Recently, I spent an interesting day with around 20 post-graduate dental students and their tutors at The Eastman. It’s the first time I’ve been through the doors of this impressive 1930’s building with its beautiful internal quadrangle, wood panelling and stone friezes. I had no idea that it was built with Kodak money in order to provide children’s dentistry to those in pre-NHS London. It’s the sort of place you feel more intelligent in just for being there!
My hosts were Kishor Gulabivala and Amre Maglad both Professors in Restorative Dentistry. I trained with Kish, although we haven’t seen each other for 30 years or so! The students I met were in the final months of their courses and are about to become Specialist Periodontists, Endodontists or Prosthodontists. Some of them want to open or buy Specialist Practices and my brief was to help them understand how to achieve this. They were attentive and interested and, for the most part, had little idea of what to do in order to have a practice of their own. Many of them seemed to feel (understandably) that their soon-to-be specialist status would provide a steady stream of patients to their front door and a re-assuringly high income. Maybe. There’s no doubt they are highly skilled clinicians, but I worry about them. In 2014 they will need some new skills to:
- Recover the monies they’ve spent on getting a specialist qualification
- Find enough patients to treat
- Build a practice that fulfils their income expectations
If you would like some help with these three, call me for a chat on 07770 430576.
Best wishes
Simon