.

Visal: My receptionists are like my … the front of house, they represent me and my brand and my vision, but I said you can’t quit now. You’ve got to go to university. And she goes, what? And I said yeah, I said who have you come with? Who’s brought you for your interview? She goes my mom, so I brought her mum into the surgery, sat her down in my office. First thing I did was I congratulated her, she’s a single mum, she’d done so well to bring up such a lovely, well mannered girl. And just said to mum, look support her and if there’s anything I can do. We’re in the community here at the end of the day, and I said anything I can do. Whatever it is, if she wants to sit down and revise biology, I’ll do that with her, it’s not a problem, but make sure she studies. And about a year later I got an email, and she goes, I don’t know if you remember me, I’m the girl who ended up crying at the interview. I’ve got into forensic medicine. And that was cool, that was really nice.

Prav: Amazing story.

Payman: And did you see yourself in her? That you had these opportunities, and you had people who could have helped you on that journey along the way, and thought this was your time to-

Prav: Give back.

Payman: … give back.

Visal: I don’t ever think honestly speaking, this is without sounding too righteous, I never think about giving back or taking, just give. It doesn’t matter. Time, a lot of people say, I’ve not got enough time, sometimes that is the most important thing that you can give someone. And it always leads back to my dad, I used to go to the shops, all my cousins used to go to the shop, the boy cousins, go and see how your dad earns money. See what he has to go through, to put you through school, this that and the other. And I turn up to the shop, and my dad would send me home. I walked three miles, by the way to get to the shop, and dad would say, off you go. Can the driver drop me? No, he’s busy, so I’d have to walk back. And one day I got really peed off, and my dad said to me, I said to dad, what’s your problem? I’m trying to come in and help you. And he said, you’re not going to do what I’m doing. You’re going to be better than me, not going to happen but … and those sorts of values.

Visal: He believed in me, yeah I am his son, but everyone needs a little bit of a push. A lot of people helped me, one guy helped me with food, I didn’t have money for food, and his son is now a dentist and works in the practise. We’re great friends, his mum came over to the practise. I’ll never forget them, and it doesn’t matter what you do, if someone was there for me. That lady the Jamaican, well she’s from Guyana, she comes to the practise even now. I don’t know if you guys watched the [inaudible] livestream yesterday with the magic trick. Okay, that lady is the one who gave me my first ever job, was in the dental chair. She doesn’t pay. And money is not my driver, it’s not my driver.

Payman: It’s funny you said something that my dad said to me, and it got me a little bit emotional.

Visal: I noticed, sorry.

Payman: Which is, he said to me, son the reason I work so hard, is I don’t want you to do what I do, I don’t want you to suffer, I don’t want you to be a shop keeper, I want you to be better than me.

Visal: You know these sorts of things are things that I think in nowadays, in this world, because of the sacrifices that our parents have made, we generally take for granted, and my friends have got kids, it’s just the norm. [inaudible] get an iPad for Christmas, it’s like … or the right colour of iPhone or whatever it is, and my dad is just, he’s the king man, now Payman you’ve met him.

Payman: He’s a lovely guy, I don’t actually recognise this disciplinarian that you’re talking about, because he seemed like a very sweet, lovely guy to me.

Visal: Yeah, we’ve become really, really good friends and-

Payman: Is he back in Kenya?

Visal: Yeah he’s in Kenya at the moment, yeah, he’s in Kenya. But you know as the years go by, he turned from the disciplinarian to my friend and he used to always introduce me as his brother and all the rest of it. And then it turned round to I’m the guy now that he talks to and stuff. You’re talking the surgery and [inaudible 00:48:10], my dad never had the opportunity to see the old surgery, the only time he came to see the old surgery was when I was opening the new surgery. And they were always nervous, when I bought my first house, I phoned my mum, and mum, guess what. She goes what? I said, is there an echo there? She goes what? Is there an echo? She goes, I can’t hear anything. I was like oh sorry it’s on my side, guess where I am. She goes, where are you son? I was like, I’m standing in the living room of our first house in England. And she was just like over the moon, you know how Indian mums get, oh my son, all that sort of stuff you know?

Visal: And then a week a later, I completed on another house. What I’d done is, I was saving up and I wanted to buy a really nice big house so that all the family could come over, because people mean a lot more to me than anything else, you know. And I thought, split the deposit and just have something there. And the following week, called her up again, and I was like mum, [inaudible] literally, because it was literally a week apart. And I phoned mum again, and I said, mum hi, how you doing? What you up to? And she goes nothing. I said mum, what’s this echo thing, man keeps happening? And she goes, I don’t know, what you talking about? Ah I know what it is mum, guess what? And she goes what? I’m standing in the living room of the second house. And she’s like, did you ask your dad? First thing she said, did you ask you dad? And then a week later I phoned her up again, and I was like hi mom how you doing? And she goes yeah I’ma all right. And I was like mum can you hear echo? And she goes, don’t bloody tell me [crosstalk 00:49:42]. I said no, no mum, you’ve got to hear this one out.

Visal: I’m standing inside my safe deposit box at the bank, there’s an echo here now. There’s no more money left. But it’s all about being together, and it’s the same thing, it’s about, if you have the opportunity to get or help someone along their way to better themselves, not to say they’re bad as a person, but to better themselves in terms of career prospects et cetera, then it means a lot man. When I qualified in my first year, obviously the money situation was really, really dire. My brother actually ended up going to South Africa to study at university, and one of my friends in the year above at university gave me the money for his fees. And he came in, funny enough, end of last year, November, and I do a lot of [inaudible 00:50:30], he goes I just want to learn all this stuff, and I don’t know which one to invest in and all the rest of it. So I said, look come over and stuff, and I told him literally everything, including stuff that people don’t say, like literally you know.

Visal: And he sent me a text that evening saying, Vish, why did you do this because people don’t … and I didn’t only tell him about that, I told him about how exactly I run the business and how I make things turn and all the rest of it. Because no one shares that information, why did you share it with me? And out came the ledger. And from 2003, I took a photo, a screen shot of him, and I said, that’s why. And it said his name with the money that he gave me, and I said, you helped me pay my brother’s fees. I’ll never forget that.

Payman: And so during this whole process, relationships? Women?

Visal: Yeah, came and went. I had a great time at university, I did some really stupid stuff. We all do our laddish things and all the rest of it, and I moved into Clacton, the only brown guy in the town, sort of thing, which was quite a novelty to everyone. But the nice thing was, the majority of the people, because by the time I left Clacton, because I started List Build, because I was sitting on reception during the week, and on Wednesdays I book in patients for myself. And that built up over seven years to over 10,000 patients, everyone knew me. To the point I walked into a nightclub and I just hand the keys to the bouncer, and he drops me home. I order a pizza but I get the pizza delivery guy to come drop me home, pick up chilies and then go back to the pizza place-

Payman: Those little towns are good for that, you had little town mentality from Kenya. Those little towns are good for that sort of thing, man.

Visal: Do you know what, I just recently went back to Clacton, my ex boss passed away in 2018, so I thought, I’ll go back. We didn’t finish on the best of terms but he started me, and that doesn’t matter what happens, that won’t change. And I owe him and I always will. And I went back to Clacton to do [inaudible] cases and stuff, and I thought let me just go and see a few guys and see if they’re around. The guy from the local kebab shop put on a spread that I’ve never ever seen in my life, walked into the local restaurant that I used to go to, the chef came out. This restaurants packed with people, it’s on a Friday night, right? The chef came out, the owners came, we’re all dancing around in the middle of this place where people are waiting to be seated and stuff. Walked into a pub with the guy I used to play golf with, and he’s just like, bloody hell man, the legend returns. And it’s just lovely having stuff like that it’s-

Payman: Proper community.

Visal: Yeah, and you know what, sometimes you’re so embroiled in your own stuff that you don’t actually understand or realise what impact, positive and negative that you can have on people. And the past two years I’ve had to look at that very, very closely.

Payman: Take us through it bud, so Dentality was going super, super well.

Visal: Yeah, it was yeah.

Payman: Tell the story bud, a disaster happened to you.

Visal: So in November, 6th November 2018, everything changed, well actually before that, December 17 I and my wife ended up separating. We’d had quite a rocky relationship throughout, these things happen.

Prav: When did you meet you wife in the whole journey?

Visal: So I actually met her in 2008.

Prav: Which was when in terms of qualifying, buying a practise, what sort of-

Visal: So I qualified in 2003, met her in 2008, bought the practise in 2010. We got married in 2009, so very shortly after all the practise and stuff. So that comes with its own complications obviously, but it is what it is. So yeah we just sort of met, got married very quickly.

Prav: How did you meet?

Visal: Just, well we met in August, is it August, yeah I think it was August, by August, we’d met in August and our parents met in December for the actual engagement ceremony. We got engaged in April, in Kenya, and that uncle I was talking to you about, he was very, very ill. And he was one of my heroes, but I was a bit of a hero for him as well because I’d made it through so he was very, very proud of me. And he said, Vish whatever you need, money, don’t worry about anything, it’ll be fine. And literally about a week before he’d gotten admitted into hospital, and I went to see him, something I’ll always feel sorry for because I just said, man the traffic has taken me six hours to get here. Because I drove from Clacton to the hospital in … called now Mayday hospital in South London in Croydon. And I remember sating that and do you know what, I’ve never ever felt more guilty saying that, every time I think of it it makes me feel guilty. Because that’s the last time I saw him.

Visal: And he promised, he goes Vish, I don’t care what the doctor says I’m coming to your engagement. And he died on the night of my engagement. So in the morning when everyone was ready to go excited for the engagement and stuff. Yeah, I knew what had happened.

Payman: Grief and guilt, grief and guilt always go together well.

Visal: So yeah, so got married in August 2009, and-

Payman: When did it go wrong?

Visal: Before we got married.

Payman: [inaudible 00:55:46].

Visal: Yeah, do you know what, it’s-

Payman: In retrospect you’re saying that, right?

Visal: Absolutely, absolutely, and I think-

Prav: Was that an arranged marriage, or …

Visal: It was an arranged meet, so my mum’s cousin lived in the same town as her parents and yeah basically it was just like [crosstalk] this guy, yeah it was an introduction thing. And I was always very, very focused, I think in fairness to me, to a certain extent I always had my goals set out. And I said, look this is the sort of guy I am, these are my goals, this is where the goal posts stand. And it may seem harsh now, but they’ll never move, so what you see is what you get.

Payman: And those goals were what? Business?

Visal: Just ambition-

Payman: Ambition, relationships.

Visal: Relationships, principles, family values. I’m quite old school, elders, respect. Even now when an elderly patient comes, I’m not going to call them by their first name there’s no two was about it. They get called Mr or Mrs or Sir.

Payman: Sure.

Visal: I’ll always do that, and part of that actually stems from my grandad. A lot of people get asked, when you’re a kid you get asked, if you’d like to meet someone who would you meet? I never chose a celebrity or any of these politicians or … I wanted to meet my grandad. Because every single time he’s been brought up in a conversation, the people that actually say, gentleman, and they actually salute. And he wanted my dad to become a doctor, and he sadly passed away in a car crash. So yeah we went through a lot, even in final year of university I lost my uncle and my auntie, both in a week, they died in a car crash as well. And my cousins were in the car at the back, so we’ve been through a hell of a lot. I know it really still stings my dad whenever he thinks about it, all these years ahead.

Payman: But you were saying about the marriage breakup, the disaster was more than that.

Visal: Yeah, so anyway me and the soon to be ex wife, should I say we split up in December 17, January 17 I almost lost my mum, she went to India for a hip operation and we almost lost her, so I had that going on, and obviously the whole emotional side of it, it slows you down, and fast forward November, and we had an incident at the practise the hygienist was actually working there, wasn’t sterilising instruments between seeing patients.

Payman: How did you first find out about that?

Visal: So it was one of my nurses, she went in to update day list or top up surgery whatever it was, and she just happened … the eyes of these girls man, you just admire them for what they actually do. And just happened to glance in the sink, and the scaler tips didn’t match the number of hand instruments. She just picked it up like that. Out of nowhere, so then she went and told the head nurse, and the head nurse said, right you keep making excuses to go into the surgery, and I’ll keep an eye on the de-con room. And no movement. They went and told the practise manager-

Payman: Why was she not sterilising? Because she was lazy? What-

Visal: She’s in a better place to answer than I am, mate.

Payman: Yeah but what do you think? You have no idea?

Prav: You pulled her in or [crosstalk 00:58:57].

Visal: What actually happened was, they went and told the practise manager, so the practise manager went in there and she was, oh yeah I’m sorry it won’t happen again, I’ve just been rushed all morning, blah blah blah, and she brushed it under the carpet. My practise manager wasn’t a clinical background person, she had no nursing degree or anything like that. So she just left it, and she went back to the head nurse, because they were all saying what did you say, what did she say blah blah blah. A little bit of banter around and chit chat. And my head nurse said, you’ve got to tell Vish. I don’t expect anything less than 110% in my practise, which makes it very hard to work for me, or with me. And my practise manager’s very words were, he will murder her, I’m not saying anything to him right now. Keep an eye on for the rest of the day, I’ll talk to him this evening, I’ve got a meeting with him this evening. And I remember 6.30 in the evening, I’m standing outside having a cigarette, and my practise manager came up to me, and she said, I’ve got to talk to you.

Visal: And I said, what you leaving? Ha. And she told me. And that … the only way I can liken it to is if any of you’ve watched the Lion King, you know when there’s that stampede and Simba [inaudible] just go whoa. And that happened, and I was just like, holy shit. What do I do? And I was straight on the phone to a few people I knew, what do I do? And I was getting mixed messages. Don’t follow it through. And others were like you’ve got to report it. I knew what I was going to do anyway but I didn’t know how to go about doing it. Bottom line is it goes back to what my dad said, don’t ever break anyone’s trust. And the patients is all I could think, they’d seen me come into Hoddesden not knowing a single soul in the town, slowly, slowly building my reputation up, they were referring their friends, their families, their kids. Everything was coming together. When I started off, the practise had 1400 patients.

Payman: But you pulled her up on it?

Visal: So I pulled her up on it.

Payman: What did she say?

Visal: I’m sorry, that was it.

Prav: Did this date back to … did she try and say it was just one off, or …

Visal: So I asked her that, but the thing was we had CCTV in the hygiene surgery. The day she got caught she was working in another room, and just all hell broke loose. I reported it to the GDC, I spoke to someone at the GDC and they basically said you’ve got to report it through the website. I said where? And they go oh where the illegal practise section is. I goes like that’s for tooth whitening, and they go yeah report it through there. I said okay, so I sent it off, got an acknowledgment, reported it to NHS England, NHS England got Public Health England involved, CQC got involved, obviously the Indemnity Organisations got involved, the BDA got involved. Ultimately the papers and the press and everyone got involved, now there’s lawyers involved. And I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. Do you know what, it actually … with what’s actually happening, because nothing’s sorted out yet, but it actually brings in the huge question, what the regulatory bodies surrounding our profession are actually doing.

Payman: And the awful thing is that you did the right thing, and doing the right thing destroyed your life.

Visal: Yeah.

Payman: If you’d brushed it under the carpet, and just slap on the back of the hand, and don’t do it again.

Prav: Could have destroyed his life.

Visal: You know what, one particular person actually said to me, nothing’s going to come of it, here’s the statistics, gave me some papers on it and all the rest of it. And I was like, but that’s still betraying trust, and if I let her get away with it this time, she’s going to do something else, there’s going to be another short cut, and eventually there’s only so many short cuts you can make before you actually genuinely hurt someone. I can’t have that on my conscience.

Payman: So what happened to your patients? What happened?

Visal: All hell broke loose.

Payman: Go on.

Visal: 563 patients were written to. And they were offered blood tests for blood born viruses.

Payman: Wow.

Visal: So Facebook … we were in the papers in China, we were everywhere, literally blasted over the entire media, social … you name it, and everyone knew.

Prav: News travels fast in a small place.

Visal: Exactly what we said earlier on. But it wasn’t even a small place, even within the dental community. I had loads of mixed things being said. Some of my associates they got told, I wouldn’t stay anywhere near that man, move. Don’t be affiliated with that. And do you know what, hands off to the associates, solid.

Payman: But the backlash then, the patients started blaming you.

Visal: Yeah.

Payman: Because at the end of the day it’s the practise, you can’t say it was her. Or how did it work?

Visal: What actually happened was one of the patients who attended the practise, attended to see the hygienist through direct access. Happens to be a lawyer who owns his own medical negligence law firm. So he jumped on the bandwagon. How the details got leaked out, and how these lawyers got their hands on it is beyond me, because currently we’ve got 30, 35 lawsuits. It’s gone all the way round, so basically what happened was, the lawsuits came in, the hygienist got her indemnity organisation, the indemnity organisation said they won’t support her, so then she did the right thing, I thought and got a firm of solicitors who generally deals with these cases for the indemnity organisation. And just literally last week, everything … the patients there, I don’t know exactly what’s been said, but those lawsuits are now coming directly at me.

Payman: When they tested these 565 did they find anyone had been-

Visal: No.

Payman: So then the lawsuit, doesn’t someone have to be damaged in order for a lawsuit to stick.

Visal: I think the biggest thing for me was to actually try and reassure people. It was very difficult to do that, I had people coming in, screaming down the surgery, walking into my room, following me through the back doors, and just literally just barging into the … it was horrible. I lost staff as a result of it as well. But it was the barrage of paperwork, I had to provide a serious incident report, then a 72 hour report, then a root cause analysis. I did six weeks, because I had only six weeks’ worth of CCTV, so I’d already preemptively been through it, I went through every single patient record card, and no one was allowed to do it, I was doing it. I went through every single one, and this that and the other. We had one patient who was HIV positive, who we know, who’d told us. But we’d actually offered him to have appointments either at the end of the session before lunch, or at the end of the session in the afternoon, just so that we can take that little bit of extra time, clean everything down. I got accused of being discriminatory. Every single time I said anything, the CCTV in the hygiene room, oh you’re going against GDPR. And there were just constant fights about it.

Visal: I even asked to put a letter to the patients from the practise, because NHS England and Public Health England jumped onto it, and asked to put a letter in, and two days before they send me the proof and they’ve taken out my letter.

Payman: It’s like a chain reaction.

Visal: Wat are you guys doing? And they said, well we’ve spoken to our legal team, they don’t think it’s a good idea that your letter should go out in the same envelope. And I said so you’re going to post this out without my letter in it? And they go yeah, but you’ve still got the opportunity, you’ve got a couple of days, so you can post your own letter out. And was like, all right let’s get shirty now. If I threaten legal action … it wasn’t a nice time, and people who are in the regulatory profession who are actually collecting a salary should really, really look at themselves, and stop being a jobs worth. Honestly and I mean that. If that person listens to it, I hope they’re listening to it because the way they dealt with it was absolutely wrong.

Payman: And in that profession, I’ve treated lots of medical negligence lawyers, because I used to work next to a law firm, their whole thing is that you’re taking it personally. Don’t take it personally. In our world we’ve just been through the struggle to get to this point, personally it’s like 81 people supported this project in the end. So of course we’re going to take it seriously.

Visal: That’s what the BDA told me. Don’t get me wrong, the BDA were fantastic. They really did come in, but the crux of the matter is, this is the situation, take it on the chin, today’s news, tomorrow’s fish and chip shop paper. Take the hit. And I just thought, really?

Prav: And during all this, were you going through the divorce at that time?

Visal: Yeah, still going on, yeah. Still all going on.

Prav: So you had that at the same time.

Visal: Mum falling ill, almost dying. My dad, my brother. My brother had twins as well. He’d moved to America, he wasn’t allowed because he lived in South Africa, he had one of the typical robbery stories and moved overnight. So he couldn’t work. Then they were looking for a house because he was living with his sister in law, so I helped him with the mortgage payments just to get him on his feet until he started working and stuff. That’s my job, I’m big brother.

Prav: Where’s the practise now? What’s the state of play? Are you still open, are you still trading, or …

Visal: Yeah we’re still open-

Prav: But the damage.

Visal: Do you know what Prav, honestly it’s been hard, it’s been hard. If one thing comes out of this, we’ve heard over the years so many colleagues have been in horrible, horrible circumstances. And a lot of the youngsters they’re so passionate but one thing will happen and they’ll just completely break them, and we can’t let that happen.

Visal: And it is just one of these things. In fact you’ve triggered a memory. I used to pray, I don’t play anymore, I used to pray every day, and I never asked for anything as such.

Prav: Why did you pray? And who did you pray to?

Visal: So god? When I left home my dad gave me a little photo of one of the gods, and I still have it.

Prav: Same one yeah?

Visal: Same one, in fact funny enough the last time he was here I reframed it, and everything else. I’ve got that, and there’s like three tiers to my little temple at home. Obviously god’s at the top, my grandad’s on it, and so are mum and dad because they’re my world. And every day I pray for the same thing, every single day, and that was, there’s a lot of problems in this world and you’ve put me through experiences that’s made me thick skinned so I know I can take some, I know I’m resilient. So if you’re going to give a problem to someone, that’s going to push them over the edge, don’t, give it to me. In return just give me the strength, but as a compromise you’ve got to look after my family, because I’m not near them. I think that prayer was answered pretty damn well.

Prav: So you stopped praying.

Visal: Well sometimes-

Prav: Did you lose religion? Is that what you’re saying? Are you religious?

Payman: Well to some extent right?

Visal: Well not exactly because-

Prav: No but you used to pray then you stopped praying-

Visal: It’s not about religion, it’s more about discipline, it’s more about respect, it’s more about-

Prav: Why don’t you pray any more then?

Visal: I’ve got nothing to ask for mate. I’ve got no expectations. Everything I’ve done in my life to date I have fought tooth and nail for, and sometimes I’ve paid the ultimate sacrifices for it. Ultimately in my eyes, nothing’s ever been easy. All my mates say, nothing’s easy for you Vish, everything single time you do something it’s just hard way round. It’s always, always something else, and no it’s all right, I don’t want anything [crosstalk] work for it.

Payman: I’ve been through one legal process and it almost broke me, one, and your strength to handle 35 at once. I only-

Visal: That’s plus the divorce lawyers-

Payman: Yeah, yeah. Last year we moved house, and I threw away the paperwork from this legal thing that I was in. And that one thing was a huge box of papers, that had to be read and all of that pain, but it makes me think that you were prepared, made ready for this challenge by your previous …

Visal: I think everything does come to a head sometimes, and I’m not saying that I’m the strongest guy, and look at me, superman, ha ha. No not at all, I’ve got huge kryptonite, my personality, I’m so driven, so focused that I often forget about how other people feel, my staff. The amount of crap they put up with.

Payman: One thing I remember about you is, I’m one of these late night guys, Prav wakes up at 4 am, we laugh about it. I kind of go to bed a 3 am-

Visal: Yeah, I do both.

Payman: Bit like Drew. But you used to call me at one in the morning, talking about work, and I used think, oh isn’t there someone else awake at this time of night.

Visal: That hasn’t changed, not changed for 20 years, maybe more.

Payman: Focused.

Visal: You’ve got to do it, I’m comfortable, I haven’t made an empire or anything like that, but you know what, whatever it is, it’s mine, well half of it.

Payman: Vis you’re handling it yeah, but this amount of stress, this amount, it’s a lot of stress man. This amount of stress is going to hit you somewhere, and so be careful of that. The not sleep and stress together, that’s a big combination.

Visal: Do you know what, Payman it’s a very simple rule I follow. Give it all you got.

Payman: I can see that.

Visal: Because at the end of the day, when it comes to … forget judgement day, forget a higher power asking you. The first person’s going to ask you is you. What did I do? And if you have, yeah but I did this, but … because of this I couldn’t … you’re making excuses-

Prav: Kidding yourself.

Visal: … and no one really cares, no one cares. If I said to you, oh Payman I’m really tired I’m sorry I missed today, can we organise another time? You’re like, yeah don’t worry about it. And then you think well, I’ve allocated time for him I’m not going to do it again. That’s my fault. So if you commit, you’ve got to do it. I told you about what I’ve done in the last 24 hours, so for me no, every single little thing resonates back to my dad.

Prav: So when you hit rock bottom, when you were in that hole, and I’ve been there a few times, be it through health, or relationships, whatever that is, we all have our way of coping with it. Right and I struggle to believe that when you are really deep down in that hole you just say, hey I’m strong, I’m just going to be superstrong and be true to myself. Ever have any doubts? Do you ever start talking yourself out of things, or …

Visal: I think we all talk ourselves out of everything all the time, just to-

Prav: Or think, what the hell is this all about?

Visal: Yeah.

Prav: What am I doing?

Visal: But the thing is, if you actually analyse it, it’s a way that we as humans just break it down into small sizeable chunks.

Prav: Is that what you do? Analyse it?

Visal: No, because I don’t get a breather, I honestly I don’t get a breather. Last time I had a holiday was July 2018 and I’ve worked seven days a week since.

Payman: Seven days a week.

Visal: Seven days a week since. I’ve got my divorce coming up, I’ve got to do a massive payout, that’s the law of the land, that’s the way things go. I’ve got to afford it.

Prav: Sure.

Visal: Or I’ve got to be able to be in a capacity where I can actually be lendable. So that’s a big worry, and I constantly … I did used to ask myself, why me? Why me? I’ve never ever done anything wrong to anyone, I’ve never stolen off anyone, I’ve never … yeah I can be a bit of an arse sometimes, I can be a real piece of work at times, but you generally do that with the people that you’re closest to, because-

Prav: So true.

Visal: … you’re hoping that they’re going to understand who you are, because they know who you are. But in fairness to my ex, she may have had enough too, and you can’t knock anyone for that. There’s a lot of stigma, especially in the Asian communities that still hangs about with the idea of divorce, but she said something to me which was, it’s a failed relationship, nothing else. And there’s a lot of things I have and there’s lot of deceit and contempt that I have but the bottom line is that that’s going to come to anything. It’s not going to help anyone. A lot of people said, oh watch you know, you’re such a nice guy, she’s … I was like, I don’t want her to suffer. Don’t talk about stuff like that, just make sure I don’t suffer, in whatever shape way or form. But the last two years have taught me a lot of things, it’s taught me about who my real friends are, and people I thought were my friends were actually not. Quite a few examples. But [inaudible 01:16:29]-

Payman: Give us an example, don’t say who it is, but an example of what’s happened that made you think that. Or the other side, so what happened that made you think someone really is your …

Visal: I had a friend who’s just about an acquaintance, maybe at bit more, and phoned me up and said, Vish I’ve just sold my flat, and I’ve got an extra 10 grand, do you need it? And I was like, wow! I’ve got another friend of mine at university who honestly I’m really proud to say he’s my friend, because we hardly ever talk. Once every three to six months, and he phoned me up and he said, I’ve just sold my practises for an absolute frigging fortune, how much do you need? And I said, what do you mean? He goes, whatever you want. You can have whatever you want. I was like, what? He goes, I mean it, whatever you want you can have.

Payman: Amazing.

Visal: There’s always a way, there’s always, always a way, you’ve just got to see it. And when you’re down, Prav, like what you were saying, it’s okay. Take that time, because you need it, but no one’s going to judge you for … and even if they do, they’re not really your friends, they’re not the sort of people who matter. I mean in conferences a couple of years go, I’m standing there and someone behind me says, you see that guy, he’s down and out. You know what, phoenixes do rise, and they only rise from ashes. So everything around me can burn down, but I’m here to stay for as long-

Payman: Yeah, I tell you what bud, you know they say that thing, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, but yes, but also if anyone’s going to get out of this, and be victorious at the end of it, you will. Because you’ve got some drive man.

Visal: Yeah well the victory, it’s not about victory Payman, it’s if I can actually just help a few people along, just people who are actually feeling a bit down, say do you know what yeah, let’s do it. Brilliant, brilliant, that’s the sort of thing my dad did, and you’ve got to be able to do that for people. And I don’t know, I’ve had people come up to me and say, wow [inaudible] posts on Facebook and this that and the other, and I’m just like, I’m just a regular guy man, I’m not anything special at all. I happened to fluke one or two composites or a few crowns or whatever it is. But I’ve worked as well, I have worked hard, I’ve put in the hours. I was never naturally artistic for anyone who knows and see me, I’m just like a bit gorilla sort of thing. You don’t get very many arty gorillas, but you know what, one thing I’ve got, and that is buckets is love for people. And love just for the idea of being a human being.

Visal: It doesn’t matter what you have, I don’t care. Are you hungry? I’m hungry, let’s eat, simple, doesn’t matter where you’re from. We’re both hungry, we’ve got something in common, get on with it.

Prav: What’s next?

Visal: What’s next?

Prav: Get divorce over, the whole lawsuit thing disappears.

Visal: Do you know what Prav, I’ve realised that my love for dentistry is so deep, my love to actually … it’s almost like to prove to myself, there’s things that you see, a lot of people slag off Facebook and say, this has become the university of Facebook and people are saying stuff without even noticing, or people are posting stuff without even noticing. But that was one of my biggest teachers, because it would be the big guys who are actually saying stuff, or wouldn’t bother or whatever it is. There’s some people who are haters, and have their own little digs and stuff.

Payman: There’s massive down sides, but there is massive upsides too man.

Visal: Do you know what, it is honestly … that made me up my game. And the courses I go on and all this sort of stuff, there are a lot of inspirational people out there. And funny enough, I actually got told about the podcast through someone else, before you told me about it. And the amount of people who listen to it and stuff, and I think that you guys are doing is absolutely fantastic, because this is not just about enlighten or what you’re doing or anyone else is doing. This is actually about bringing community together, and a lot of people talk about it, very few do. So I’ve got a lot of respect for you guys, when you said me come to this. I was like, why? I’m nobody, you know? This is Dental Leader’s podcast, I’d like to be a leader, and I’d like to be a good leader. I think I’ve got a long, long way to go. I’ve got to work a lot on myself, in terms of what next as a person, in terms of actually being a little bit more aware of how I actually influence the interactions that I have with people.

Visal: Because if you actually genuinely want to help people, you’ve got to have a pretty good idea of what you’re like yourself, and there’s no ifs and buts. You can’t have any excuses, so you’ve got to work a lot on yourself. So that’s the first thing, which I’ve been doing anyway.

Prav: What do you mean by working on yourself?

Visal: Just little, little things, little lessons every day. Just I had on my phone as my screen saver for a long time, was if you constantly compete with others you become bitter, but if you compete with yourself you become better. I think it’s beautiful, beautiful saying. And you’ve just got to find inspiration. No matter what it is that you want to do, find some sort of inspiration, someone to push you. And it doesn’t have to be someone who’s better at you than doing something. To someone just say, go do it man, come on, let’s go.

Payman: I love that out of adversity you’ve come out there with this beautiful things like you’re saying now. Anyone else could have been bitter about what’s happened, and I would be absolutely understanding of it if they were.

Visal: Who does it affect ultimately though?

Payman: Oh I get it, dude I get it. But you’re a very, very special person, that’s why we asked you on the show.

Visal: I don’t think so, I think I’m quite regular.

Payman: [inaudible 01:22:26].

Visal: But thank you.

Prav: I think I know the answer to this question already. So we ask everyone this, and you’ve listened to the podcast, and if it was your last day on the planet, what advice would you leave the world or your loved ones with?

Visal: Be who you are, get to where you want to get to because you want it. And don’t let anything stop you. Because anyone who says you can’t do it, is another human being, they ain’t perfect either. Give it your best shot, if you fail, you know what? You did what you could, and there’s a little bit of self respect and dignity and humility in that. You just sit there saying oh so and so said I didn’t do it, you’ve lost me already. Just change the way you think, and just stay strong, things will come. Everyone has a bad day, everyone has their own kryptonite, and everyone’s is different. What may be kryptonite for you may not be anything for me. But keep going, we’re a great profession, we’ve got people like you guys here, there are people out there who inspire so many. So yeah, just keep going, be the best that you can be. Whether you live once, or you reincarnate, it doesn’t matter what your religious belief is. Get better every day.

Prav: Beautiful man.

Payman: Thank you, thank you so much.

Prav: Thank you so much, thanks for sharing that today.

Visal: Thank you.

Speaker 2: 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.

Prav: Thank you for tuning in guys to the Dental Leaders podcast. I’ve just got a little request to make, if you’ve got a suggestion of somebody else who we should be interviewing, or somebody who’s got a really strong story, powerful story to share with us, please send us a message and help us connect with that individual so we can bring their story to the surface.

Payman: Thank you so much for taking the time guys, if you got some value out of it, think about sharing it with your friends, and subscribing to the channel. Thank you guys.

Prav: Don’t forget that six star review.

Sofina: We’re so busy with our lives sometimes that we don’t sit there and take some time out and think okay, that person needs them, but I haven’t got time to deal with that. It’s like, no, what is the point in being successful and being where you are if you can’t even do that as a human, like, take some time out for someone else?

Voiceover: 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.

Payman: It’s a real pleasure to have Sofina Ahmed on the podcast. Hi, Sofina. How you doing?

Sofina: Hi. Hi. How are you doing, guys? Hi, Payman. Hi, Prav.

Prav: Hey, Sofina.

Payman: So, Sofina, we met, what was it, three years ago?

Sofina: Yeah. So-

Payman: Something like that.

Sofina: I met you just when I opened the first clinic that I’d set up.

Payman: Yeah.

Sofina: So you were one of the first people to come to the clinic, I think. So-

Payman: And a very cool clinic it was too, but very interesting clinic and it was a nighttime only practise at the time.

Sofina: Yeah.

Payman: And then fast forward three years, I see you on one of the dental groups talking about your four practises in Yorkshire.

Sofina: Yeah.

Payman: And I was like, “What? I thought you were in Birmingham.” And then it became 12 practises, so it’s a lovely story. And really willing to get into your background, first of all. Where did you grow up? When did you become a dentist? Where did you become a dentist? That sort of thing.

Sofina: Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, I became a dentist in Birmingham, so I qualified in Birmingham, went to university in Birmingham, was born in Birmingham, lived in Birmingham my whole life. So that part is probably very standard, but obviously what I’ve done is very out of the box and out of the norm and I think that comes a lot from my parents’ past and where I’ve come from, where they’ve come from. And I think that probably is more to do with where I am now is more to do with that backstory than my own backstory as such, and I think that is a big part of where I am right now, my parents’ journeys and where they’ve come from.

Payman: Well, tell us about that.

Sofina: Yeah. So it was my grandad actually who came to England, so he came to England in the 1950s and ’60s. And he was a West Midlands bus driver, so he was a bus driver, he started off as a bus driver. And he was in the country to, as immigrants did back in the day, they’d come in without a family, work, send money back home and try and forge a path and a way for their family. And I think in those days, it was a lot of young boys were sent to different countries to set up and set their roots and that’s kind of what happened with my grandad. From there, it was basically my dad who … He went back to Pakistan, got married and then they had my dad. And this part of the story, I think, is a little bit sad and a bit confusing for me and especially us with our modern heads, we don’t understand this part.

Sofina: But when my dad was born, he was born in Pakistan and then he was, at the age of four, put into a boarding school for until he was about seven, while my grandad was still in England. And he was in a boarding school in Pakistan and he didn’t really have much. He was kind of left there, if you like. And my grandma came to England as well, so my dad was kind of left there for quite a few years. And then when he did eventually come to England, he was seven years old. He was there in England and he was here for a number of years and he was very much … He was the eldest in the family in terms of the brothers and he was kind of left a lot. So my grandad would go back to Pakistan and my dad was left here a lot. And when he was about 15, 16, went to school here and didn’t do very well and he was just trying … And he got left by himself again at the age of 15 as … Again, alone, here in the country while my grandma, my grandad and all the kids went back to Pakistan.

Sofina: So he was left and he had to fend for himself, so he had to fend for himself. So the way he did it was he used to … He was going to college and school and during the week, he had a briefcase, he used to go around, door to door sales, and he used to sell door to door. And when I speak to my dad now, he goes that’s where he learnt the most skills was those door to door sales, those early years when he was a teenager. And during the weekend, he used to wash dishes in restaurants. And when he was left, one of the things that he did have was a Greek family that really took him in and they were like his extended family, and those are still his closest friends now, he’s still very much in touch with that family. And they had a fish and chip shop and he really learnt a lot of business skills from them. So, my dad really forged himself and forged his own path. And he didn’t do well at school, he didn’t study and he didn’t do well and obviously had a lot going on.

Sofina: But he learnt those life skills, he learnt negotiating sales and all those business skills himself and he forged his own path. And I, being, basically, my dad’s daughter, picked up a lot of my dad’s business skills and I think that’s where I’ve kind of got to where I am. I mean, he used to do things like, even when he was 12, 13, he was … Where they lived was near Birmingham City football ground and he’d go and you had the fans and they’d come and drop their cars and they’ll say, “We’ll look after your cars. Pay us.” And so they’d pay him money and he’d … So he’d have all these little entrepreneurial business skills that he used to do and he used to … He really made himself. He worked himself as a postman and he just had that drive that he wanted to do more, and the big break for him was video shops.

Sofina: So he saw an advert for a video shop … Sorry, a shop to let and he was like, “Yeah, I’m going to take this out.” So he went up to the landlord and he said, “I want to take this agreement.” And they were like, “Well, what are you going to turn it into?” And he had no idea at the time, he was just like, “Oh, I don’t really know.” He liked to rent out VHS’s, so he said, “I’ll turn it into a video shop,” and that was his big break. And he took £500 loan from the bank, set up this shop and stocked it up and it took off and that was really where he took off from. He ended up growing that business and having a chain of video shops and really went from there. I mean, my dad was Del Boy, so I’m literally Del Boy’s daughter. He was such a wheeler dealer.

Sofina: And it’s really funny because we’re massive fans of Only Fools and Horses and we literally … There are scenes in Only Fools and Horses that are literally our lives, they’re literally … I watch it, I’m like, “Oh, my god, dad, you used to do that.” At the time, he didn’t really acknowledge it when we were growing up and sniggering about it, but now my dad’s older, he’ll go, “You know what? I used to do that. I used to have a council flat full of a café that had closed down and all the bits from there, and LPs, and all those things,” and think he’d sell them. Our house was always full of those kind of things and he really … Rags to riches kind of story and he really learnt. There’s a place of it’s quite sad that he was left, et cetera, and this and that, but when we do discuss it, when I talk to my dad, I’m like, “That’s life skills that you learnt and because of you learning those skills, you passed them onto me.” And it shaped who he was and, as a consequence, it shaped who I was.

Sofina: So, I was always really into business and I always really wanted to do something and wanted to do something different. So when I wanted to set up, it had to be different, it had to be. And I was working as an associate for quite a while before I decided you know what? I want to go down, I want to try, give it a go, but I knew it had to be different.

Prav: Sofina, growing up, a lot of those stories resonate with me, my dad and what we went through. So I grew up in a corner shop, my dad was driving taxis. On the weekend, I’d be cleaning the taxis, et cetera, et cetera. Were you engrossed in the video shops? Were you heavily exposed to all of that? Were you sort of working for him-

Sofina: Yeah, absolutely.

Prav: Whilst you were growing up?

Sofina: Definitely, much more than my siblings. I used to work a lot with my dad. So in the summer holidays, I’d spend the three months with my dad at his shop and I’d be there going, “Dad, you could do this so much better. Why don’t you do this? And why don’t you do that?” And I’d give him so many … Try and push those ideas out there and I’d want to grow my dad’s business, and there was so many ideas I’d want to bring to the table, I’d be like, “Oh, Dad …” And he’s an ideas man anyway, so he had loads of his own ideas. And there were so many things, like, “Oh, we could make this so much better, Dad.” And I loved that and I really had a buzz and out of all the siblings, I was really into that. I always said that I would go into some form of business, so I always had that business mind-

Payman: Was the business still around when digital took over and messed it up?

Sofina: See, this is the thing, this is where I think my dad is kind of like a genius in business. What he does do is gets out of the right things at the right time, and I think that is really clever thing to do. It’s not just being there on the up, but knowing okay, this ship’s about to sink, so we need to jump. So I think it was before, even in the ’80s, I think he started selling when he realised okay, things are dipping. And my dad puts it like the water will just kind of start coming, seeping in before he jumps ship, so he knew when to cut. And I think that is a really good business skill, to know when to cut your losses and to know when to cut out because I think that was really what he did, that was really key to him staying successful was the fact that when the video shop started going down, he knew okay, moving on. There was no clinging on or anything like that, he’d just cut and jump and went onto the next thing and I think that’s really important to do.

Sofina: And I think when I see other people who have made mistakes in business, I think a lot it I see is people not letting go at the right time or throwing good money after bad money. When things are going wrong, they just throw more money at something and it is literally throwing good money after bad money, and those kind of things that I’ve learnt. And when I did set up, it was a massive risk and a lot of people did say to me, “This is not going to work. This is not going to work.” And instead of going right, yeah, in my head, it’s going to work, that’s it, I was very risk-averse, I was like okay, yeah, there is a chance this can’t work, I might be completely clouded in my judgement and in my idea that I might not see the risk.

Sofina: So I planned for, I had contingencies there for it to not work and I had it fully planned for it to not work. And there was a lot I put in place for it to not work. So I set it up as a three surgery, but I didn’t get out the three surgeries. The wiring was there, the plumbing was there, but it was like right, I’m not going to put any of the extra equipment or materials in there until the first one’s made enough money for the second chair-

Payman: Sofina, go through the idea. Go through the idea because people may not know or understand the idea and why was it that it was nighttime?

Sofina: So it was a couple of different factors. I mean, one of the key factors at the time was the fact I had … This was quite … I was into my career and me and my husband were both working nine to five, nine to six and I had a young daughter at the time. And we literally were putting her in nursery all day and she was only just less than two and it was heartbreaking, it was heartbreaking that she was in nursery, we’re working full day, we’ll come back at six o’clock and I was just thinking there must be a better way. And the thing with business is you can control things a lot more, so I was just like, there must be a better way. So I wanted to do something that suits me. I’m extremely nocturnal, I’m so nocturnal anyway, my brain is so much sharper at nighttime, I don’t know why, but it must be an innate thing. But I’m very nocturnal, I’m sharper at nighttime. I just thought it works out so much better.

Sofina: And there was loads of other factors, like the fact that this is a property that was actually my dad’s property. But I was obviously going to rent it out and I could’ve rented it out off someone else, but I thought if I’m going to invest £200,000 of our savings, our life savings into a business, I don’t want to invest into a property that I’m renting and then it flops and then that money’s gone, at least I’m investing in my dad’s property. And it was a warehouse that I had to turn around, so it was a complete squat. So I had that property and that property has no parking during the day, so I thought okay, there’s an issue there. I’m such a problem-solver, I love solving problems, so I was like right, that’s an issue, there’s nowhere to park. We work during the day, I’ve got a kid, at least this way, he works … We can tag-team, he works during the day, I’m at home with the kid, he comes home from work, and then I go off to work. It just worked out very good for us and our personal circumstances. And there was all the other things of that, like it’s a niche market, not many people do it, it suits us, got the parking issue sorted and it was just like a multiple-

Payman: What time were you opening?

Sofina: Tick, tick, tick, that this is … So it was 6:00PM to 12:00AM, so it was full on evening. So it was literally like okay, so you’re going to come home and then I’m going to go off to work. And that way, it really did suit us and it was great. Thing is, we were talking about this the other day, that I don’t actually do that much clinical, but I love clinical. I really love clinical. I do love clinical dentistry. I do love my job actually. And it is something that I really enjoyed working there myself as well, so it is really good. And like I said, it suits me because I’m so nocturnal, so it fitted in really well with all that. But yeah, no, it went really well and it did take off for us and, obviously, there was a few things that I did to help that and-

Payman: What did you do?

Sofina: So it was marketing, SEO, advertising, word of mouth. And one of the key things that I do, which is probably different to others, is I don’t really … I know I could charge more for the fact that it’s in the evening and there’s no-one else open, but for me, I have a very ethical side to what I do and it’s very important for me to be an ethical businesswoman. And that’s one thing I really want to promote, the fact that you don’t have to … When you do business, you don’t have to screw people over or cheat people, you can do it in a very ethical … And that’s something I definitely learnt from my dad.

Sofina: My dad was so ethical, he never ever cheated anyone and he did business in a way that was very honest and that was very important to me as well. And a big factor for why I did what I did was because there was very little provision for people out of hours, there was very little provision for people out of hours. And by skyrocketing prices and I could’ve seen less people and made more money from less people, it was very important for me to see more people and charge less. And that was-

Payman: Sofina, I hear you, I hear you, but that’s not a question of ethics. I understand what you’re saying, but the price you charge is the price you charge for your service-

Sofina: No, but if-

Payman: That’s positioning.

Sofina: Yeah, but my drive is accessibility and having more access and-

Payman: But that’s not an ethical question, that’s a positioning-

Sofina: Yeah, no, it’s not … Yeah, absolutely. And thing is, this is what it is, it’s like-

Payman: But I get it. I get it. I get it. There’s some profiteering when someone’s in pain at night, you could, you could charge a hell of a lot more.

Sofina: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Payman: I do get that.

Sofina: But yeah, no, it’s not to say anyone who doesn’t do that is unethical, absolutely not. There’s a whole package involved. But that was the way I did it. And that was, I think, a good success factor because I would get a lot of repeat customers because of that and I would get people coming back and that was … Whereas there were dentists that I had who worked for me who were like, “Oh, we can charge so much more,” and it was like yeah, but then you won’t get people coming back to you. They’ll come and they’ll-

Payman: And I think what really interested me was you used to blow their socks at 11:00PM with customer service knowing that then they would come back eventually and be real patients-

Sofina: Absolutely.

Payman: Rather than just emergency patients.

Sofina: Absolutely.

Payman: A really interesting-

Sofina: Yeah, that’s what it is. I mean, I sit there and I’m chatting … And I had a consultation room. The way I’ve set it up is there’s a consultation room and before you’ve even gone into the dentist chair, you sit there and you chat to the patient for half an hour and that is really important to me. You sit there, you create that, forge that relationship and then patients … They completely … And there’s nothing like helping patients in pain. I mean, I used to do a lot of Invisalign, I started Invisalign back in 2008 and I went down the cosmetic route and I love that side of dentistry as well.

Sofina: But the reward you get from taking someone out of dental pain is just so satisfying and the patients were so grateful. Taking people out of pain is such a satisfying thing to do and I really love that. I really love that about urgent care and I really love about emergency dentistry, the satisfaction that you get from taking people out … Getting the gratitude that they have for you to do that is just … It’s really satisfying and that is a big factor, you have to feel good about what you do, I think.

Prav: And was that the main emphasis of what you opened up for? Was it mainly to treat emergency patients-

Sofina: Yeah.

Prav: Or was it more cosmetic and emergency? What was the idea?

Sofina: It definitely was more emergency care and then building our client list, but what is really important for me is because we do have people referring to us, but I’m not … We are very much … We take people’s patients and we look after their patients and we try and do our best at looking after someone’s patients and returning them back to them. So it’s not about competing as much and it’s not about trying to be better than others, but there is an element of taking on someone’s patients and looking after them, making sure that they’re looked after and return back, and we do encourage patients to go back to their clinics. And especially when the other clinics open and they are urgent care and we don’t actually take on any follow-ups, so they are … We literally do look after other people’s patients and they do go back.

Prav: As a patient walking into your practise, I’m in pain, I walk in, is Invisalign on the menu? Is cosmetic dentistry on the menu? Is there any point of sales literature for me to access that type of private cosmetic, or are you there to serve as a function to get people out of pain and send them back to their own dentists?

Sofina: See, now I don’t have just the one clinic, I have, like, 13 clinics now and they all do completely different things.

Prav: Okay.

Sofina: So, many of them are actually NHS urgent cares and we absolutely don’t do any private in them at all, so it depends on the clinic and it depends on the service and it depends on the dentists as well. So some dentists and some clinics, they take on patients and some, they don’t and it is that tailoring to that clinic and that need and it isn’t just one situation now anymore. Yeah, I mean, there are clinics that do Invisalign, there are clinics that do whitening and there are clinics that don’t offer any private or cosmetic dentistry at all.

Payman: I mean, the one I came to in Birmingham, is that still your flagship?

Sofina: That’s my baby because that was my first one, but yeah, that is-

Payman: Beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful practise.

Sofina: Yeah. So that one is more the private and they do do other stuff there as well, so they’ve got dentists that do Invisalign and aesthetics and-

Payman: So is that one open all day now?

Sofina: That is open during the day as well now, so that does do multiple hours and that has grown as well. And that was the other thing as well, we opened up a select amount number of hours and then when we do have sufficient business, we can open up those daytime. We’ve got a client list we can open up during the day and that’s what that one operated on-

Payman: So it’s open from when to when now?

Sofina: It’s open till 12 still and opens at eight, 9:00 AM. But it is-

Prav: Wow.

Sofina: Varied on days. But yeah, it’s pretty much full days. And like I said, with the other clinics, we’ve got services all over Bradford, Leeds, Huddersfield, Hull, East Anglia, Cambridge, Peterborough, King’s Lynn and they’ve got all different operating hours. We’ve got services open 8:00AM to 8:00PM, seven days a week in many sites, so it is … Yeah.

Prav: How do you manage recruitment for that beast? Because especially when you’re asking people to work, let’s say, typically unsociable hours, maybe people are similar to you where they want that work/life balance where they want more time at home during the day, but then finding lots of people like that? I mean, in my own practises, I struggle to get the right people in, what we consider to be, normal working hours. How do you deal with that? Have you got a great HR manager or is it something that you are involved in?

Sofina: Yeah. You know what it is? This is what you probably find in most people who do business is I do try get involved in-

Prav: Everything.

Sofina: Everything. And that is an issue. But yeah, I do absolutely get involved with the recruitment. We actually are at the point where we can’t take a lot of dent … Or we’re completely fully subscribed in all our Yorkshire clinics, so we have about 20 dentists on waiting lists that want to pick up shifts. A lot of it is word of mouth, so word of mouth is a big factor of people working for us. But we advertise, especially in the early days, we had to advertise through Facebook and Indeed and all those kind of channels, normal marketing. But-

Payman: Sofina, how many people is there overall?

Sofina: So we have over 130 staff. 70 dentists who work for us. So we have-

Payman: And this happened all in three years? So-

Sofina: This happened in three years.

Payman: Tell us the story from when did night dental number one go to number two?

Sofina: Night dental.

Payman: Was it all the urgent care thing that suddenly-

Sofina: It was the urgent care. Basically, I felt like I could offer so much to so many more people and I’ve loved urgent care, like I said. And I am very overly confident, so it was very much like … I’ve got a lot of ambition and I was like right, I can do more, and I did go for a bid on contracts and I had some hits and some falls and I did make some … With Yorkshire, I went for that, but I had so many plans there and I really executed a really intense plan there. And I did so much research and I did so much planning, and I really looked at the area, what the area needed and all that and I did get that and then from those … I mean, it wasn’t even from that, actually, at the same time, I got the East Anglia ones as well. So I think it was my vision-

Payman: It just doesn’t sound like a risk-averse person that you just described yourself as and this sounds the opposite, adrenaline junkie, risk-taker.

Sofina: I’m not a risk-averse person, no. I think-

Payman: A minute ago, you said you were.

Sofina: No, but I try to be as risk-averse, but I’m totally … I’m not risk-averse at all.

Payman: At all.

Sofina: I fully take on risks. No, no, not at all. I’m the complete opposite, but-

Payman: Sorry to use the word, how did you have the balls to do that in a different part of the country?

Sofina: Yeah, absolutely. This is what it is, I’m overly confident. I’m supremely ambitious and I … Yeah, I’m totally a risk-taker. I mean, we put our whole savings into a clinic, but at the end of the time, I try and minimise the risks.

Payman: You calculate it.

Sofina: Yeah, calculator. I minimise the risk, but there’s always risks, you have to jump. Without the jump, there’s just … And that could completely fail, but I completely accept that there’s-

Payman: What’s it done to your work/life balance? Because you told me you’re doing night dental because of your work/life balance, right? What you described before, you were going to look after the kid, now 150 employees, 13 practises-

Sofina: And three kids.

Payman: And three kids now.

Sofina: It was one then.

Payman: I take my hat off. I do take my hat off to you.

Sofina: But you know what it is? As a business person, you can really revolve your business around you. Long before COVID, I was working from home. I worked from home and I have really good managers in place, it’s really important for me to … And I am very heavily involved with the managers that I recruit. I don’t get involved with most of the HR that I recruit, but the managers, I’m very involved with and it’s very important for me to have really good structure and people that see my visions. My managers are amazing, they’re just … My staff are fantastic. My staff are so good. And a lot of it is having a really good support network. I’m going to be at home, I will visit the clinics, I will try and do, but my business has to revolve around my family and that is very important. I have a two year old at the moment and I do a lot revolving around my house. So I’m always working, so I’m constantly got a laptop there, but at the same time, I’m at home and I’m mostly at home and I do a lot from a laptop and a phone and-

Payman: When you’re recruiting a manager, what are you looking for? And by the way, do you have systems that you spoonfeed into each manager? Are they all running exactly the same way or are you leaving it up to them?

Sofina: I do let them have a bit of a … I’m going to let you make that decision. And what I like is them to make their own decisions and I’m like, I don’t care if you make mistakes. I’d rather you make a decision, make a mistake and yeah, I will say no, you shouldn’t have done that, but I’d rather them do that and they know that about me. I look for someone with initiative, someone who can just go right, I’m just going to try this. And yeah, they make mistakes, everybody makes mis … But I’d rather they do that and make mistakes than keep coming to me for things, and that’s really important. And I had an issue where I was saying to them, “Don’t come to me, but here’s a solution.” And I’m a big problem-solver, I love firefighting. And when you’ve got 77 eight to eight clinics, open seven days a week, there’s always issues, there’s always issues.

Sofina: And they would come to me and it’s like … I’m very much a fixer and if there’s an IT problem, I’ll be like well … I like to know how things work and that’s … And even when I set up the first squat. And this is one of the reasons I think I moved from one practise to the other is when I did my squat, I wasn’t just paying people to do it, I was involved in every single aspect of that clinic. The way the plumbing went in, you’re using solvent bonding, you’re not push fitting the plumbing in, you’re doing the first fix at the right time. And I was involved with every single aspect of that set up, like what paint are you using? What tiling are you using? And every little detail, I was involved with. And I needed to know how everything worked, I needed to know how the water goes through and the type air gap and things like that. I needed to understand it.

Sofina: And because I did that is why I was so successful with the bids as well because I really understood. And I wrote every single policy in place, I put them all in place, so I needed to understand all the compliance. And because I do understand my business so well, they do come to me with problems. Like the other day, they called me in Birmingham, “Oh, the software’s saying that they can’t open our Ghost because they can’t open the saving drive and you need to log into the google,” and all this stuff. I like to know how things work. But that is an issue, that is my own vice because then they’ll call me for those issues. But I’ve kind of now done the thing where I’m like, you know what? We’ve got great continuity in place, like this goes wrong, this is who you call. So I’m like, “You have to start not calling me about these things and just figuring it out yourself.” And that’s what it is and that’s one of-

Payman: Have you got a head office now? Are you still running it from your kitchen? Is there a team, like a centralised team?

Sofina: There is a team.

Payman: A centralised team?

Sofina: There’s a localised team, so there’s regional teams and there’s … So it’s more regional, so I think that’s quite important with the size of those clinics and the difference in the clinics and the way they run, they run completely different so we can’t do everything … One size definitely doesn’t fit all. And patient areas are different, patient needs are different, demographics are different and it all affects the service that we provide, so it’s very important for them not to be too centralised either in our service. And the other thing is I do have a lot of flexibility in the service and I love, like I said, problem-solving, which is why what happened with COVID happened and how we responded to it really well was because of our flexibility, our problem-solving and the ability to adapt and change and think of our feet on things. So-

Prav: So, Sofina, what’s the big vision? You’ve gone from zero to hero in three years, what’s the next three, five years going to look like? What’s the big vision that you’ve got for the crew?

Sofina: See, this is the thing, I’m not someone who sits there and does those long-winded business plans and I constantly have people, like accountants and stuff, telling me, “No, you need to plan this out.” And I think one of my successes is the fact that I’m not too rigid on how I’m going to do things and I do go with the flow because that flexibility and that has allowed me to respond to situations. Because if I had all my money tied up into one thing, I wouldn’t be able to be flexible and [inaudible 00:29:40]. But one thing is really important to me is having not all my eggs in one basket, trying to spread against the business and having different security. And this is what it is, I try to be logical and sensible and proactive on things that will help and support my business and me and my career.

Sofina: One of the things that our flexibility really kicked off was during the COVID period, so what happened there for us was we … Because we do urgent care and it’s a really important service, what we do. So we have 111 referring to our clinics, we’re all urgent care in Yorkshire and Humber, and it’s really important that those patients are constantly looked after and there’s no block in service or drop in service and continuity is so important there. Because I’ve got 70 staff, dentists working for me, we get a lot of information coming in, so when the information comes in, and there was a lot of people talking about COVID back in February, March, so I started putting those questions to the NHS, like what are we going to do about this? And there wasn’t much planning. I mean, there was a lot of planning for hot sites, which is where COVID-positive patients go, but I was saying to them, “Look, there are a lot more people that don’t have COVID who have got urgent needs than people with COVID with urgent needs, so there needs to be more attention here.”

Sofina: And, again, I just planned and I thought you know what? I don’t know what’s going on, wasn’t getting directions, so I got all the PPE sorted quite early on in March. And my husband’s a doctor, so he’s … He’s got nothing to do with the business, by the way, he doesn’t get involved, he doesn’t really … The only thing he does do is he does the interviews for the dentists. And I look at every dentist that we recruit, so that’s something that I do get involved with. Every dentist, I do have a governance side to that as well, so I do take a big interest in who we have working for us. What happened with the masks, the FFP3 masks, and my dentists were talking about this in March and they were asking us about it. I didn’t even really know about these things, so I looked into it and then tried to source them and I knew sourcing was a difficulty back in March. My husband had this friend and he’s like, “Oh, look, he’s working as an ITU consultant and he’s had those masks fitted.” And I was like, “Ask him where he got those masks from and who fitted him,” and I got the details off him and got my staff fitted, I think, on the 23rd of March with masks. And they had the masks and they had the PPE.

Sofina: And then when the announcement came out that surgeries have to shut, I called up the clinical leads from the NHS and I was like, “Well, what do you want us to do?” And they were like, “Well, do you have the PPE?” And I said, “Well, we’ve got this, this, this.” And they were like, “Well, then continue your face-to-faces.” At the end of the day, I’m responsible for my staff, so my primary concern was keeping my staff safe. So I was like okay, I’ve got this responsibility to look after my staff, to look after patients, so I had to make some calls there and I was very much like, use your own initiative, use your own clinical judgement on what you want to do. But here’s a PPE, use it and do what feels right to you. And I gave that to the dentists and I gave that control, and they were very grateful that we got them the PPE. And they all stood up to the plate, no-one backed down, everyone wanted to work.

Sofina: We had some vulnerable shielding staff that we obviously protected and looked after and that was really important to me because at the end of the day, I wanted to be able to sleep at night, I want to know my staff are safe and they’re looked after. And it was like no, I don’t want you compromising yourselves at any point, so if you don’t feel safe at any point, don’t work. And if anyone wanted a break from COVID, I was like, “Have a break.” There was no pressure for anyone to work and I think they really appreciated that. And they all stepped up, they all picked up extra shifts and the NHS were just like, “Can you do more? Can you do more?” And they kept asking us to do more of the service and we got to the limit where it was like okay, that’s all our surgery spaces used up and all our hours are used up because they’re doing extended hours. And then they were like, “Well, the 111 service is being completely overrun, what can you do to support that?”

Sofina: So at that point, I thought right, what can we do? We’ve got enough clinics, but all our clinics are used up. I know what we can do, we can get some triages. So I recruited for triaging dentists, got about six, seven dentists across the country, because I thought there’s loads of dentists out there who have got nothing to do. Gave them the option, if you want some extra money from home, set them up with rental laptops, phones, did a training presentation with them all within a week and they were ready to go within a week, seven days. And then we had a team of triaging that will help the 111 service and our triaging will do more AAA for patients. So I think having flexibility and having those kind of quick problem-solving tactics have helped me be successful in ways, in the services and the urgent care and being successful in my business as well and I think that’s really important for me. And that is constantly what I’m doing, I’m constantly thinking okay, let’s figure out … There’s a problem, how can we solve it?

Payman: Extraordinary. Extraordinary.

Prav: Gobsmacked.

Payman: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So okay, you’re saying you haven’t got an exact plan of where you want to go, but are we talking Empire Building? Are we talking exit? Are we talking-

Sofina: Okay.

Payman: What are we talking?

Sofina: So-

Payman: Sorry, sorry, sorry. No, before you go, how did you raise money?

Sofina: It was completely our savings. As an associate, my husband’s a GP, it was literally our own money. I didn’t take a loan out. One thing I don’t do in business is risk other people’s money. I’m a bit uncomfortable with people risking other people’s money and taking investments. And investments are good and especially if they’ve got … But I’ve seen so many people take other people’s money and risk it and then lose it. For me, it was really important that I had to put my money where my mouth is and put our own money at risk. And no-one had faith in me, by the way. My own dad, who’s an avid businessman and my husband and they were like … They kind of just go, “Yeah, yeah, just do it. Do what you want.” But my husband wrote off the money, he really thought okay, you know what? Whatever.

Payman: Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. You know that classic cliché about every time you want to start a business, everyone tells you not to do it kind of thing?

Sofina: Yeah.

Payman: Yeah?

Sofina: Yeah.

Payman: And it necessarily has to be that way, yeah? Because if I say hey, Sofina, I’ve got this great idea for a business, it does X, Y, Z, and then you and Prav both say, “Oh, that’s an amazing idea, do it,” there’ll be enough other people saying that and it’ll be enough of an idea, but there’ll be so many competitors. Yeah? Whereas when you have a business and everyone says don’t do it, then you end up being one of the only ones doing that business because of the barriers to entry. So if everyone says-

Sofina: Yeah, and that’s exactly-

Payman: Do it, it’s actually a bad sign.

Sofina: Absolutely. And that’s the thing with my dad, he was saying, “No-one’s doing it, so there must be a reason,” and that was my dad’s-

Payman: There is.

Sofina: There must be a reason why no-one’s doing it. And I said, “Maybe there is. Maybe I’ll find out the hard way,” but if I don’t get this out of my system, I’m going to … I was Del Boy’s daughter, I had to get it out my system. I had to give it a go and give it a shot. And there was a risk that I could’ve lost all the money, all our savings. But the advantage with us compared to other people who do this is I’m a dentist, my husband’s a doctor, we could just pick it up and just do extra shifts and work the rest of our lives and we have that security that other people don’t have. Whereas my dad, when he put everything into it, he would’ve been in debt and he would’ve been in a massive situation. So it was our own money, but at the same time, I’m very privileged, I feel really-

Prav: Did you-

Sofina: Guilty-

Prav: Did you leverage one practise to buy the next to buy the next to buy the-

Sofina: Yeah.

Prav: Next?

Sofina: Absolutely. I’m very good with money. I’m very, very sensible with money. I’m the kind of person who, if I have £10, I’ll spend £5. So there was a lot of financial planning to plan everything and everything was very much … This is where I am risk-averse, I’m very good with money, I’m very sensible with money. And the numbers were really important to me and I was really logging out the numbers and looking at the numbers and how it’s going to work. And obviously, with those contracts, they are funded in a way. I mean, they were leased properties, those properties that I took out, so they were leased. I had three months to set up four clinics, by the way. I had three months to set up four clinics. And because I’d set up the one from scratch-

Payman: Jeez.

Sofina: I knew I could do this, I could do this all right. And, again, I was like right, I’ve got three months, I have to use D1 properties, I have … And I did my first planning permission myself as well, so I really knew the ins and outs of planning as well. So I had to set up four clinics within three months, but because I knew every single aspect of it, it was just the same thing on speed. And it was a challenge, but then, again, the sensible things, like taking out the equipment on a 12 month lease or it was a 24 month lease programme and things like that. So where I can, rent where I can and doing those sensible things to save that capital investment as much as possible. And I’m someone that … If it’s not profitable, then it’s not viable.

Prav: Cut the losses.

Sofina: Yeah, cut the losses. And that’s what it is, don’t throw good money after bad money. If it’s not working, if an idea isn’t working, try and change it up. If that changing up isn’t working, then you just have to cut your losses and move on.

Prav: Any other practises failures that haven’t worked or you felt that do you know what-

Sofina: So far, it’s good and I think I’m still in early days, things will go wrong, I’m sure they will, but they, for me, are learning curves. So I take all criticism, all failures as okay-

Prav: How can you grow?

Sofina: Yeah, how can I grow? And we’re always learning. And with my dentists, one of the things what happened with COVID was … I take a backseat with my dentists normally and they all wanted to hear from me. They all wanted to hear, so at first, I put out a memo and the managers went, “No, they literally want to hear from you.” So what I started doing was weekly webinars with my dentists, which they really appreciated. So every week now, I talk to the dentists and I speak to them directly and they really love that. And I tell them the clinical basis, because I was talking to Health Education England, Public Health England and quite high up people in those departments about right, what are we going to do? How are we going to do it? The urgent care. What’s the latest guidance? I had people that had seen guidelines a couple of weeks before they were published, so I was asking them about what’s going to be in there so I could plan for that, and then I would inform my dentists and give the evidence base.

Sofina: And the other thing I would say, the things I would want to see, is clinical staff and clinical people should be definitely involved more within business. And I don’t think in undergrad, we’re taught enough business at all. And I think it’s really important we have so much more business because everyone’s in a business when they come out. And when I go to some of those meetings, the amount of bureaucracy behind it, the amount of people who have got no clinical experience or background making decisions and it’s such a shame, and I think so many more people need to be involved in the business side of dentistry as well. And there’s something that we can bring to the table that definitely others can’t, with our clinical background and our evidence base and our understanding and our ethical.

Sofina: I mean, dentists in the UK, we are some of the most ethical in the UK, in the world and we can bring that ethics to the business of dentistry that I think other people don’t lack when they [inaudible] or when they’ve got no healthcare background and they work in healthcare, make judgments on healthcare. You can see the difference, you can really see the difference between someone’s opinion who’d been in health than someone who hasn’t been in healthcare. And that patient comes first attitude that we have, everything has to revolve around the patients and I think from that, everything else organically grows. So for me, the two things that I would say are the key to my success are that patient first attitude and staff.

Sofina: So one of my things that I was thinking was why didn’t I go into business sooner? And that was a big question mark. I could’ve done this sooner, why didn’t I do it sooner? And that was thinking what if I did it sooner? But what sitting back did was allowed to observe and watch other practise owners and business and learn from them. And I think one of the key things I learnt from watching other people, other dental clinics and the tips that I learnt, one of the key things was the way they treat the staff and the staff ethos and staff mentality. I watched how a staff in a happy environment, how they were willing to work extra hours and they weren’t clock-watching and they were doing beyond their normal … What they’re contracted to do and they’ll do it for the business and they care about the business. And then I worked in practises where there wasn’t … People watch the clock, it’s five o’clock, that’s it, I’m off, I’m signing off. And it made such a difference in the success of the business.

Sofina: And also, when patients go in and they see a smiley, happy dentist and staff and it makes such a difference to their experience. And they go into a clinic and the people are miserable, they’re on their phone, they have that … It reflects their mentality. I mean, we had CQC inspection in Leeds and one of the things that really came back, and even the CQC inspectors were like, “Your staff are so happy.” And it is really important for me to create happy environments for my staff and I really care about my staff, I genuinely care about my staff. And they just go above and beyond and they’re just so amazing, my staff are so amazing and that is definitely a key part of the success of the business. And I don’t have to be there as much because my staff are there. And-

Payman: Sofina, have you studied entrepreneurship, leadership, any of that? Do you read books or is this-

Sofina: No, I don’t read any.

Payman: Are you just purebred?

Sofina: I’m more streetwise-

Payman: Because you are definitely a purebred entrepreneur, you’re 100% entrepreneur. It’s so in your blood.

Sofina: I observe. I observe. I observe and I take everything in and I look at what other people do-

Payman: And you didn’t start late, I mean, how old were you when you started? You were young.

Sofina: 33.

Payman: Yeah, young.

Sofina: I wanted to start when I was 24, what you talking about? But yeah, no … Yeah. Yeah, I guess-

Payman: So go on, what’s your dream come true outcome-

Sofina: I don’t know.

Payman: Going forward-

Sofina: See-

Payman: Like, three years’ time?

Sofina: I’m not going to-

Payman: Because we saw you did a lot-

Sofina: Lie-

Payman: Yeah.

Sofina: Yeah. I’m not going to lie, I have sliding door moments where I’m just like, you know what? Instead of just spending £200,000 on a dental practise, I could’ve just sat back. We were making decent money, my husband was making good money and I could’ve just spent his money and been a housewife and bought shoes and handbags and gone to coffee shops with my friends. I do think wouldn’t that have been a better life? I’m not going to lie, I have those moments where I think what is this for? And is it worth it? And-

Payman: For why.

Sofina: There’s nothing … Why, the why. And-

Prav: Go on, carry on.

Sofina: And I’ll be honest, maybe I will have more of an answer in five years’ time, but I do go through those. So I do go through those moments where I’m thinking oh, goodness, what have I done? Why do I do this myself?

Prav: What-

Sofina: But I guess … Yeah.

Prav: What do you think you’re trading in for business in your life?

Sofina: Well, you know what? My kids are still at home, I’m with my kids, I don’t have a nanny, I don’t have home support-

Prav: Amazing.

Sofina: I do have family support.

Prav: Yeah.

Sofina: So I do look after my children myself-

Payman: You don’t have a nanny either?

Sofina: No.

Payman: What the hell?

Sofina: I breastfeed my children, I’ve been there for my children. That is really important to me.

Payman: You need to herd one more person, you need to get 151 people-

Sofina: But you know what I hired? Do you know what I hired? I hired a personal assistant. So I hired a personal assistant and I thought … You know what she does? She filters my calls. So she filters things like … She’ll say, and she’s very ruthless, so she’ll just say, “No, Sofina doesn’t need to deal with that.” And she’ll just make those decisions for me, which is really good. It’s exactly what I needed and that’s made a big difference to me. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with having a nanny, by the way. I know people who are homemakers and they have nannies and it’s completely fine. It’s what suits me and that suits me and it was really important for me to not … You know what it is? There’s that mom guilt, like I don’t want to feel what I’m doing is compromising my family and my children. I think-

Payman: Do you think it’s harder being a woman-

Sofina: I overcompensate.

Payman: Do you think it’s harder being a woman than a man?

Sofina: Absolutely. No, not woman generally, but maybe a woman in the field that I do. Absolutely. Definitely.

Payman: Why?

Sofina: Being a woman and business owner is tough.

Payman: Because you’re a mother?

Sofina: Because I’m a mother. And you know what? I have faced so much vitriol. I mean, the things people have said about me and the-

Payman: Yeah, but you don’t look the classic entrepreneur, the young-

Sofina: Exactly.

Payman: Guy.

Sofina: Exactly. And-

Payman: Yeah.

Sofina: And I get so much backlash from … And I did. I mean, I think things have definitely settled down, but especially at the beginning, I had people causing me so … People trying to sabotage me, people badmouthing me, people judging me before I’d even started. And there was a lot of horrible, horrible things being said about me and it was all … And I was trying to figure out where it came from and a lot of it was because people were generally scared, they have a stereotype of a girl. And I’m an Asian girl, Muslim girl, female, wears a headscarf, if someone sees me, they’ll think she’s not capable. They stereotype me into being that placid, timid, can’t think for herself kind of person and she-

Payman: Is that part of your drive, to try and prove that wrong? Is that part of-

Sofina: Absolutely.

Payman: Is it?

Sofina: Definitely. Yeah. I love proving people wrong-

Payman: Maybe that’s the why, that’s the burning ambition-

Sofina: That might be the why. I want to prove that-

Payman: To prove that wrong.

Sofina: Yeah, maybe it is. Maybe it is proving that we’re completely capable and we are completely … We can do this and we’ve got this. And we’re intelligent women, we’re independent, we think for ourselves, we’re not press, we’re not … And I think there is definitely an element of trying to prove people wrong, it does drive me. Because I have 70 dentists and pretty much all my dentists have another job because of the hours we work, and they’ll come back and I hear what’s being said about me and people don’t realise when things are being discussed about me that it does come back to me and it totally drives me. It completely drives me.

Prav: Sofina, what’s been the lowest moment during the last three or four years of this short journey to success, where you’ve been in the bottom of the hole really-

Sofina: Yeah.

Prav: During all this?

Sofina: It’s not actually that long ago, it was about six, seven months ago, I had a really, really tough time. I had someone who was really abusing their power, really, really abusing their power to put me down. I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from, it was someone senior to me who was really going through a lot of extent to try and sabotage me. And they caused me so much stress, it caused me so much stress-

Prav: Someone senior to you in the business or are we talking life now in general?

Sofina: Yeah, it was in dentistry.

Prav: Okay.

Sofina: I can’t-

Prav: No, no. Yeah.

Sofina: It went down a legal road and I did come out quite good on the other side of it, but it had to go down that road. And I do have this, I’ve had people writing to MPs, I’ve had people … I had a local dental committee hold a vote to collect negative feedback about my organisation.

Prav: Jeez.

Sofina: That actually went to a vote. It wasn’t collect feedback, it was specifically collect negative feedback only, so obscure patient feedback. And thankfully, it was voted against. So this is what I mean by ethical den … Majority of dentists are very ethical, this is a loud minority, probably people with power minority who do abuse that power. I don’t really go to mentors and stuff, but I just thought I need to speak to someone. And I managed to call Eddie Crouch, he’s the lead of the West Midlands LDC and he’s also the-

Payman: [inaudible 00:50:34].

Sofina: Yeah, vice pres. I called him and he was fantastic, he was just like, “Look, I know who you are because I’ve heard about you.” And he goes, “You have to understand, you’ve pissed people off. You’ve pissed people off and they’re not happy for you and this is what they’re going to do.” And he’s like, “You just have to …” And he kind of gave me that drive to fight and to just defend my corner. He goes, “Yeah, I’ll treat you fairly,” but it is what it is and those people are going to be … They’re not going to be happy for me, are they? So he gave me that little bit of a spur and that fire and I thought you know what? I’m just … What really drives me, like you said, it really drives me that I don’t want this happening to someone else and I have to … It’s easier sometimes just to let things go, but then you think if I don’t fight it, someone else will go through this and this change won’t happen that I need. And I think that was really important for me to say right, no, this is unacceptable.

Sofina: And the other thing is, I’m very … People take my niceness and my quietness for weakness and they realise the hard way that I have a fire. No, no, that’s not going to happen. And I think now when people do say stuff, it is like right, defamation, legal letter, da-da-da. I’m a little bit confident. I never got a lawyer previously at all, but now I’m a little bit more confident on that and a little bit more like, right. And I don’t take crap. I don’t-

Payman: What about your happiest day, professionally, in the last three, four years?

Sofina: Oh, there’s so many. I love what I do. And I have to say I was just … You know with this COVID, it’s so sad what’s happened, but I’m so proud of the way my staff came together and the way we did things and I just … I think that was really, for me, something that … Basically, what happened there was the NHS were like, “If you don’t have PPE, you don’t have to,” and I spoke to my staff and I had to reach out to my staff and I said, “Look, we have a duty of care. We have the urgent care contracts, we can’t sit back. And we can sit back and not do anything, but those patients will end up in A&E and we are going to be increasing traffic to A&E, so we’ve got to sit down and think we’ve got a responsibility here. We’ve got the PPE, we can do this,” and they all were raring to go and that was such a proud moment for me, for my staff and having that ethos and everyone had the right attitude, creating that. And I would say that was a real, for me, really buzz moment for me.

Prav: So, Sofina, it seems like during lockdown, the majority of dentists and dental business owners have had a nice holiday and has it been the opposite for you, you’ve been working harder?

Sofina: Non-stop.

Prav: Yeah?

Sofina: Literally non-stop. All our clinics have been operating 8:00AM to 8:00PM, seven days a week. It’s been non-stop. I closed the private clinics, I didn’t feel right with those. Again, I understand why people had to and did and I really sympathise with those private owners that really got affected by it. And for me, I just thought you know what? We’ve got the NHS, we’ll cover the NHS, I’m not going to keep the private open, so we closed until last week was when we open those back up. But we closed the private side of things, but other than that, we’ve been operating and providing that service.

Sofina: And what happened was in around about mid-April, we … And I did, quite early on, I said okay, once we had it under wrap, I said to the NHS, “Look …” The commissioners, “Look, we can offer more.” So what we can do is where you’ve got A&Es, if they have patients in urgent needs, they can refer to us and they said, “No, no, we don’t want to overwhelm you.” And then the other thing they did suggest was would you … Well, the clinical lead suggested, “Would you be able to take on referrals from clinics?” And I said, “Yeah, I mean, we could do that.” And then the commissioners were like, “No, no. Again, we don’t want to overwhelm you.” But then what happened was there was a communication that came out and it said that we were the referral for all dental practise in Yorkshire and Humber for … Or for West Yorkshire and Hull, sorry, for urgent needs. So if they had a patient that needed face-to-face, to refer to us. But we weren’t even informed about this. One day, we’re working and my manager’s calling me, like, “We’re getting hundreds and hundreds of referrals from dental clinics,” and she was like, “What’s going on?”

Sofina: So I phoned the NHS and I was like, “What’s going on?” And they were like, “Yeah, that kind of communicate came out, can you do it?” And I said, “A heads up would’ve been nice, but we got it. We got this.” So then we had to restructure everything and figure out how we were going to do it and get those extra patients in, and then we became the hub for all referrals for urgent care in West Yorkshire. And so all dental clinics referred to us and we tried our best. And, again, we’re looking after the people’s patients. Before we took on 111 patients … Commonly, patients that can’t access … They don’t have a dental clinic and they don’t have access to a dental clinic, so we now were looking after other people’s patients, there’s a massive responsibility with that and it was really important for us to do, again, look after those people’s patients. And that responsibility that we can do it, so we should step up to the plate and try and help where we can, and hopefully we did make a difference. It was very tough.

Payman: Sofina, talk us through a day. What time do you wake up? What do you do with your kids? And then when do the calls start, the emails? And then what time do you go to bed?

Sofina: So the thing with me is I get the most work done at night, I’m still nocturnal. And managers will get emails at 3:00AM and this and that and people will commonly get majority of the emails when I really get that sit down time, when my kids have gone to bed and I can concentrate. The real things where I have to think happen when the kids are asleep because you just can’t … But the other thing is, one thing I think that’s happened from COVID which is a positive from a really, obviously, a dark time for us is this whole working with kids in the background. I always work with kids in the background, my managers know. I have serious conversations with a two year old jumping on me and everyone has to accept that I have a family and that’s my reality. So, all my managers know, all my staff know that.

Sofina: And even when sometimes when I do my webinars with my dentists, there’ll be kids and they’ll come in and they’ll talk and they’ll … I’m very unashamedly a mom. I don’t have to be ashamed about being a mom and having my kids out there. I don’t hide that and I do really … I take my babies to clinics and I remember having a serious meeting with one of the builders and had my two year old with me, and those are my realities and I will comp … I’m not ashamed or embarrassed and I don’t feel that women should be embarrassed, even dads, should be embarrassed about things like that. So I think that is really important to me as well.

Payman: How much sleep are you getting? What time do you go to bed and what time do you wake up?

Sofina: I don’t sleep. I’ve not slept for months, honestly. I go to bed late and then my two year old’s wide awake and dive bombs on me and that’s it, I have to wake up. And I nap when I can and yeah, that’s-

Prav: Wow.

Sofina: It really. Yeah, so-

Prav: Going back to my question about trading in for business, certainly one of the things that I find is that, with me working from home quite a bit, more so obviously over the last 10, 12 weeks, there’s certain moments in time where my head is in the workspace and my three year old just wants her daddy. And so she’s having a conversation with me, I’m kind of having a conversation with her, I’m sort of trying to keep my head in work and there’s that being in the room with one or the other. Do you ever-

Sofina: Yeah.

Prav: Struggle with that?

Sofina: Absolutely. Definitely. I mean, you know what my two year old does? He picks the laptop and takes it off me, and then your heart just sinks-

Prav: Yeah.

Payman: Yeah, but you shouldn’t feel bad about it. Look, look, look, look what you learnt from your dad. Yeah?

Sofina: Yeah.

Payman: And look when that three year old becomes a 23 year old, he’s going to say, “I sat there and my mom looked after me while she built this empire.” And what he’s learning by looking at you doing what you’re doing is amazing itself. It doesn’t have to be either/or, you know?

Sofina: Yeah.

Payman: My kids know more about Enlighten that-

Prav: Than my kids.

Payman: Than your kids. But I get it. Of course, I understand the thing you guys are discussing, but you’re teaching your kids something by creating-

Prav: Yeah, but it’s-

Payman: Something huge while they’re there.

Prav: You know what? I think I can resonate with you, Sofina, in the sense that my daughter hasn’t taken my laptop off me, but she grabs my phone and says, “Put your phone away, daddy.”

Sofina: Aw.

Prav: Yeah? And snatches it out of my hand because she wants-

Sofina: And then your heart just-

Prav: Just goes, right?

Sofina: Sinks, right?

Prav: Just goes.

Sofina: Yeah.

Prav: And at the moment, what we’ve done is I’ve taken dedicated time out of my work day now, so I’m locked away in my office now, but between three and four o’clock, it’s just me and the girls and my phone’s nowhere near me, right? And then we have slots throughout the day. It’s still nowhere near enough time-

Payman: It’s your brain, it’s not the phone, bud. It’s your brain. Yeah?

Sofina: Yeah. But that’s also what my personal assistant’s done for me. So she’s like, “Right, I’m scheduling time.” Because I have to be a teacher, by the way. My kids are at home, so I have a seven year old, a four year old and a two year old, and I have to, all of a sudden, be a teacher to those kids as well, which is just impossible. And I find that much tougher than running the empire-

Prav: What they doing now, sat quietly behind you?

Sofina: No, my husband’s home, thankfully, and he’s very flexible. He’s totally the opposite of me, he’s got no-

Payman: What kind of doctor is he?

Sofina: He’s a GP. His dad is from Kenya and they’ve got a very different background from me. They’ve worked hard. They were sent to different countries, again, as young boys and they were … One was sent to Kenya by themself, in Nairobi, and the other one was … Two of them were sent there, one was sent in England and working in factories as a 13, 14 year old. Really young boys sent by themselves and they carved the way. But Fiza’s family are very … They don’t have that business mind. They stay in the dark job, they want stability, they like to be organised, they like having everything …

Sofina: And Fiza’s dad, bless him, is 86 years old and he’s just only retired, like, three, four years from his job that he worked. I mean, my in-laws are so lovely. And I have to say, having an extended supportive family is just massive important to what I’m doing. My mom helps me out, my sister-in-laws help me out, my father-in-law’s just amazing. And he’s so worried about me all the time, he’s just like, “Are you okay?” And they don’t get what I’m doing and they don’t understand the drive behind it and they worry about me and I totally get that.

Payman: It feeds you, doesn’t it? That’s the thing, it feeds you.

Sofina: Yeah.

Payman: I’m 100% sure, if we come back to this interview in another three years time, I’m 100% sure it’s going to be a much, much bigger empire. How much to walk away? I’m not talking about a financial figure here, but that’s something that you need to look at. Is it a business you want-

Sofina: Think it’s-

Payman: To exit or do you love it so much-

Sofina: This is what it is. I realise I do it for the buzz and the drive. And I look at my dad and I just think my dad makes a lot of good money, but he just doesn’t stop. It’s the whole Del Boy thing, honestly, it’s like the Del Boy thing and it’s the buzz and the drive and he’s not stopping and you’re like, “Dad, you don’t have to anymore.” And it’s like yeah, but he couldn’t cope with not doing things, and I don’t know if I’m going to be like that or if I’d go back to clinical and just do some clinical and take some time. I don’t know, I can’t … I think I’m too much still up that hill to know what I’m going to do in five times, but I know the answer will be probably a little bit more different.

Prav: If you weren’t doing dentistry, what would you be doing?

Sofina: That’s a very good question.

Prav: You’d be in business, right?

Sofina: I’d be in business. 100%, I’d be in business. I’d definitely be in some kind of business. So yeah, definitely some kind of business if it wasn’t den … And actually, the first business ideas I had weren’t even dentistry, they were completely different, they were internet, website. I love graphic design and I don’t know if you saw … One of the things that we were getting all this information and guidelines during COVID, so what I did was I tried to … And I have to try and direct my staff as well, so I have to say, “Look, use the Scottish Clinic Effectiveness Programme for your guidelines, for urgent care and got a great toolkit.”

Sofina: And I know they weren’t doing it, so I thought the way to get them to do it is by having a place where they can just get all the information for. So I created that portal for them and just went on Webflow, put it together and tried to collate all the information to one portal for them. And that was, I think, really good for them, but it is something that hopefully collects all the information. But it is … I forgot even what my train of thought was there.

Prav: Imagine there’s, obviously, some younger dentists listening to this and they want to get into business or open their own practises or have got ideas, et cetera, et cetera. Obviously, you’ve got in your blood and a lot of it comes from that and your upbringing. What advice would you give to them?

Sofina: I mean, there’s so many tips and there’s so many things that I would advise, but it’d be try and not throw all your eggs in one basket and listen to … You have to listen to the people that are telling you you can’t do it, you have to listen to some of the things that they’re saying and the reasons they’re saying it. And you have to plan for those … They’re all people that care about me, so the people that said it’s not going to work, people that care about me and they were worried about me. And some of the advice that they were saying, I was like right, so I’m going to plan for that. You’re saying this might happen, so let’s plan for the fact that there might be no patients through the door and things like that. So, I think plan, try and plan for the risks and try and think about … Don’t get too blindsided by your idea and don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Don’t put everything you’ve got, remortgage your house all for one thing. Try and think about what if things don’t work out and do plan that and have a plan B. Always have a plan B. So I think that’s really important.

Sofina: I know I’m not really the best place … And this is something that I’m going to talk about my webinar tomorrow with my dentists is I know I’m not the best person to be discussing these and there probably are so many people that are better place to be discussing, one thing that really concerns me, especially … I did listen to some of your podcasts, is the mental health and the wellbeing of some of the people, the young dentists. And I don’t know if you watch Bollywood or if you’re aware of this guy that, unfortunately, has taken his life in the last … And that’s really affected me. And what I do really worry about is young dentists and young, male dentists feeling … I see him and I just think he was a successful Bollywood actor who had everything going for him and at 34, what made him go to that head space where he felt that he had to take his own life?

Payman: A dentist committed suicide yesterday in London.

Sofina: I-

Payman: Do you hear about?

Sofina: I mean, that’s just heartbreaking.

Payman: It is.

Sofina: That is so heartbreaking, and I think we need to do more to sort that and I know I’ve got responsibility because I’ve got so much staff working for me now. And one of the things I do want to bring on the webinar, now you’ve told me that, it’s just things like that really affect me and I think we’ve got a big responsibility to look after those people that are going through those things. I’m worried about the fact that private had to shut up shop for three months and so many people living on the next pay, and they’ve been so badly struck and what is this going to do to people’s mental health and the stress of this? And I think what we need to do is look out for those gateway messages. This guy, the Bollywood actor, he sent a message about his mom had passed away the week before, so I think it’s really important for us to look out for gateway messages, support, listen to people and ask how people are.

Sofina: I’ll see on Facebook, so many of my friends, their fathers have taken their lives and brothers have and people have lost a lot of people to this and so much talent. And we just have to, I think, take some time and look and see what we can do to support, mentor. And I do want to be someone who can support others who do need advice or do need that thing, and what I would say is try to minimise that risk and that pressure. And I see so much pressure, especially in our industry. I mean, dentistry is a high pressure environment and so much stress is involved and I think it is really … And that’s why when someone goes into the business, they have to really evaluate that and their mental health and the consequences of what they do.

Sofina: And like I said, I’ve had some real tough times and people do really attack you and that’s going to happen to some people. And people have to think twice as well when they attack people, I think that’s really important as well, when they attack others. There’s advising and then there’s just being a bully, and I think it’s really important for people to ask and to take some time and call someone up. We’re so busy with our lives sometimes that we don’t sit there and take some time out and think okay, that person needs them, but I haven’t got time to deal with that. It’s like, no, what is the point in being successful and being where you are if you can’t even do that as a human, like, take some time out for someone else?

Prav: And I see it happen a lot in dentistry, online. You see these wars on Facebook between people and openly, face-to-face, they’d never say these things, right? But I’ve also noticed that that’s calmed down a lot over COVID and there’s been a lot more unity and people come together. I don’t know if you’ve seen the same, Payman-

Payman: Yeah.

Prav: That people who would-

Payman: Definitely.

Prav: Definitely not-

Sofina: Absolutely.

Prav: Talk to each other or there’s been a joining of forces and I hope that really is here to stay.

Payman: I mean, it’s human nature that it goes in both directions, right? But I’m interested in what you’re saying about the gateway signs, Sofina, because every time something like this happens, people say they didn’t see the signs. And I know with bereavement, guilt is a almost intricate part of the bereavement, isn’t it?

Prav: Without question.

Payman: Everyone thinks why didn’t I see it? But …

Sofina: Yeah. I mean, what must the families be going through right now? I mean, they’ll be tormented for years to come about what could they have done? I was asking my husband about some of those gateway signs, because he’s a GP, and he was saying isolating themselves, going through that gateway of sadness, of exhibiting that sadness. And you could see he was in the head space where he was getting sad by putting those posts up about his mother and it’s really important for men to talk, I think. Speak to someone. And that is something that, I think, we definitely do need to do more to support the male dentists as well as …

Payman: We’ve got to realise as well, there’s almost a chemical side to it. You know what I mean? It’s not just about oh, life is getting on top of me.

Sofina: Yeah, sometimes there definitely is a chemical aspect.

Payman: I mean, look at the chemicals in you, you haven’t slept, you’re running at 1000 miles-

Sofina: Absolutely. I think we need to, as a community, pull together and really support each other. And if someone’s already there and then they have a chemical added to it, whether it’s lack of sleep-

Payman: Yeah, no, but what I mean, the chemical is just a biochemical-

Sofina: Yeah, biochemical, lack of sleep or those kind of things and it’s just going to heighten everything. It’s going to absolutely heighten everything. And, Prav, I think you’ve got medical background, so you probably-

Prav: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sofina: Fully understand all this. And-

Prav: And I think, putting everything to one side, I think everything has a chemical basis. You’re talking about there’s probably a chemical element to it, I think it is the chemical element, whether it’s cortisol flying around your system or adrenaline or whatever these hormones or signalling molecules are that are flying around, endorphins, lack of, that are causing you to feel that way, right?

Sofina: Yeah.

Prav: Depression is chemically driven.

Sofina: Yeah. Isolation is a big factor as well, so people that are isolating.

Payman: It’s not linear because if you want to think linearly, if you’re like so and so has got X, Y and Z wrong in his life, so he’s going to be sad. But actually, sometimes when things are wrong, that’s when you’re at your very best. And then you’ve got the Bollywood guy, on the surface, looks like he’s got everything-

Sofina: Yeah. And sometimes it’s the-

Payman: But he’s gone and-

Sofina: Drop from that buzz. It’s the drop from the buzz and you just, all of a sudden-

Payman: That’s a chemical thing too.

Sofina: Yeah. And all of a sudden, you’re really famous and everyone wants you and then you drop, and that must really hurt people and upset-

Prav: Must do.

Sofina: People. And that, again, that’s that biochemical aspect to it as well, so we need to just … I think we’ve all got a responsibility there.

Prav: I think he’d have pretty much every film producer pull their contract or something like that with him to say they’ll never feature him in a film, or words to that effect. And then he could only star in low rate movies or something like that. I don’t know the facts behind it, but imagine-

Sofina: It’s bullying.

Prav: Going from the peak-

Sofina: Yeah, it’s bullying.

Prav: The peak of Bollywood stardom to saying hey, you can be in a sitcom now and that’s the best you’re going to get.

Sofina: Yeah. I mean, I used to love Bollywood. Back in the ’90s, I used to watch Bollywood loads and I haven’t watched Bollywood movies in ages, but I watched his film and he was amazing. And I can’t even remember the film that much, but I just remember seeing him and thinking what an amazing actor, he’s got such a talent. And that’s why it’s really saddened me, so sad, he had such a talent.

Payman: You set your own cornerstones to this. So I had a friend, his dad committed suicide and the reason … I mean, who knows what his real reason was? But the reason he committed suicide was he didn’t win the Nobel Prize in whatever field he was in. And, again, on paper, you think well, the guy’s contending for the Nobel Prize for something, he’s amazing, he’s got the best life ever, but he’d set his sights on that. It’s terrible.

Sofina: And I think that’s where … If he’d let it out and spoke to someone, then people could’ve just gone, “Oh, but you’re amazing,” and, I don’t know, positive reinforcement.

Payman: It’s good that people are talking about it now though. This is really-

Sofina: Absolutely.

Payman: It’s like, in the last two, three years, people are talking about mental health much, much more.

Prav: Mm.

Sofina: Yeah.

Payman: I think that can only be healthy.

Sofina: Yeah, definitely. I think that’s what it is. I think-

Payman: Men definitely.

Sofina: Men have a superhero mentality that they have to be perfect and strong and they can’t show this weakness, and I think that superhero mentality is what sometimes … They don’t talk and they don’t let it out and that’s why they do get hit by this.

Prav: Yeah. I think it’s the old-school mentality that the man’s job is to hunt and gather and protect, right? That instinct. And then there’s this whole bravado and macho thing and whatever comes with it and things happen or things go south or whatever it is, and then men get into this depressive state over whatever it is, whether it’s putting weight on or whether it’s not doing as well at work or then taking a downturn in work and I guess it affects some people more than others.

Payman: By the way, we should point out there is Confidental, which was set up by Lauren Sparkle and Jenny Pinder.

Sofina: Yeah.

Payman: Call up any dentist, call up Confidental and just chat.

Sofina: I think that needs to be really promoted more. And you know what? I would actually put that out to my dentists and I would love details about that actually. But, Prav, do you have-

Prav: What were you saying, Sofina?

Sofina: Yeah, I was just saying from your healthcare, do you recall the gateway signs? Can you just share some of those?

Prav: I think, whether from my healthcare background or not, it’s … I’ve got a … Well, he’s my wife’s cousin who committed suicide about four years ago and he threatened to do it about three times, but never did. And that was a cry for help and once he got a … He tied a sari around his neck and jumped off the bannister and that was the end of that. And they found him and … I think one of the biggest gateway signs is that conversation, they open up to some people and talk about it. And I think speaking to people now or relatives, it always revolved around the boy who cried wolf, right? He said it three times, if he was going to do it, he would’ve done it by now. And he left a note and he said, “I told you I’d do it.”

Sofina: Oh, god.

Payman: God.

Prav: But nobody listened, right? And he was a super good-looking, happy boy. He got engaged a month before, so his fiance had lost him. And then there’s those things … Some of us only have a handful of friends. I, myself, I’ve probably got … I can count all my friends on two hands, that’s it. 10 people. If I had a problem, I’d be speaking to one of those 10 people and opening up to them. But what about that person who-

Sofina: Doesn’t have that.

Prav: Doesn’t, who becomes introverted, who starts withdrawing from life and hiding away, right? And just having that person to ring you up when you’re in that situation.

Sofina: There’s a pers-

Prav: And put you in a positive state.

Sofina: There are people that don’t even have one person. You’ve got 10.

Prav: No.

Sofina: It’s not a big number, but there are people that don’t have that one person. And-

Prav: Are single. Yeah.

Sofina: And I think it’d be really good for us to know what to do and if we come across someone who’s in that state, what can be done?

Prav: And I think a lot of the time … It’s hard to generalise if you’ve not been in that position, but I think the people who do it have been thinking about it for a while. It-

Payman: Sometimes. Sometimes, Prav, not always.

Prav: Not always.

Payman: Not always.

Prav: Not always.

Payman: Stories I’ve heard.

Prav: You don’t know. You just don’t know, do you?

Payman: No.

Prav: You simply don’t know and-

Sofina: I think what we can do as a profession is just be more supportive. And you’re right in the fact that COVID did bring such a comradery and I hope it lasts. And I even, for me, the negativity stopped for the last three, four months and we got a lot of positivity from everyone and everywhere and I just hope that lasts and for all of dentistry and especially young dentists. And when I was listening to some of the podcasts, I could hear young dentists being attacked by their own peers and other young dentists and other … And you just think … I’ve not had that, luckily. I have had it for more senior, but I’m a bit … I’m a positive person, so I always put a positive spin on things and I always kind of thing … But there’s people that would really be affected by that. And if I maybe was of a different personality, then it would’ve really affected me. Everyone’s got a story where they’ve been attacked.

Prav: I do strongly feel that social media has a lot to contribute to a lot of the negativity that people are feeling. And from my perspective, the majority of people that put stuff out there just paint the positivity. So if you look at somebody’s feed, you just see this person is living an amazing life, right? And it’s positivity, positivity, positivity. And then if you were in that zone and comparing yourself, and I do think it’s got a lot to answer for in that sense, but there’s lots of positives-

Payman: What, social media?

Prav: Lots of positives that have come out of there as well, right?

Sofina: Yeah.

Prav: Education-

Payman: It’s the whole world.

Prav: Yeah, yeah. But now-

Payman: It’s everything good and bad together.

Prav: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But if you look at-

Sofina: It’s heightened everything. Yeah.

Prav: Yeah.

Sofina: Yeah.

Prav: Absolutely.

Sofina: If you put a magnifying glass-

Prav: Absolutely.

Sofina: On everything, hasn’t it, I guess? And … Yeah.

Prav: Totally.

Payman: Sofina, I don’t know how you were as a clinician, but both me and Prav are no longer clinicians, but when I was a dentist, there wasn’t this GDC nightmare that everyone’s under right now. There wasn’t writing essays in the notes. And certainly, I think, for the mental health of the profession, the number one thing that would improve the mental health of the profession is sorting out that-

Sofina: That threat.

Payman: GDC, DLP, the ambulance chasers-

Sofina: Absolutely. No win, no fee.

Payman: And Dom was writing something about it. Now’s a great time for us to come together and say listen, let’s do something about the GDC.

Sofina: Yeah.

Payman: Because I think that’s the single thing that would save the mental health of the profession more than anything else.

Sofina: We definitely need someone to rub … A lot of those ambulance chasers, they need to be told for what they are in terms of we need a defence or maybe a defence that actually says no, I’m sorry, no. That’s just what it is. And I think with advice on that … So I have a lot of dentists, obviously, now and when they do have something like that, I say to them, “Look, don’t lose sleep over it. Don’t lose sleep over it. Give it to your defence, they handle it, they do it. This will happen and it will happen and it’s such a part of our, now, lives and it is what it is. Try and document, try and do the best you can and just leave it to your defence. Don’t lose sleep over it. Don’t think about it. Don’t”-

Prav: It’s easy to say that.

Sofina: It is. It really is. I had a dentist who’s quite senior and he’s been a dentist for so many years and he was just so … And he didn’t do anything wrong, he didn’t do anything wrong, but he passed to defence, but he just wouldn’t sleep and he was having anxiety attacks from it and panic attacks. And I was just like-

Payman: He would take it personally. Yeah.

Sofina: Yeah, they do and it’s so … Especially when they put their heart out there for a patient and they turn around and they get this, and it’s very heartbreaking for dentists to get this. But I think we can choose how we react to it and I think it’s just making it … I think for our dentists, what I try and say to them is, “Look, learn from it.” You can sit there and say that oh, I didn’t do anything wrong, but there’s probably something that you can learn from it, maybe whether it’s spending longer, talking to that person or explaining things better, and what could you have done to stop that complaint happening? And there is always some kind of learning outcome.

Sofina: And I get some dentists who have literally come out dentist school and they don’t think they need to learn anything and they’re there and they can’t self-criticise, and I’m just like, everyone should be self-criticising and thinking right … And I welcome complaints because I’m just like, a complaint will tell you right, what can we fix? What can we do better? And as a problem-solver, it helps me go right, okay, so this is not working, we need to do this and right, okay. So, using it as a tool to improve or learn and not taking it so personally. I think that’s what I can do sometimes, I can very much-

Payman: That’s not the human nature, Sofina, that’s the thing.

Sofina: Yeah.

Prav: Mm. I get that call maybe six, seven times a year from a dentist who will say, “I’ve just had a letter from the GDC or Dental Law Partnership or whatever,” and their world is upside down because the first thing they think is it’s an immediate threat to their career being over.

Sofina: Yeah.

Prav: Irrespective of how rational or irrational that complaint is, that’s what’s going round and buzzing round in their heads. And my role, as somebody who’s guiding them, is just to give them from my experience. Look, I’ve spoken to 30, 40 people in the same situation. From what I’m hearing, and I’m not your legal advisor, I think you’re going to be all right.

Sofina: And that’s what they want to hear and that kind of reassurance that’ll stop them losing sleepless nights up until it does get thrown that. And it’s just a shame, people can spend months stressing over something that’s just going to be thrown out anyway and it’s just-

Prav: Yeah.

Payman: The system needs reforming though.

Sofina: Definitely.

Payman: Yeah?

Sofina: Definitely.

Payman: The system needs reforming. I put something out on Facebook saying, “Why don’t we all pay ARF twice?”

Sofina: Yeah.

Payman: Pay a second amount and set up an organisation to lobby the government and get lawyers and PR. Didn’t prove very popular, people didn’t fancy paying a second-

Sofina: Yeah.

Payman: ARF.

Sofina: You involve money-

Payman: But something you’re doing-

Sofina: Yeah, people don’t like paying for things.

Payman: Yeah, but something does need doing is what I’m saying, you know? We’ve complained all day, I would say-

Sofina: Well, you’re better off-

Payman: Put your money where your mouth is.

Sofina: You know how you’re going to get people is if you say it’s a voluntary or you can donate, and then people are like, “Okay”-

Payman: There you go.

Sofina: “There you go.” And that’s it, the attitude changes completely. It’s a donation, it’s a voluntary thing.

Payman: But my view on it was you pay it double for one year if you thought that you were going to get a GDC that’s fit for purpose. Now, of course, we don’t know, even if everyone does pay double for one year, that that’s what’s going to happen, but something needs to happen. You saw Dominic’s post, Prav, obviously-

Prav: Mm.

Payman: And you saw how much support he had, he was absolutely right. There’s four or five institutions that let us down over this last period, completely, and now’s a good time to come together and try and change some of those.

Sofina: And that’s what it is, we need-

Payman: And for me, number one, GDC.

Sofina: Yeah. I mean, that’s what it is, dentists that put all this energy into attacking other dentists, put it into attacking those who attack us. That makes so much more sense. You want to attack someone, use your energy. If that’s the kind of person you are, we could use that as a tool, just use it the other direction. And I think that’s where the vocal people will actually be very good, but we could use them. Turn it around.

Payman: Prav, do you think Sofina’s too young for your final question?

Prav: I think so, mate. Far too young. Still a baby.

Payman: No, I think she’s got an old brain, man. I think she’s got a good wise brain. Sofina, what would you like your … Forget the funeral, but what would you like your legacy to be? What would you like to be remembered for?

Sofina: I don’t know. I think that … What it is is we’re all going to go, okay? So I could go tomorrow, it’s never too young to ask that question because I could go tomorrow. But I would want to think that what I did, and this is what it is, when I’ve done business and what I’ve done is I’ve made a difference to people. So the kind of dentistry I’ve done and the kind of business I’ve done is one that has actually helped our community and helped people, and I have made that kind of difference. And also, your kids. Your kids are the future. We’re going to go, we’re going to go, they’re going to go and the things that does live on is the values we teach them. So I think it’s really important to make sure that my kids are good people and they do good and they pass that on and they learn those good life lessons and keep that going, and I think that it is what is.

Sofina: I mean, what I set up, the money I have is going to go. It’s not about that, is it? But it’s making a difference in the business that I do and making a difference with my children as well. I think those are the kind of things that do live on when you’re gone. And I have to keep coming back to why I do and it is always important to ask why you’re doing what you’re doing, and are you just getting too involved and not actually thinking is there any point to what you’re doing? And I think that always has to come back to people’s minds. You’re never too young to ask that question because we have no guarantee on life or length of life, so we have to think about that all the time, I guess.

Payman: It’s been a wonderful conversation-

Prav: Thank you.

Payman: We’ve gone in lots of different directions. I know you must be busy, Sofina. You must be busy right now.

Sofina: I don’t even want to look at my inbox.

Payman: I’m really, really glad that you [crosstalk 01:27:16].

Sofina: But yeah, we’re good. All right, no problem.

Payman: Thank you so much.

Prav: Sofina, thanks so much for your time.

Sofina: No problems.

Prav: Really appreciate it.

Sofina: No, it’s been a pleasure. I’ve really enjoyed it actually. Absolutely.

Payman: And we should do this again.

Sofina: Absolutely.

Prav: For sure.

Payman: When the empire’s tripled.

Sofina: We’ll see. I might have just wound down instead, I might have gone a complete other direction and taken up that position as the … Yeah.

Payman: Somehow the-

Sofina: Yeah.

Prav: Having sold everything and driving around in your Lamborghini.

Sofina: Yeah, going for coffees with my friends. I miss that life, I really do miss that life. It’s a good life, and what am I thinking?

Voiceover: 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.

Prav: Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, you must’ve 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.

Payman: 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.

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

Prav: When I was at Oxford, my gym mates were on the door, and there’s two things that they used to tell me. They used to get in a lot of trouble and they used to get all the chicks.

Payman: I generally stayed away from both. I had no luck in either way.

Intro Voice: 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.

Prav: It’s my pleasure to have Andy Wallace on the Dental Leaders podcast today, Andy welcome.

Andrew Wallace: Hi.

Prav: I think we first met, through IAS, was it?

Andrew Wallace: Yeah, actually we first met in Mumbai.

Prav: Yeah.

Andrew Wallace: Coming up to your wedding. That was a trip and a half.

Prav: Yeah, I remember that. Before my wedding we had to go out and do some wedding shopping and we were on, was it an IAS course?

Payman: You took Andy with you?

Prav: [crosstalk] Yeah, but it was around the same time. Was it you and James Russell running the course or yourself?

Andrew Wallace: Me and Santosh Patel, and we met with Caroline, and the guys from the lab in Dubai.

Prav: It was a good trip, really nice food, and I was on these crazy diets.

Payman: Surprise, surprise.

Prav: I so regret it, mate. I so regret it. We went to this amazing restaurant. Probably one of the best Indian restaurants I’ve ever eaten at.

Payman: The Spare Kitchen.

Prav: Yeah, that was it.

Andrew Wallace: That was fantastic.

Prav: They had these amazing desserts and, me being the idiot that I was…

Payman: Didn’t touch them?

Prav: …passed it all by. I regret it.

Payman: Were you eating meat at the time, at least?

Prav: Yeah, I was, but the thing is, after that I got fat. So I looked back at that day and thought, “I should have just bloody eaten it.”

Payman: Yeah.

Andrew Wallace: You were in full prep mode for the wedding.

Prav: Yeah, but then after that I got fat, because I got married anyways.

Andrew Wallace: Those days are passed as well.

Prav: Yeah, this is not about my wedding, mate. Tell us a little bit about yourself, Andy. Where you grew up, what your upbringing was like, and just a little bit about your backstory.

Andrew Wallace: I don’t think it’s anything particularly unusual or special. Grew up in Northern Ireland. My dad worked for one of the banks at that stage, Allied Irish. Partly because of The Troubles, we kind of moved around a little bit.

Prav: Mm-hmm

Andrew Wallace: So we grew up in one little small town, then moved to another one. Then we stayed there for a few years. Then we moved to a larger, well it’s a city, Derry/Londonderry, and my dad finished his career there and took early retirement, so I suppose that’s what I would have called home as a child.

Prav: You moved around a lot as a kid?

Andrew Wallace: Up until 18 we lived in three different towns that were quite far apart. Far away from sort of family support and cousins, and aunts and uncles, and that sort of thing.

Payman: Did it make you good at making friends with people?

Andrew Wallace: I don’t know actually. I’m kind of a very shy sort of a guy.

Payman: Are you?

Andrew Wallace: Actually, yeah.

Payman: Yeah me, too.

Andrew Wallace: I can believe that.

Prav: You can be at times, it depends. It depends on the vibes you get from people, right?

Andrew Wallace: Some people are a lot easier to engage with than others.

Prav: Yeah.

Andrew Wallace: In terms of making friends, I remember my first day at my primary school, when we moved to Derry. I have a twin sister. I was seven years of age. It must have been the end of P3 or something and these two weird looking kids turning up. We didn’t have any of the school uniform or anything, so we turned up to school in matching, hand knitted, white, Aran jumpers.

Payman: So you used to wear the same clothes as your sister, even though you were a boy and she was a girl?

Andrew Wallace: I’m not sure if that was a thing, but we certainly did that day. That’s something that tends to stick in the mind.

Payman: How about The Troubles? What’s your memory of The Troubles in Ireland at that time?

Andrew Wallace: My parents were actually fairly good at kind of insulating it from us. Us from it. Despite it impacting on their lives and impacting on us in general. My parents were a mixed marriage, Catholic and Protestant, which in the ’70s was pretty unusual. It wasn’t sort of accepted and I know certain members of my father’s family didn’t speak to him for many years after my mom. The Troubles impacted him from work, as well, because being a bank manager, it was a well known thing that the paramilitaries would turn up to your house in the middle of the night and take you into the bank and empty the safe. That aside, my parents were very good at giving us the best upbringing they sort of could and insulating us from that. When you see The Troubles and you think back, it doesn’t make you very fond of religion and things like that. How religion can separate communities and separate families.

Prav: Did the relationship between your dad and his family, did it ever affect the relationship between you and your grandparents or uncles?

Andrew Wallace: Not really, so my dad’s parents passed away before I was born.

Prav: Okay.

Andrew Wallace: It was more the sort of distance of we lived the other end of Northern Ireland. Also, his family was kind of spread out, so it was the fact that we moved around for my dad’s work that kind of kept us away from aunts, and uncles, and cousins. Seeing his family and my aunts, and uncles, and cousins from that side was fairly unusual. We would have seen more of my mum’s folks, because we made a point to go up and see the grandparents, once a month sort of a thing.

Payman: I’ve been to Belfast a few times and it’s a fun, fun town. I go to Beirut a lot and they’ve had troubles there since the ’70s, as well. It’s a fun, fun town and it’s almost like, if we’re alive, let’s party. Do you recognise that about Belfast, because I don’t know, I’ve had a lot of fun there. Maybe that was just coincidence.

Prav: You have a lot of fun wherever you go, but you’re the commonality there.

Andrew Wallace: Yeah, there’s definitely fun to be had in Belfast and Ireland in general.

Payman: You know, because of The Troubles. Do you know what I’m saying? It’s literally like that in Beirut. They used to make a joke. They’d say, “During the day we’ll shoot at each other and then at night we’ll drink with each other.”, like a crazy thing like that.

Andrew Wallace: I’m not sure. It’s certainly within communities there’s always a lot of fun to be had, but they were very, very separate.

Payman: Irish people generally have fun, don’t they?

Andrew Wallace: I think so.

Prav: Moving onto school, Andy, were you a swot, clever kid, grafter? What about your sister? What was she doing?

Andrew Wallace: My sister and I, so we went to the same primary school. Come the 11 plus time, we both went to single-sex schools, because those are the sort of grammar schools in the area. I certainly wasn’t one of the most intelligent or gifted students. That’s for sure. I got through most of the time. I certainly remember having great difficulty focusing and doing homeworks and things. There was a period of time I used to give my mother such grief for not doing my homework. Actually, at one point I had to go into the bank, to my dad’s office and all right, you’ll sit there, you’ll do your homework. I was so bad.

Payman: These days you’d be on ADHD medicine or something.

Andrew Wallace: Yeah, so I kind of got through school.

Payman: Do you remember the first time where dentistry came on the radar? Do you have family? How did it happen?

Andrew Wallace: I have no family connection to medicine of dentistry at all. My dad, the only real instruction he said was, “Don’t get involved in the bank.” That’s how parents tend to do. I do remember, we got very little in the way of formal careers guidance in school, so it was off to the library and grab a careers book and just flick through stuff. I enjoyed science and maths, so one of the things that came up was medicine, and pharmacy, and optometry. I had an uncle who was an optician, so that was kind of on the radar. I had a cousin who was a vet. My sister was leaning more towards that, but I kind of just looked up dentistry in a careers book.
Well actually that sounds interesting. There’s no working weekends type of a thing. It’s a much more stable job. On my application form to uni I put down dentistry as number one and pharmacy and optometry. I kind of wanted to stay in Northern Ireland, so dentistry in Belfast at that point had the highest grades to get. It was a bit doubtful that I was going to get there, so when I did I was kind of very thankful. [inaudible]

Payman: Good school. Good school. No?

Andrew Wallace: It was okay, it was okay. It was a very small college.

Payman: Trinity’s a good school.

Andrew Wallace: My old VT trainer went there. He seemed to enjoy it a lot.

Prav: What was dental school like? Did you party hard? Were you a quality student. Somewhere in-between?

Andrew Wallace: Dental school was again, I kind of got through. I did enough to get through. I generally did party as much as I could. All the way through school and all the way through uni I had a series of part-time jobs, so I was always working at something.

Prav: Because you had to or because you just wanted to earn some extra cash?

Andrew Wallace: I wanted to earn some extra cash.

Prav: Mm-hmm.

Andrew Wallace: All the way through secondary school I was working in a petrol station. We wouldn’t be allowed now. Twelve years of age out pumping petrol and delivering papers and stuff. When I hit uni, I had a series of bar jobs, carrying glasses, washing glasses, working behind the bar. Then, sort of towards the end of uni, realised it was a lot easier working on the door than working behind the bar.

Prav: Oh, nice.

Andrew Wallace: That was so much more fun. Much less hard work.

Prav: When I was at Oxford, my gym mates, who used to train at the local town sort of town gym, were on the door. The two things that they used to tell me about being on the door is they used to get in a lot of trouble and they used to get all the chicks.

Andrew Wallace: I generally stayed away from both. I had no luck in either way. I kind of got into it.

Prav: You must have some stories for us.

Andrew Wallace: I kind of got into it through friends. Some of them were working on the door and I ended up sort of doing a lot of martial arts. A lot of the martial artist that I were working with were working in the various bars and I started working with them in some of the same bars I was actually working behind the bar, so it was a bit of a strange transition. I must say, I did enjoy it. I just love people watching.

Prav: Especially when drunk.

Andrew Wallace: Yeah, absolutely. We had some fun nights out afterwards. Some of the bars we worked in, we genuinely had a great time while we were working. It was such a great, fun atmosphere and we were the dancing doormen. Come certain songs, we’d kick everyone of the podiums and all of that and the door staff would get up and dance. It was great fun and I made some fantastic friends.

Prav: That was throughout dental school you were on the door, right?

Andrew Wallace: Yeah, right the way up until several months into VT, I was still working on the door.

Prav: Were there ever any moments on the door where you felt uncomfortable, threatened, or you thought, “Crap, things are going to kick off today?”

Andrew Wallace: There was quite a few. The student union ran a nightclub outside of the normal student hours, Friday night and Saturday, and that was called Shine. That was sort of a dance club. There was always issues trying to keep certain people out.

Payman: Which year was this?

Andrew Wallace: ’97, ’98 sort of thing. There was issues trying to keep certain people out and then when I left shine, I was actually running a door team in another student bar. Again, during the week, lovely place to work. Come Saturday and Sunday night, it was a very different clientele and again, there were some moments that you think, “What the hell was I doing even getting involved in any of that? Why didn’t I just walk away?” I was about to graduate in dentistry, why am I putting myself and my career by getting involved? Having to tell very unpleasant people that they weren’t coming into a pub.

Prav: Yeah, and being in it. Were you just confident in yourself, because of the martial arts. Were you operating at quite a high level in that sense? How long had you been training for? Had you competed?

Andrew Wallace: We did a little bit of martial arts when I was a kid. Shortly after we moved to Derry, my sister wanted to do Irish dancing and I wanted to do karate. I had to do about six months of Irish dancing as a kid before I was allowed to do karate, that was the payoff.

Prav: Did she do the karate, as well?

Andrew Wallace: For a little while. Then, at uni I was sort of training a couple times a week. We were doing sort of inter-varsity competitions both in Ireland and the U.K., but at that stage I was never competing at any great level. What we were doing was a very practical based martial arts. We were taking lots of different aspects from different martial arts and putting them into what would have been a practical application. Myself and my sensei would have travelled around to various other universities teaching other martial arts clubs the sort of practical applications of the stuff we’re practising . After uni, we did kind of ramp it up a notch. At one point, in 2007, we went over and we competed in Jersey in the World Jui Jitsu Championships.

Prav: Oh, so you were at quite a high level, then?

Andrew Wallace: It wasn’t the top level of martial art competition, but I must say I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the experience. It was a great lesson in discipline in that we sort of set our sights about two years out from this competition that we were going to do well at it. For about 18 months I was training a bit like you.

Prav: Every day.

Andrew Wallace: Every day, sometimes twice a day. At that point, I was practising and I had my own practise at that stage. I was taking my eye off the ball, with regards to the practise.

Prav: So you owned your business at that point?

Andrew Wallace: Yeah.

Prav: You were doing training for this competition every day.

Andrew Wallace: Yeah.

Prav: How did you handle that? Were you training in the morning, practising during the day, training after work?

Andrew Wallace: Most mornings there was kind of spinning before work, three or four mornings a week. Then, three or four evenings a week we were doing general karate type training and then Saturday, Sunday was more specific training for this particular competition.

Prav: How did you do?

Andrew Wallace: We didn’t do so well that year. We came fourth overall. The team as a whole brought back a couple of gold medals, a silver, and a bronze, but we weren’t brilliant. The guys went out and kept up, the rest of the team, kept up the training and three years later they actually won the whole thing. That was in Vegas.

Prav: Andy, would you say that discipline that you get from training for something like that, you apply to dentistry, as well?

Andrew Wallace: I should say yes, but personally I’m not a very disciplined person.

Prav: You must be to train like that. That’s a disciplined person. That’s not a non-disciplined person.

Andrew Wallace: I suppose if I have a specific goal, I can be very focused on getting what needs to be done for that specific goal, but I’m not very good at setting goals.

Prav: Some people are disciplined when there’s other to please. If you’ve got a team, you’ve got to turn up for the team, but if they’re on their own they’re not.

Andrew Wallace: One of the things, last year a few of us said we were going to run a half-marathon for the [inaudible] Foundation, so I found that very motivation, that I would actually go out and do some miles. Get up on Sunday and do a dozen miles, just to make sure that I wasn’t going to let anybody down. I was going to be able to do what I said I would do. This year we said we’re going to do a full marathon. Now we haven’t actually set the goal yet. We haven’t named the date. I’m struggling a little bit to keep the motivation going, in terms of getting the miles in and getting the cardio done. Yeah, when I have something specific in mind that I need to work for, I can be very, very oriented, but I’m not great at setting goals.

Prav: Andy, so what was the transition from qualifying to owning your own practise? Time scales and what happened in-between your first job?

Andrew Wallace: I did my VT about two or three miles actually from Queen’s Dental School. I got the job almost by luck. My first interview that I went for the guy offered me the job on the spot, but it was back home in Derry. I thought, I’m not sure I really want to go home. I said, “Listen brilliant. Can I have 24 hours to think about it?”, and he said, “Yeah, absolutely.” I called them up the next morning and said, “I’m going to take this job.” “Sorry too late. I’ve given it to somebody else.” Oh my god. All other interviews that I came in for; “Sorry we’ve given it to somebody else.” The last one that I had to hear from I managed to get. It was a massive stroke of luck, because he still is a brilliant chap and he was a great mentor. He was very giving of his time and his knowledge.
The practise was in a very high needs area, a place called Ballymurphy, which is the highest DMF in Northern Ireland, or was at the time, which has the DMF in the whole U.K. It was a very high needs area and this guy, Pearse Stinson, had carved out his own little private practise for himself within this big NHS practise doing almost exclusively implants. So in an area where most of the patients were exempt, they were paying nothing for their dentistry, he was providing a service and having patients travel from all over to have him do the treatment. For me, while it was a great practise, and a great team, and Pearse was lovely, it wasn’t the sort of dentistry that I thought I’d signed up for. It was high caries rate. You know these apple core type teeth were just rotted away by coke. You’d fix everything and then you’d come back in six months time and you’d have to do it all over again.
For me I found that very challenging. I’m spending more time in one appointment fixing a couple of teeth than they were spending brushing their teeth in the entire six months. I vividly still remember the day I spoke to Pearse and said listen, “This is not what I thought dentistry was going to be.”, and he said, “If you want to grow yourself, do it through education.”, and he gave me the name of a chap who’s running restorative courses over in London, Harris Sedelsky

Prav: Oh yeah.

Andrew Wallace: So as soon as I could I signed up for the course. Travelling back and forth to London every couple of weeks to Harris’ practise and it was a very old school. Sort of restorative course. Harris did his prosthodontic training in The States. It was all about pantographs and very high end, very occlusally driven. I learned a lot.

Prav: He was minimally invasive guy, wasn’t he back then?

Payman: That’s exactly what I said when he mentioned Harris to me, but apparently not back then.

Andrew Wallace: What he was teaching us was classic prosthodontics. Classic preps, how to take impressions, silver dyes, you know we took such a long time talking about occlusions.

Payman: He’s a super knowledgeable guy. Super knowledgeable.

Andrew Wallace: Absolutely and certainly at the time he talked through the very specific protocols he head in his practise for managing people at risk of caries and perio. Way ahead of the time. Lots of stuff about risk assessment and things. I suppose one of the most important things I learned in that course was, there was a half a day on cosmetic dentistry and it blew my mind that this is something that I’d never really heard anybody speak about. You kind of assumed, because you knew what a veneer prep was that you knew what cosmetic dentistry was. It opened my eyes to what I didn’t know.

Prav: It woke you up.

Andrew Wallace: I really did and that kind of set me down the path of cosmetic dentistry route in education and that side of things. After that I took lots of FMC courses with Anthony Zybutz, Mike Zybutz, and then I first heard Basil Mizrahi speak and thought, okay hold on, this is the guy that I want to learn cosmetic dentistry from. This was 2004, 2005 and his level of precision and a real want to do things as minimally invasive as possible. When I eventually did Basil’s course, which took a couple of years, I remember him showing a little orthodontic appliance that he had said he had kind of made up himself. That he would move a tooth by a millimetre or something, just so he didn’t have to prep into the pulp, but yeah that’s the sort of thing.

Payman: He’s at the very highest level, isn’t he?

Andrew Wallace: He is fantastic.

Prav: You did his whole course? The year course thing?

Andrew Wallace: Yeah, he was teaching aesthetics as part of the course in The Eastman. The Eastman wouldn’t let you sign up for just the cosmetic course. He said, “Listen hold on. I’m going to be running this outside of The Eastman in a couple of years, so I held on and we did the first course form, which I think was in a hospital in Elings. That was another sort of trips back and forth to Northern Ireland over an easy jet.

Prav: You’re used to travelling aren’t you, Andy?

Andrew Wallace: Little bit.

Payman: How many times do you travel out of Ulster?

Andrew Wallace: I have little app on my phone which tells me about all my flights.

Payman: Oh yeah?

Andrew Wallace: I managed 55 flights last year.

Payman: Bloody hell.

Prav: I don’t know how you do it, mate.

Andrew Wallace: There was a time towards the end of last year that it was getting a bit much.

Payman: Is it every other weekend you’re away?

Andrew Wallace: There’s lots of times in the year when there’s loads of stuff going on in dentistry. From now coming into sort of May and then the other end of September, October, November, flat out stuff. Thankfully last year I specifically took a bit of a break in November, December, because my daughter was sitting her 11 plus. My job was to look after the younger brother and make sure she could focus in on the exam.

Payman: When was the first time you came across Tif Qureshi?

Andrew Wallace: I saw an article written by Tif on the Inman aligner in one of the dental magazines. I don’t remember which one and again I had al this knowledge and skills about how to prep. I wasn’t having the patients. The patients who were coming in for me for cosmetic dentistry were all patients who had malocclusions, they had malaligned teeth, and I just wasn’t comfortable doing the preps. I sent them off to the orthodontist. Of those that went, nobody ever had the treatment, because the orthodontist that we’re referring to is very much an NHS based orthodontist. This was the early 2000s and they were very much getting the standard orthodontic treatment plan or nothing, so most people were having nothing.
I was kind of stuck. I’d done all the training in cosmetic dentistry and wasn’t doing very much.

Prav: He wasn’t that dentist who prepped the hell out of teeth and veneered them and crowned them?

Andrew Wallace: Very, very few, because personally it didn’t sit well. Tiff did that, didn’t he, back in the day?

Payman: I did that when I was a dentist back in the day, but you’re right. I had the opportunity to do only that and it didn’t sit well.

Andrew Wallace: I was taking all the courses, finding the best education that I could in it. Then I was sitting down in my own surgery going, “I can’t actually prep into. I can’t do this elective endo.” As a general practitioner, you spend most of your day preserving teeth and saving teeth and preventing decay. Then all of the sudden you flip a switch. Now I’m a cosmetic dentist and it doesn’t matter how much enamel was up the suction. I read an article from Tif on the Inman. It took me about six months to go on the course, because they were only rolling them every now and again.

Payman: You read that article. Did you there and then recognise what it was saying?

Andrew Wallace: I thought, “This is my way into doing nicer dentistry.” The sort of dentistry that I’ve spent all this time and money getting into and I personally haven’t been able to do it. I though, “This is for me.”, so myself and, I rang about a colleague of mine who I went to uni with and I convinced him to come over to London. It was later on in the year and we did the course. In fact Tif had come over to do a PACV study club in Belfast on the Inman aligner a few weeks before the course, so I actually met him before the course. In all honesty, in all the courses that I’ve done, just the amount of stuff that was in that course and the application of it has had more impact on my own practise. Not just the whole teaching stuff, but my own practise more than anything else.

Prav: Andy, just tell us this, because I’ve been and Tif’s lecture and the teaching behind the academy has changed somewhat. I would say it’s just evolved over the last 18 months or two years, just in terms he’s delivered the emphasis of the constantly moving teeth and all of that. One of the things I’ve noticed that in front of a new audience there’s a moment during that talk that jaws drop, light bulbs go on, and they think, “Jesus I’ve got it now.”

Andrew Wallace: Yeah, I knew that exact moment. It’s that moment when general dentists who’ve maybe signed up for course thinking it’s about cosmetics, or it’s ortho, and they realise that it’s actually about all of my patients. This is about almost everybody that sits in front of me every day of the week.

Prav: Was that the same thing on the first course that you went on with Tif?

Andrew Wallace: Absolutely no mention of any of that. At that stage, Tif hadn’t been the BAC president at that stage. James I don’t think had his BAC accreditation that long, so it was Tif with James Russell and Tim [inaudible] taking the course. It was very much along the lines of well you’re going to have all these patients coming in for veneers and here’s how to do alignment, and bleeting, and there was maybe a little bit on bonding. How to do that instead. There was no real thought at that stage of general patients and general dentistry.

Payman: I remember Tif saying it was saying it was for lowers.

Prav: Well yeah, because you couldn’t veneer lowers. It started out as that.

Andrew Wallace: Yeah, and that was I think the first case I saw. His article was on lower arch and a lot of the cases he talked about in the early ones were doing the lower arch, still doing the veneers in the upper. I was there at a cosmetic dentistry meeting recently and some amazing dentistry done and they look at the lowers and hold on. You’ve done all this work on the upper teeth and the lower teeth are still crooked. What’s going to happen to those are they going to stay there? No they’re not. They’re going to keep moving. It totally changes your idea on the patients that sit in front of you and it requires you to change your conversations in surgery as well. One of the best tools I’ve found for doing that is the intraoral scanner. We’ve had an intraoral scanner in the practise for over 10 years.

Payman: Have you?

Andrew Wallace: Yeah, we had a Cerec 3D and then we got an omnicam about four years ago, but I’ve recently bought a Trios.

Prav: Is it that thing where it can lay a scan from two years ago to the scan now?

Andrew Wallace: Exactly, the patient monitoring.

Prav: Amazing. Tell us about that. Just go on, spell it out. Just spell that out.

Andrew Wallace: One of the great things about the newer scanners like the Trios is that they’re so fast you can take a scan. Upper and lower full out scan while you’re doing a check up.

Payman: So you do it on every patient?

Andrew Wallace: Almost every patient. I can have a scan done before my nurse comes back from the next room having scanned in the bitewings. It’s 45 seconds upper and lower and then a couple of minutes to process. In less than five minutes you can have the scans. You can then show to the patients on the big screen what’s going on in their mouths and in a more dynamic way than you can with photographs. They can really see the change in the shapes and the size of ledges. They can see those little points the contacts have slipped.

Prav: It’s not just communication is it? It’s also diagnosis in a way.

Andrew Wallace: Yeah and you’re putting up in front of the patients. They go, “Wow, what’s going on there. I didn’t know that was like that.” I’ve been able to manipulate on the screen and show them, “Okay so you’ve got this wear. See how those two bits of wear match up? The chiselled edges, that’s called pathway wear and that’s generally caused by a certain relationship of your teeth and that relationship can get worse over time.” Since we’ve kind of changed our focus, but I’m catching up on Tif. I’m now having different conversations with patients as well and the number of patients that are going ahead now with bonding or alignment for more functional reasons. For a long time we were having new patients come into the practise and they were having align, bleach, and bond. That was all well and good, but then they were off and going back through practises.
I’m in my own practise now, 16 years, and patients that I’ve been merrily seeing for 16 years, who have no interest in the aesthetic side of things, once you’re explaining what’s changing in their mouths, they’re going, “Hold on. What do I do to get this sorted?” You don’t even have to talk about the alignment. They want you to provide solutions for them, because they now know they have a problem that is likely to change over time.

Prav: So similar to Tif you’ve seen long term follow up.

Andrew Wallace: Yeah.

Prav: Same practise for a long time.

Andrew Wallace: Yeah, saw it again and again. IT’s a powerful thing, seeing your own work. Just very recently I had to replace the first impress posterior crown that I’d ever done. It was about 15 years old. It just got a little chip on it, a little crack. That’s brilliant to be able to go back. We did this and this and you know the patients. You know the family. It’s great seeing your own work over time. It’s a great way to learn about things. I’ve done a lot of composite rehabs in the past for tooth wear and things like that and it’s great to see those last and wear. Eventually having to redo it, but it’s great redoing it now with the skills, and the material, and the better techniques that we have now. You see a lot of younger dentists moving practises fairly quickly. How do you judge your own work if you’re not seeing how it lasts over time?

Payman: I get that thing that tiff explains so well about that and you’re doing too, but there is also that thing when you’re a young dentist that you don’t have this feeling. You did right? You moved from that high needs one. That feeling of being exposed to a couple of different bosses. A couple of different regimes makes yo understand more about dentistry, about running a practise, that sort of thing you know?

Andrew Wallace: I suppose if you always do what you always did, you’ll never do anything differently and you’ll never get different results.

Payman: True.

Andrew Wallace: So you do have to see what’s out there. When I moved practise and bout my own, it was partly because I wanted to do a particular type of dentistry that wasn’t possible where I was. One of the great things about Harris’s course was he did talk a little bit about practise management, and how to build a private practise, and communicate with patients. I felt more comfortable after the getting the education part of that.

Payman: Is your practise quite high end?

Andrew Wallace: It’s a family practise. We have lots of generations. It was a family practise that I bought over along with a partner. One of the partner stayed and the other one retired, so I bought over the retiring partner’s portion of the business. It was older folks, generation, generation, kids. It was a properly private family practise. Lots of plan patients and nothing particularly special. I’ve been there for 16 years.

Prav: You’ve owned the practise for 16 years, so you worked there for a bit?

Andrew Wallace: No I bought it. I bought it almost unseen, so I didn’t really know what I was buying.

Prav: How does that happen?

Andrew Wallace: There was no real due diligence done then, in terms of buying a practise. You got to see the books. You called in once or twice to meet the staff, and that talked to a couple of patients, and there you go. There wasn’t a great deal of choice private practise in Northern Ireland. At that stage they were kind of few and far between. Most practises were NHS. You know they’ve been talking about changing the NHS system in Norther Ireland for like 20 years and I saw 16 years ago that I don’t want somebody else having such control over what I do.

Payman: Yeah.

Andrew Wallace: I don’t want to be in a system where the NHS can decide to change what they want to do and that’s me locked in, because I’ve spent a fortune on an NHS practise.

Prav: What was the one thing about practise ownership that you were totally unprepared for. It sounds like you just thought, “You know what, sounds like a good idea. I want to do this type of dentistry. I’ll just buy a practise. Those books look good. Let’s get stuck in.”

Andrew Wallace: That was pretty much the thought process. It’s definitely managing people.

Prav: Yeah.

Andrew Wallace: That’s the hardest thing, managing staff. Trying to see things from their point of view can be challenging. We’ve had some brilliant members of the staff in the past. We’ve a great team right now. We went through some challenges with the team in the past, like every team does.

Prav: Sure.

Payman: Is there still the other partner in place as well?

Andrew Wallace: He retired about 10 years ago.

Payman: Just you as the owner now?

Andrew Wallace: I’ve since had another partner.

Payman: Oh a different one.

Andrew Wallace: He did an amazing thing last year. He emigrated to Australia. You talk about big changes. After VT he worked in Australia for a year with his wife and they’ve gone out there on holidays a few times and they decided we want to give it a try. The way the Visa thing works in Australia, if he hadn’t done it last year, it wasn’t going to happen. So sold his practise, sold his house, off to work as associates in Australia. Another chap bought in, so it’s been a bit of a transition, the practise in the last six months, but Killian seems to be getting on great.

Prav: Is that like a due diligence process? Did you vet this guy before he bought in?

Andrew Wallace: Actually yeah, Craig, my partner who just went to Australia, he was very open about the whole thing. Essentially him and I sat down. He didn’t advertise the practise. He spoke to his accountant. We had the same accountant. He said, “Well I know this chap who seems like a nice guy. Wants to buy a practise.” I happened to mention to another young dentist who’d messaged me about what sort of private practise were looking for associates at that stage and between us we kind of decided who would be the best fit for the practise. He was absolutely brilliant through the whole thing.

Prav: Were you given first refusal? Did it cross your mind?

Andrew Wallace: Yeah I had refusal, but I must admit, Craig did a lot of the running of the practise.

Prav: Okay.

Andrew Wallace: Particularly with me travelling a lot. I work in a referral practise one day a week as well. So my focus isn’t always 100% on the practise.

Prav: Got it, so you need someone else.

Andrew Wallace: I do, I do. Somebody who has a vested interest and wants to see the practise do well.

Payman: What is your role in the practise though? Do you have a role? Are you the ideas guy or something or do you do the hiring and firing.

Andrew Wallace: I try and just do the dentistry. People make me do other things. I definitely don’t enjoy hiring and firing and certainly the firing. Thankfully I haven’t had to do very much of that. The running of the practise I find challenging, because I really enjoy dentistry. I love dentistry. I love the technical challenge of it. I don’t really enjoy running a business, doing the books.

Payman: I’m the same.

Prav: So firing, talk me through.

Payman: He’s not had to know how to do it.

Prav: No, he has.

Payman: He doesn’t like to do it.

Andrew Wallace: Just the once. I’m not going to say a lot about it, but it was very challenging time for the entire team. Ultimately, it had to be done and the team came out of it much better as a result, but it was a very challenging time.

Prav: I’ve found it the hardest thing to do. It’s the hardest part of my job is firing someone.

Payman: That notion, yeah. I really believe in this, that if you’re going to fire someone, give them four months pay to sweeten the pill. The reason is if you don’t, they should have been fire four months ago, but you stretch it out. You know what I mean? You’re going to pay them for four months anyway.

Prav: No.

Andrew Wallace: One of the dental gurus calls that a well poisoner.

Payman: Oh is that right?

Andrew Wallace: So if you have them there you’re better off just getting rid of them.

Payman: Yeah just get them off. Just get them out. What I’m saying is, just to make it easier for yourself, give them a load of pay, because I’ve been through this situation where we haven’t fire that person right and just stretched it out.

Andrew Wallace: You’re just prolonging the pain yeah.

Payman: With this particular person, how long extra was she there that she should have been out?

Andrew Wallace: There was a degree of challenging and difficulty going on for this particular person. There was one particular incident which brought everything to a head and we had to involve and HR consultant. The first decision that they made was, okay she can’t be on the premises. I had to walk in and say, “You’re leaving now.”, and I went through the whole dismissal process and partial things.

Prav: You had to deliver the news right?

Andrew Wallace: Yeah.

Prav: When did you find out that you were going to deliver the news. What was the time delay between you saying, “I’ve got to do this job.”, and doing the job.

Andrew Wallace: It was within 24 hours.

Prav: Oh okay. Did you have the conversation with yourself a few times in your head?

Andrew Wallace: It was a fairly abrupt conversation.

Prav: Was it?

Andrew Wallace: It kind of had to be…

Prav: Because of the situation.

Andrew Wallace: This was one of the times where I couldn’t lean on Craig, because he was actually off in Australia on holiday. It was one of the few times I was left flying solo. There was lots of messages, and emails, and phone calls, and things, but it was down to me to deliver the bad news. It’s definitely not I thing I’d like to repeat.

Payman: That’s life.

Prav: Payment. Four months pay for anyone you’re going to fire. That will help when they listen to this podcast.

Payman: I’ve never done it, but I’ve certainly had people stick around for four months longer than they should, because we didn’t get around. We started making excuses.

Andrew Wallace: We’ve had some great team members and we’ve had some not so great team members. I’ve never been one to try and change somebody’s mind if they decide they’re going to leave. I wish them the best and I hope they do well. Often times if somebody’s not flourishing in your business, it often takes a change of situation for them and they’ll flourish somewhere else. I won’t try and convince somebody to stay if they’ve made up their mind to go, I suppose.

Payman: I’ve done that too. I know you said you were really interested in the technical side of the work.

Andrew Wallace: Not lab work.

Payman: Of course, but doing the dentistry.

Andrew Wallace: I really enjoy endo.

Payman: Really? That’s what I was going to say, specifically, you actually like the [inaudible] or the treatment planning aspect, or the people aspect, or the teaching? Which one of those do you like the most?

Andrew Wallace: I enjoy doing it all. I generally love all the parts of dentistry and I love the variety that I have. Three days a week I’m mostly doing general dentistry and doing align, bleach, bond. In the referral practise I’m doing profs, and endo, and implant dentures, and rehabs. Then one or two days a week I’m teaching. I really enjoy the mix. There’s no doubt that the teaching part of it is the most fun day of the week. You can get such a buzz from that moment when you see something just go, “Holy crap. This is the way forward. This is going to change what I’m doing.”
I suppose the downside of that is sometimes you see those moments, but the people don’t take it forward. There’s that resistance to change, both in themselves and within their practises. Change takes effort.

Prav: Time.

Payman: We said that on our course as well. From the people who’ve come on the course, some take it on and on and others, nothing. We see that too.

Prav: Andy, what do you think is the difference between people who come on one of your courses and action takers and those who just carry on doing the same thing, although they’ve been inspired by your teaching or training. What is it about those people who actually do something and then go on to treat patients the way you’ve taught them?

Andrew Wallace: There are some people that will take a good idea and will run with it, no matter what it is. They just see the value in it and they’ll take the time to do it. There are some people that kind of fall into it accidentally. We see if people aren’t starting to change what they do within the first couple of weeks, they start doubting themselves. They lose confidence. They think, “I must have forgotten something. I couldn’t do that.” Even if it’s just having a conversation with a member of staff, treating a team member, treating a family member, it’s getting going early on.

Prav: That first case.

Andrew Wallace: That first case.

Payman: I said exactly the same thing. Treat the team member.

Andrew Wallace: My first few Inman aligner cases I did for the lab, just to get going. Then the next few I did for half price. I had done lots of cases before I was starting to charge full price.

Prav: Then you’re off to the races right?

Andrew Wallace: Absolutely. You know the protocols. You know how to do it. You are quicker at it and you’ve ironed out a lot of the bugs now. When I started doing it in whatever it was, 2008, there was no forum. There was no support. It was, “Come on the course. We will cram as much knowledge onto you as possible and then you’re on your own.” I think how I got into the teaching side of it was torturing Tif and James Russell. I got Tif’s email address, I was firing him photographs. I was turning up at the BACD with photos on my Ipad, with story models in my bag. I’d ask Tif, “Come on, we’ll grab a beer. I need to talk to you about this stuff.”
My early case was kind of trial and error. Now it’s so much easier for people to integrate this into practise, because I’ve made all the mistakes already. You can learn from my mistakes, instead of having to remake those all over again. That’s one of the best things about starting off in anything new in dentistry now. You have access through the internet, through forums, through Facebook to so many people that are absolutely at the top of their game in this stuff. But one of the challenges also is there’s a lot of Facebook dentistry. How do you work out who is at the top of their game and who’s bluffing?

Prav: Andy, how did you get into teaching. You went on Tif’s course and then you wound up teaching.

Andrew Wallace: I was doing quite a few cases and I was pinging the odd email to Tif asking for help. He said at one of the BACD meetings, “Come on, we’ll grab a beer.” He said, “If we need somebody to teach a course or two a year over in Ireland, would you fancy doing it?” I thought not really. I am genuinely quite a shy chap and he said, “Come on the course a couple of times. See how we do it.” I said, “We’ll see how it goes.” The initial thought was we’ll do one or two courses a year in Ireland too and I’ve a couple of dozen courses a year maybe, travelling to The States and Africa.

Prav: You’ve taken 55 flights a year.

Andrew Wallace: Yeah. I used to think when I was going over to Harris, like 10 flights or 20, I thought that was big deal.

Prav: Jeez.

Payman: We’ve been asking everyone regarding clinical mistakes. The reason we’re asking is because they tend to get hidden and no learns from them. Black box thinking type thing. Would you share with us what’s your biggest clinical error?

Andrew Wallace: I suppose the one that springs to mind is me maybe showing off a little bit. I think we had a new dentist or somebody with work experience in the practise with a patient in pain. I was busy chatting through what I was doing with this potential new dentist, had a patient in pain, made the diagnosis of irreversible Pulpitis. I put the rubber down on the tooth, opened the access cavity, and went, “Hold on. Wrong tooth.” I was supposed to be opening the sixth and I opened the seventh or vice versa.

Prav: Took a deep breath.

Andrew Wallace: Took a deep breath. You know sucked in the pain, set the patient up, and explained my mistake. “I’m terribly sorry. We’ve opened the wrong tooth. Totally my mistake.”

Payman: Longstanding patient or…

Andrew Wallace: Longstanding patient. I see the whole family. I see the mom, I see the dad, I see her, I see her kids. Another good reason for building relationships with patients. Who was it? I think it was Steve Hudson told me ages ago, “Never treat a stranger.” That’s one of the problems again with a lot of the way that we market ourselves as dentists. You’re inviting strangers in and you’re doing invasive treatments on patients that you’ve built up no relationship with. That’s sort of a mistake and someone that you don’t have a relationship with, that could be a major issue in your career.

Prav: So what happened?

Andrew Wallace: She was totally fine about it. We ended up having to do the endo on both teeth. Didn’t charge her for either. Crowns in both of them. Didn’t charge her for either. That was maybe seven or eight years ago and she’s still a patient. I still see the family. It’s one of those things. Mistakes happen.

Prav: Andy, you said you’re quite a shy person getting up on stage for the first time, public speaking. I know the first time I did it I absolutely crapped my pants. It was just that fear, that racing heart, all that moment. Did you get that?

Andrew Wallace: You get, what do they call it, Imposter Syndrome? You think, “Surely they shouldn’t have asked me to do this.” You’re right. The heart races and the tunnel vision. I’ve developed certain strategies to help me with that. The first bit of a presentation I did was I was just presenting a little tiny part of one of the big courses and it’s just grown and grown. I still get very nervous coming up to bigger podium type presentations, where you have 100, 200 people in the room. The hands on courses I just enjoy start to finish now.

Prav: Do you ever get a little bit nervous just before them or is that now almost like second nature.

Andrew Wallace: It comes and goes. I suppose now we’re delivering them every couple of weeks not so much. I hadn’t done one since November there, so when we did one in January I was like, “Hold on there. The hearts going again.” One of the things I’ll do is I’ll do an introduction and then I’ll put up a video. Tif has done some amazing videos highlighting the change in philosophy. You put the on for a couple of minutes, people get engaged in that, you get your heart rate down a little bit, and then when those finish you can relax and you can start off.

Prav: What advice would you give to somebody who is about to step on the podium for the first time in that position of suffering from Imposter Syndrome or thinking, “Bloody hell, I’m just about to wing it now.” What advice would you give to somebody who’s been in that position before?

Andrew Wallace: I suppose the only reason that I feel I can stand up and talk about anything is because I’m passionate about it. When you have a passion for something it makes it much easier to talk about. Still that first couple of moments on the stage is challenging. You’ve just got to try and rehearse what you’re going to do.

Payman: Prepare.

Andrew Wallace: Prepare. Anytime I’m doing a podium type presentation, where I have to do I knew presentation for it, I’ll always go back and listen to a book called Talk Like Ted.

Payman: Is it a good book? I’ve always wanted to read that.

Andrew Wallace: Carmine Gallow was the guy who wrote the book. He goes through some simple steps of how to build a presentation. If you can then build a presentation based on that and you know it really well, then you will be a lot more comfortable going up and presenting that. I still get caught out. You get asked to do presentations at relatively short notice, you will sometimes use other people’s content, which you don’t know as well as some of your own. You know at the end of a presentation whether you’ve done well or not.

Payman: My top tip for presentations is a strong start and a strong finish.

Andrew Wallace: Absolutely.

Payman: Let the bits in the middle work themselves out. So me and Prav were both lecturing on the same stage and I said to him, “Guess what, dude. The first two slides and the last two slides, I’ve learned those by heart, word for word.” He goes, “I’ve learned every single word by memorization.”

Andrew Wallace: That’s what Prav’s like, isn’t he? That just highlights if you can stick a video in there as your second slide for a couple of minutes.

Prav: Happy days.

Payman: When the videos on do you look at the video or do you look at the audience?

Andrew Wallace: I look at the audience. There’s one particular video that we do as part of the ABB course and it’s a video of two separate parts. One bit is just everything that’s wrong with dentistry. It’s poor planning. It’s poor execution. It’s dentistry done for dentist by balance rather than help the patient. Then the second one is all about minimally invasive cosmetic surgery; align, bleach, bond. Just really good planning. Simple dentistry done really well. I just love watching the audience watching that. You see the change in how they look at things. I genuinely love that.

Prav: Andy, talk to me about work life balance. For me, I work incredibly hard and often it’s time away from the kids, time away from the family and it can take its toll on your personal life right? You more so than me. I get a bit of a hard time at home. Sometimes I go home and Prav’s not there. He’s there, but he’s not there. He’s not fully engaged, because I’m walking in with my work hat on or I’m walking in with my problems from work or whatever that is. What’s it like for you at home and the reality of the relationship with your wife, your kids?

Andrew Wallace: Thankfully my wife’s a dentist as well and she works in Cranmore in the referral practise where I work doing general dentistry. She is fantastic. My work life balance isn’t as good as it should be. I haven’t found that sweet spot yet, but no matter where I say I’m going to go or what I’m going to do…
I have a tendency to say yes. Somebody offers me something to do or gives me an opportunity, I generally say yes and then work out a way to do it. That way generally involves lumbering my poor wife. She’ll have to do extra pick up. She’ll have to take time off from work. She’ll have to take the kids to rugby while I’m off who knows where.

Prav: He is the yes man at the IAS Academy. “Who’s going to do this course?” Andy sticks his hand up. “I’ll do it.”

Payman: It’s a successful way of being, but we’ve all been at that engagement where it took hours to fly there, hours to fly back, and it wasn’t worth the journey. You get an upside from it, but you get a horrible downside from saying yes to everything as well.

Prav: Yeah, you do. You’ll fly for hours to give an hour long presentation.

Payman: Delayed flight or something. Especially when you’re taking 55 flights a year. You’ve must have hit a few airport situations.

Andrew Wallace: Actually thankfully very few.

Payman: Really?

Andrew Wallace: I’ve only ever had one sort of aborted landing. There was a bit of chaos in Heathrow last week with an IT failure. I was actually over with my son.

Prav: For pleasure?

Andrew Wallace: So in terms of work life balance, I’m not great. I say yes to things and I work out how to do it. I really should have been home with the kids or taken them here, taken them there.

Prav: How old are they?

Andrew Wallace: I have a daughter who’s 11, so she did her transfer test last year and a son who’s eight. He’s a bit of a live wire, but there doing a project in school about Egypt, so when I heard there was a thing on the Saatchi Gallery I thought all right let’s go over.
Him and I just spent last weekend cramming as much kiddy stuff in London as we could in two days and we killed it.

Payman: Did he enjoy the Tutankhamun?

Andrew Wallace: He did. We did the science museum, we did the natural history museum, we did the London Eye, visited the aquarium. Basically I put a post up on Facebook. “What to do with an eight-year-old in London?”

Payman: Right.

Andrew Wallace: I fit as many of those things in those two days as possible and it was fantastic.

Payman: It’s my top tip to parents to take one kid away or one kid out for dinner.

Andrew Wallace: To gather my two are very challenging. They fight and they wind one another up.

Prav: If you think back to when you were a kid, if your dad took you somewhere, that would be a major moment in your childhood.

Andrew Wallace: I can’t remember who said to me recently, you don’t remember the things that you get bought as a kid, but you remember experiences.

Prav: Sure.

Andrew Wallace: Think back yourself the things you remember. Going on holidays, going on trips, going away with your folks. I don’t often get enough time to do that and you’re absolutely right. Together my two are challenging. Props to my wife.

Prav: They’re totally different on their own.

Andrew Wallace: Yeah. They’re like little people by themselves, but together they’re just bouncing off one another.

Prav: Your sister, did she become a dentist, too?

Andrew Wallace: No, my sister works in admin in the hospital in Derry. She still lives in Derry. She still lives in the family home. I don’t think I could go back and live there. It’s very insular I suppose. Everybody needs to know everybody’s business and I’m not like that. She absolutely loves it.

Prav: What’s been your darkest day in dentistry?

Andrew Wallace: In dentistry? I don’t think I’ve had anything terribly dark, but I’ve certainly had some challenging patients. One springs to mind in particular. She came in looking for align, bleach, bond and some of the things she said, “Well hold on. This is maybe not the right patient.” My alarm bells are going off now. Generally my reception team’s alarm bells are much better than mine, but this lady happened to be friends with one of the receptionists, so those alarm bells were switched off. She was by far the most challenging patient.

Prav: Psychologically?

Andrew Wallace: Psychologically. Every time she would come in she wanted something different. She’s a female body builder and she wanted to look like Cheryl Cole.

Payman: Oh.

Andrew Wallace: I was like, “Hold on.” When I’m talking to patients one thing I’ll tend to ask them is, “If you had six months and a magic wand, what would you like your smile to look?” I’m looking for patients that want, “I want my own teeth looking as nice as they can.”, and that for me is gold. These are the sorts of patients that I want to help. When they say I want to look like a celebrity, I think, “This is a person that doesn’t have realistic expectations. How am I going to meet these expectations?”, and she just bore that out. Yeah plenty of sleepless nights over that.
Every dentist has had that. Every dentist has had that.

Payman: Yeah.

Prav: How do you spot a dangerous patient. What do they come in requesting? What’s on that radar.

Andrew Wallace: One of the things is unrealistic expectations, but again one of the things I have found it is often times the patients that flatter you.

Payman: I’ve heard you’re the best.

Andrew Wallace: Yes they are the dangerous ones, because they’ve already been to a number of dentists before and they’ve already told them those same stories, “But I know you can fix it. I know you can do it. My friend saw you.” It’s about unrealistic expectations of you and what is possible for them and they become more and more challenging and they get focused on smaller and smaller details. I’ve always found that more with clear aligner treatment that as you towards the end, they get more and more focused on finer and finer details.
Use something like fixed appliances, you use the Inman, things are going so smoothly so quickly. They get such a dramatic change that they’re over the moon, but with clear aligners often you do find that sort find them more and more focused on tinier and tinier aspects.

Payman: Yeah.

Prav: Often I hear from dentists is they forget where they came from right?

Andrew Wallace: Absolutely. I do quite like having pre-op photographs on the screen when they come in, os they can see where they’ve come from. I used to have a screen in the chair and whenever they sat down, “Oh I don’t want to look at that.” New chair took that screen away, so it’s not quite as prominent anymore.

Payman: Looking forward, digital dentistry is changing everything so quickly. Where do you think we’re going to be in 10 years time?

Andrew Wallace: One of the things I did relatively recently was a talk on the future of dentistry.

Payman: Oh really?

Andrew Wallace: I didn’t focus so much on that side of things, but it was kind of where I.A. is in dentistry. Growing teeth and growing bone and things like that. I don’t think I’m going to see to much of that side of things in my practising career. The other day I was listening to one of your other podcasts with Robbie Hughes and he was talking about the newest concept in TNST where the veneers are pre-made and you have a prep jig. You’re taking so much of the skill out of dentistry, but you’re also making it more predictable. That’s probably where the digital side of things is going to improve. It’s only in the last few years that the technology has been there. The mechanics of the scanners, the Cerec’s been out for over 30 years now. It’s in the workflows and it’s on the software the at the development is really changing.
You have this patient monitoring ting from 3D. It’s just unreal and it’s the ability of being able to integrate those sort of things into general dentistry. When I was taking a full out scan with omnicam, the most accurate way to do it was with Cerec ortho and that takes 10 or 15 minutes to do start to finish. That’s by already lifting the scanner and doing it. With the likes of Trios and some of the other scanners, you can lift it and you can have the scan done in less than a minute. Two minutes and it’s on the screen in front of the patient, so you can generally integrate that into your practise.

Payman: My friend Chanel Patel, he markets the fact. They call it a 3D check up or something.

Andrew Wallace: Yeah. It also means that you can do things worldwide. You can have a dentist in one place and a technician somewhere else. In the past, the best dentists always had technicians on site. You had Mike Wise and Harris Sedelsky and his technician on site. There was that level of communication, but you can get that level of communication digitally know. I think it’s less with the fancy stuff and more about what general dentistry is going to be able to do with digital dentistry.

Prav: Andy, you know what question is coming.

Andrew Wallace: The one that I haven’t been able to think of an answer for.

Prav: You know what’s coming next, buddy. You’ve just spent a day with your son and I’m sure that was great, away from work and all the rest of it. Imagine it’s your last day on the planet. You’ve got to leave him and your daughter with a message. Three words of advice. A bit of wisdom to take with them for the rest of their lives. Guiding principles, if you want. What would you say to them?

Andrew Wallace: I suppose surround yourself with good people. Surround yourself with people that are nice to you and that are good people. That are decent, and ethical, and do the right thing. You’ve got to work hard for whatever you want. If you sit back and expect things to be handed to you, that’s not going to work. Be a decent sort of a person.
One of the other questions that you normally ask is, “What would you like people to think of you?”, just be a decent bloke.

Prav: Just a good all around human being.

Andrew Wallace: I think that’s a good thing to try and live by.

Payman: That’s lovely.

Prav: Thank you, Andy.

Payman: Thank you so much.

Andrew Wallace: Thanks, Pay. Thanks, Prav.

Intro Voice: This is Dental Leaders. The podcast where you et to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

Prav: Thanks for listening, guys. Hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Make sure you tune in for future episodes. Hit subscribe in Itunes, or Google Play, or whatever platform it is. We’d really appreciate it if you would…

Payman: Give us a six star rating.

Prav: Six star rating. That’s what I always leave my Uber driver.

Payman: Thanks a lot, guys.

Prav: Bye.