Neutral Zone
Welcome to Neutral Zone!
A podcast about the people behind the Dentistry profession.
I'm Dr Fran Brelsford and I invite you to meet a different dentist with me on each episode.
We chat with the humans behind the drills and the instagram profiles.
No hustle, no ego, no clinical chat.
Just good old fashioned conversation, new questions, and genuine connection.
Episodes dropped on Wednesdays.
Because there’s more to life than teeth.
Neutral Zone
Stewart Beggs
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Meet Stewart.
Belfast born, Newcastle trained, London refined.
We discuss workplace anxiety, the importance of boundaries, the BTS of dental courses and how a big move is on the cards for him soon.
@drstewartbeggs
I'm Strip Eggs and this is Neutral Zone.
SPEAKER_03Hi Stuart.
SPEAKER_00Hi, Fran.
SPEAKER_03Thanks for coming to Neutral Zone on Sunday morning. Um we're outside St. Paul's for anybody who isn't familiar with London because Stuart's always worked around the corner from here, down Bow Lane. How many years have you worked in London for?
SPEAKER_01Um sorry graduated in 2015. I moved on straight away to my VT in the Eastman scheme. And then I've been in London ever since.
SPEAKER_03So 11 years ago. So straight from you've never worked anywhere else in London.
SPEAKER_01Don't know dentistry anywhere else.
SPEAKER_03That's interesting.
SPEAKER_01That's a good or a bad thing, but And mostly in the city. Um yeah, I worked in my VT was in Holloway Road. So like just north of King's Cross, and then I worked near Euston, and then yeah, here. So always been quite central.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. How much of your identity do you think is tied to being a dentist, Shuett?
SPEAKER_01So I would maybe say there's two sides of this. There's like a while ago, I think when I first graduated, um, for the early part of my career, I would say the majority of my identity was um sort of tied to me being a dentist. Like I just really love being a dentist. Um, but I was sort of quite obsessed, so I come home, I'd be on Instagram, I'll be on Facebook, like always learning things, always doing things like that. And then there's a turning point a couple of years ago that might have had slight minty bee, but um I don't after our course. Um fine. I had lots of things going on at work, and I got like really bad work anxiety. Um we can expand on this a bit later, but I uh I I think I had a bit of like a reset and I actually decided that there's more important things in life than just work. Um so now I would say much I think I'm a dentist as work, but that's not I think outside of me being in the dental practice, I don't do anything with dentistry. I'm very like as soon as I'm out the door, I will not reply to an email at all. No, I think that's probably always reception quite a lot.
SPEAKER_03It is interesting because when I met you what six years ago?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Uh in lockdown on a Zoom call. I think you were actually doing a wine tasting in the background, if I remember rightly. You were doing loads of extra dentistry.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I s I I mean I do I really like dentistry. Yeah, you do love it. I really like love the job, but I just love like doing courses. Like I was always like I think social media was also a very big part of that of me like showing what I'm doing and improving and learning things.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I really I think it's changed a bit the last few years.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, whether that's the algorithm or it's all just a bit saturated. Because I do remember when I first started on Instagram, I think it was like 2016, which is mad, but that's ten years ago. And it was I think it was like this time of year, it was like May, and I'd just done Monarch's course, and I literally came and was like, Well, I can do this on Instagram. So I said I'm leg mints, and you're so nervous when you first do it. You're like, who's gonna follow me? I don't want any of my friends to see this.
SPEAKER_03You're non-dentist, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um you don't even want the dentist to see it. Um and I just started posting things. It's quite funny when you look back at all those posts, because it's the like the really early stuff because sort of see where you're you've come from and what you've done, but also someone's actually that's not bad. I wouldn't mind if I was doing that. So yeah. Yeah. Um but I know I did find I think early Instagram was really instrumental, probably to my career. Um I find it really like some of the people I was messaging. I remember I think the one that really sticks in my head is Richard Field messaged me, and I was like, oh my god, Richard Field's a god messaging me. He was like, me stop using that horrible green rubber dam, get the blue one.
SPEAKER_03Are you using it? Some of an NHS practice.
SPEAKER_01He was like, get some of the blue stuff. He was like, get the Unident one, it's so much better.
SPEAKER_03That thick, ribbed purple.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's disgusting. Horrible. Yeah. Um but I think early Instagram was really good because it's there was like a little community of sort of those early people that it was all like a certain crowd. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um UK dentists.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like George, Manesh, Celine. I've had like little like chat group and stuff where it was all like quite funny because it's a way of like meeting people and sort of getting to know their characters. Because you know when you go to these like conferences, everyone can be in like the best behaviour and it's all a bit dry sometimes. Yeah. Um, and of course, you do meet people and things, but it was a way to actually outside of those things message people and ask them about something.
SPEAKER_03And those those first few years where you're in random NHS or mixed practices, you don't often work with the people that are doing all this amazing stuff. So it's like a an in.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean I was working with this amazing guy, Nathan Yang, um, at the MJS practice. He was like doing some like really cool stuff, but he was like a different level that wasn't really practical. Financially, maybe shall we say. Um, but no, he was really good. So he was like doing some cool stuff using like different composites and bonds and things. So I was like, what have you doing today? What's going on here? Um or like popping and shadowing him and stuff. And I was that's good. Um but yeah, no, that I think that's first practice after VT. Um that was really quite instrumental for my um career. Um it was at a small it was actually like a brand new NHS practice in between King's Cross and Houston. And it was the husband and wife that owned it, Francis Nor Ginder, and Frances she was this like yeah, another Fran. Um she went to Newcastle, that's why she loved me. But she was like quite terrifying, she was very like, this is what you do, and how you get a patient. So you have to go in, you have to shake their hand, you've got to crush their hands, try and dominate them. Um that's because she was like really petite blonde woman. So she was like the scariest woman ever. But she was very like sort of talked you through like the patient flow, taking them out to reception afterwards, getting them to book in, making sure you're like converting them and stuff. Um and it was good because it it was an NHS practice, but we had really long working hours, but the NHS R's were only like nine to five, but we were open like eight to eight. So there were specific hours that could only be private. And I had no NHS target. They were just like, do as much private. We don't care about NHS, do as much private as you can. So that's how I started doing loads of posterior composites, which is my favourite thing to do to this day.
SPEAKER_03I mean you are good at end interiors as well.
SPEAKER_00I just I just like composite. Yeah. I think it's it's I like the sculptural aspect of Were you a bit more artsy as a child?
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_03No, no.
SPEAKER_01Nothing at all. Yeah. I was I'm not very good at like 2D, so I can never hear or make anything look but like clay and modelling. I I liked bits like that. I loved like Lego as a kid um and building things, but no, I was terrible at art at school.
SPEAKER_03Hmm. I wonder if you'd still be terrible. I don't think you would.
SPEAKER_01We did a um at ABC, Tanya um one of the principals, she's really into painting and she had like little sibling paint last summer, which was really cool. Because I've never really, I think since school, I actually learned about watercolors and how to do it and stuff, and it was quite fun.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I think sexy.
SPEAKER_01Because you did a like the RA thing. I think it's quite interesting to actually try stuff like that again, because I think you've got a different mindset now and you sort of have different skills that you can put bring to it.
SPEAKER_03It's just so nice as an adult to learn something that's not your job and there's no test. Yeah. So you just go and enjoy it.
SPEAKER_01That's what I've actually started enjoying more, not doing dental dentistry courses, is doing random courses. I really want to do um is it Ozun coffee or do you like this whole like coffee day? We just learn how to make the best filter coffee. No, I would love to. Yeah, it was so good.
SPEAKER_03And like going then.
SPEAKER_01That's the sort of CPD that I want to do.
SPEAKER_03Maybe you could combine me too. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01Well, I did a Grills workshop that a week or two ago.
SPEAKER_03So Oh, that's cool.
SPEAKER_01Which was interesting, but I don't know. We were making four I was with my friend Jim and we were you had to learn how to do an impression on each other. Of course I messed the first one.
SPEAKER_03I was gonna say it's all digital now.
SPEAKER_01Um But I think that stuff is a bit more interesting than You sound like you've got a lot more balance now. Yeah. I'm very yeah, I'm very when I'm in work, I w I do work hard, but as soon as I'm out, I don't have like zero interest in it. I'm very sort of I won't respond to a patient email or Instagram until like the next working day sort of thing. Especially when you're on like holiday or if it's a bank holiday, because I don't like that sort of weighing over my head, and then they reply and you feel like you have to be in this constant conversation with them.
SPEAKER_03Just to clarify though, this isn't like you're on call with emergencies.
SPEAKER_01No, no, no. It's just the inquiries and little Yeah, yeah, just random things. It's just not because I think it's no other job but I mean out of ours. You don't have to be accessible to people.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Boundaries.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, switching off is unfortunate.
SPEAKER_03Do you think you're happier now overall?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, definitely. But you're much more balance. And I think that's why I think dentistry is actually quite a good career, because you can be so flexible in how many days you work, where you work, what you do.
SPEAKER_03Tailor it to you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like I'm very quite restricted in what I actually do dentistry-wise. Um I mean I've been very fortunate I've always worked in practice, even like the NHS one. They had a sister practice across the road that was a private specialist practice, so I didn't do endo on the NHS. I was I've not done endure. I think it's just like VT. Really? Yeah. Um I don't like blood, so I don't do any surgery.
SPEAKER_02I love that you don't like blood.
SPEAKER_01Unless it's like hanging in there and that like a strong gust of wind would take it out, I would barely touch what I had a patient who he had really bad perio, and I was really annoyed because over the weekend two of his teeth fell out that was planning to take out on the Monday.
SPEAKER_03Really? Did it himself?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Um see I just I just like restorative. I don't like to do anything else, really. I did do like an endo, like I was doing the Simpli Endo course of my my sister's a dentist, she's a bit younger. Um, and she was thinking about doing an endo course, and my one of my really good friends Jo, she did the Simpli Endo, and then I got my sister Jo as I show I'll give Endo a go, because it's one of those things that I don't really know much about it. At uni, we only did like hand files, uh, Vita had only ever had hand files, and right she used like a motor to do endo, so I'll learn some stuff about it, and it was like 10 days um up in 4B north of Liverpool, and a really good course. I will not do endo right now.
SPEAKER_02Do you eat who you started doing then?
SPEAKER_01I was um because you do like little things in lovely little perspective straight canals, and it's all lovely, and you can see what you're doing, and then we had to bring in some extracted wisdom teeth. Oh, some extracted teeth, and I had some wastes and teeth. And as soon as I started putting a file on it, I was like, nah, I'm out. I can see what I'm doing. So I was like, I it was good. I would recommend everyone doing it, but I I learned a lot, especially like access and irrigation, and there's things I'll do now when I access a tooth that I won't shove a file straight down because you put in all the bacteria to the apex and stuff.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um I think any discipline helps you understand your own, anyway.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think especially because yeah, we I'm referring to endone as a lot of the time, so I can do things or ask them to do things that make both our jobs a bit easier in the end, it's good.
SPEAKER_03But posterior composites are your favourite thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and always does anything posterior. I think drilling. What's with drilling? We're like making it look like a tooth again. Breathing. Yeah. Uh I think that's why I like our job because it's very you've got a problem, a fixture. Maybe that's like wherever my satisfaction pathway goes, is like you come in with a hole, I've filled a hole, it looks like a tooth again, fish fresh wash we're done. Um it's not like sort of a medicine thing where it's like an ongoing thing, is this medication worked?
SPEAKER_03Um That's why I like all surgery, because I like the immediacy of it.
SPEAKER_01Oh no, I don't like the unpredictability. I'm always worried about something fracturing and I have to go digging around to this blog and that's I love it.
SPEAKER_00Rubberdam wanted fine.
SPEAKER_03Extractions of rubber down.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03How would you switch off then after like a brutal day at work?
SPEAKER_01I know you're saying so I'm very with like the gym and fitness, I like to go in the morning because I'm very at the end of the day, I'm like, I just want to go home and like chill. Um but I do think it is important to exercise and make sure you're working out, even just like getting steps in. I think that's why London's really a great city, because I walk everywhere. Like I I walk in like most mornings, but that's nice. And yeah. I used to tag a lot during COVID actually, but the boat rows have got busier, so it's not so nice. But I walk in like an hour and a half to work because actually stick a podcast on, put your steps in, and it's a way of unwinding, or walking home as well. Um I think I really enjoy cooking. So I think that's my like You're a great switch off and when I get home, just like spending like half an hour or whatever of cooking something. Um isn't by my way of winding. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03What other things do you do outside of work? Hobbies-wise.
SPEAKER_01What is it like doing out of work? Cars. Yeah, cars. I do like cars. I built a case room car, it's like a little kit car, like a year and a half ago. I looking back and saying this to people now, it is a bit mental, but um yeah. I built a car and there was in like an race series. I'm terrible, it's really hard. You think it's gonna be so easy when you see all these like Formula One drivers?
SPEAKER_03It's It's like adult Lego.
SPEAKER_01It is yeah, but like only half the instructions were there and it doesn't all fit together, and it's it was fun. Um yeah, we like cars.
SPEAKER_03So you're racing them on a trek?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So like all over the UK. That's just fun. Because I went to like parts of the UK that I've never been to before. But Anglesey's so pretty.
SPEAKER_03And meeting people that aren't dentists.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Something else. Which is it's really a neat, yeah. That was quite interesting as well, because it's I think you're in your little bubble where all you know is like dentists and like people you know from uni and stuff when you're seeing people you don't aren't in that bubble, it's quite interesting. There's a whole other world out there that you just don't get exposed to. I think in London, especially it is quite like that because you are very you work here, you live here, there's all this stuff in between, all these people in between that you don't really come across or get exposed to. So I think it is Yeah. That are a bit different.
SPEAKER_03So you spend so much time commuting. Even if you're walking and chilling.
SPEAKER_01I don't even think it's like lonely. It's more just like you're in this little you're in your lane. You're right, and you there's all these other people doing other things around you. So doing some different things actually to push yourself out of that lane is more it's quite interesting.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like don't just get in every tunnel vision and teeth. Yeah. So boring, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Like cars, cooking. I do I do really like cooking um for my friends. I always have like little dinner parties and things. Um, especially during COVID, I love that.
SPEAKER_03And lots of friends who aren't dentists.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I say most of my friends in London. I mean they're all acquaintance, but none of them could do my accoins, but which is annoying. But yeah, they all um acquaintance. Um I moved in with one of my friends from Freshers. Um she was an acquaintance. I moved on with her and a couple of her friends when I moved on to London, and then just we made loads of friends that aren't Do you think you'd be an accountant if you went up to London? It's so boring.
SPEAKER_03I do think you do.
SPEAKER_01I do actually I did when I was doing my like GCSEs and A levels, you know, when you sort of think, oh, maybe I can't get the A in chemistry. As I what would I do? So I would was considering doing like economics or something. Um I think that's why I quite like working in the city as well, because I really like that finance side of things and Gulli or quarters it. I know I don't have a G or quarters it, but I I do really like that understanding what's going on with the markets. I find that all that really interesting. I read the Financial Times a lot of the time because it's it's not your DW Neil slop, it's Faction figures. Yeah. Yeah. Um trends. Yeah. A bit more black and white. So yeah, I think that's why I quite like working the city because everyone's very It's got that buzzy feeling, isn't it? Haitians are very good. They're very punctual, they'll be they're on time, but they want it to be done by this time, they want to be out because they've got meetings to go to, they want to be pin-free, they want to have like no hiccups, a nice smooth journey. And if you can do that for them, everyone's a winner. Um so I think that's why I quite like working in the city.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um efficiency.
SPEAKER_03Little hub. So let's go back to a couple of years ago then when you've had this like pivot, would you say?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03How are you feeling that you I had this workplace anxiety?
SPEAKER_01Um I don't I'm probably looking back, I was maybe a little bit burnt out because I was working maybe like four or five days. So I currently do four and a half days, but in much more chilled places. Um like four like quite hectic, stressful days. The patient cohort were quite difficult, maybe how I would describe this. So I'd stick my foot in things. Um so that there's like a lot of patient management, like unrealistic expectations, a lot of people with like body dysmorphia things.
SPEAKER_02So more aesthetics.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um I mean, I was still doing like posterior stuff, anterior stuff, but there's just a lot of very like high maintenance patients. And I think I had two veneer cases at the same time, and both of them were like multiple try-ins, didn't like this, the lab would change something, didn't like this. And I just remember like one of them I fit his and that you just you know when you're fitting sometimes like she's signed this thing's I mean, her signed to say that she was happy with it. Um, because I knew that it was gonna, but I just knew when I when she said yes, I'm happy to fit that she's not gonna be happy. And it's always the patients that hug you. It's the ones that hug you, um and then it was just like never ending after that, like complete blah blah blah blah blah blah. And it was I was just like re like I was getting like palpitations. I remember I got past the practice in a taxi and I was like physically like my blood pressure was like going off. So your body is yeah, um, it was like triggering, and then I was just like, I don't know, something happened as I was like, I just need to not be here for two months. So I've tried to um the manager really, really good um manager was just like, okay, let's just try and sort you out. Yeah, so she like moved everyone that she could. I had to do like a couple of days, but at least she just had like the summer off, mostly just to like reset and chill. And sort of about she was like, I don't really want to work here anymore, it's not for me.
SPEAKER_03Um which is fair enough.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's just like I yeah, like the money was stuff's really good, but this is it's not the workplace for me because it wasn't bringing out the best in you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um I think people sometimes feel um obligated to stay in practices.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Or they're judging themselves as it's not working. Yeah. And you are self-employed, like Yeah. It has to work for you, I think. It's it's stressful enough as it is, never mind if you've got these extra bits on it.
SPEAKER_01I think as well, because I was I was feeling something that I didn't understand what I was feeling as well. I just knew like I was really like looking back, it wasn't like me anymore. Um, I do think the big thing that sort of really changed, because I I was talking to my friends about it, as we're talking to you about this at the time and like my dental friends, but as like sort of speaking to like a therapist, like one of those online therapists, and it sort of like how to manage things, how to like deal with this anxiety, like doing things like that. And I think speaking to like a third party really helped me because you're getting like more like independent feedback, I guess.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and someone's advocating for you, they're everyone else.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, I think that was like when I was first started speaking to her, it was more like I came to the conclusion actually, I just need to leave this job. But like leaving, especially when you're loads of like ortho, it's not just your notice period, it's like years of dragging on. So um, yeah, it did take me like a year to finish of going back. And like even I think remember my last day, I was literally like going in as like I would get that feeling again of dread. Yeah. Yeah. Um, which isn't nice when you're feeling that every day. But again, it comes back to why dentistry is such an amazing job because it's so flexible. Um, like one of my best friend Joe, she's up in Newcastle. Um just had a B or B, but she can she was doing like two days, three days, so flexible. Um so I think it is really good in that sense. You can work wherever you want, how many days you want, pick up extra days, rob a day.
SPEAKER_03I mean, when you were saying you probably burned out, and thinking back to what time that not year we were in, but you were probably doing four and a half, five days busy. And part of it was in a practice that wasn't good for you. And then we're doing a course on the weekends.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And we had that year where both of us were struggling to even find dates we could both do it, but both at weddings or it's that yeah where things are like step in it in a summer. So did you. Apart from us. Yeah. People don't realise how much work goes into all of those courses.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Because it's not, it's it's all that extracurricular stuff that is just I'm not very good at that. You're very, very organized. I'm not I'm a bit more last-minute with things. So I yeah, it's not. Well you can I mean, you were doing all the PowerPoints and stuff, like even the presentations take time, and then you're trying to tweak them to make them nicer for people and then I I mean I did find it because you would it's like you have to get up so early to the setup, and then like you're closing down on the second day, and then you don't really have a weekend, and you're back into work, and then it's like again, and then you're in a course up in Scotland, then you're doing something else, you're doing an online course in the evening and stuff.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's so I think we both reached the same point where it's like actually neither of us to enjoy this anymore.
SPEAKER_03I loved it at one point, I really did. Yeah. And I miss I miss doing it, but I think because of the nature of ours, that like bioadhesive dentistry, and we can't be sponsored by one company that help us do it, because the whole point is that every different step is a is a tailored material to a certain step. So we'd have to have curate and GC there. And yeah, as we know, when you have one rep in they don't want you using somebody up someone else's material. So every single little thing was done by us in the background. Yeah. And it's the setup that's tiring, I think. It's like being a party planner. Maybe you're setting a table.
SPEAKER_01It was like, oh, we can't do that weekend because there's a conference on so we couldn't get the hand pieces, and then it's logistics. It's a lot, and then it's like having to like get the things 3D printed and models and I enjoyed it though.
SPEAKER_03Doing everything.
SPEAKER_01I think I really enjoy helping people and like the chat. I like the chat, the social after. When you sort of people's like you see people like, oh. Or like they do a before and after of like their like we always used to get people to do like a composite straight off the bat, so then they could see at the end of the day like the progress that they'd made with the anatomy and stuff. So I think like seeing people progress and helping people, I really enjoy.
SPEAKER_03I miss the food.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the food was good. Um no, I didn't I don't enjoy it. I mean I just still do the courses now. I think it's not as fun by myself. Um it's just a lot speaking.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I wouldn't want to do it all the way.
SPEAKER_01I think it's it makes day-to-day dentistry with patients seem very easy to say.
SPEAKER_03It's easier to have money that way as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it's especially when work, because of the way we work, everything's very automated, so there's no like thought process. It's like A B C D. Um whereas when you're getting questions fired at, you're like, why cannot use this? And I'm like, oh brain, wake up.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Can't remember. No, I do enjoy it. I wouldn't go back to I I would be happy to go back to more of it, I think, but it's if we could find someone who set it up like we did, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Maybe we just need some minions. We could just turn up at nine and just deliver it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, I quite like the setup. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I do miss it. I think one thing is if you're teaching, it makes you a better dentist because you have to understand it at a different level.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um and you have to go back and like check things. And then like even because I wanted to do the course again, is that in March or something? And I hadn't like done a court like a lecture for like maybe 18 months or something, and I was like, I can't remember any of this. And people ask me questions like, I need Fran here to like back me up with the science for this.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah, the thing is, because we know each other so well from doing it. You just kind of look at each other and you know that one person's yeah and you just take over and you know, swap it out. Fancy is just on the ball at in that moment, isn't it? Everyone knows what to do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it does make you understand the science a bit more. And it makes you like actually, oh yeah, I am doing the right thing. See, I'm not I find because I hate a dental materials at UNA.
SPEAKER_03Me too. I didn't never even revised it. Um We had a really famous uh materials guy as well, um Richard Van Nort, he wrote the book. He was our materials tutor. So um wasted on me.
SPEAKER_01I know I did he was awesome. But he wrote in the book that we taught as well. I think as all the corny olders write their books.
SPEAKER_03I think looking back at dental materials when you're a dental student, like when I was doing dentistry, we'll it's mostly amalgam, and you're just kind of like, oh, why am I loading all these extra things and I'm not doing what is in the book anyway? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01We weren't really doing any composite stuff. It's all just like etched a bond, but you weren't learning why you were doing things in a certain way. Um it's moved on a little bit now, right? This all do a mil as that sort of thing?
SPEAKER_03I'm not sure because it's been said it's gonna be banged, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I still love an algum's.
SPEAKER_03Me too. I miss I miss that crunch, the plug-out.
SPEAKER_00I love like carving it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It got it.
SPEAKER_01And then you get like a wet cotton or just I mean at uni I was terrible at the first three years. I'm really bad at really I think I'm quite good at academically revising for an exam. So I will like get it all in. But I think I really started to enjoy dentist schools when you started to do the practical things. Um so the end of second year, third year in Newcastle we started to practical things.
SPEAKER_03I had no interest in the exams, I just wanted to do it.
SPEAKER_01I love Juneau, so good. I think Newcastle was really I don't know if it's the same anymore, but when I went, like I was just, it wasn't just all year, I was like friends with like fourth, fifth years, would go out all the time. I think Newcastle Dental School was really good because we had like a pub in the dental school. So like every Friday.
SPEAKER_03So every dental chair.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. And you had to do like a two-pound challenge. I think that's probably a legal live.
SPEAKER_03I definitely don't think that'd be allowed now.
SPEAKER_01Um yeah, so you we always like it was a really good like mixer because you'd go on a Friday and a local practice would always buy a couple of like kegs of beer or cider. And then you select some free drinks before you go out. That is the way you because we just I knew everyone in the dental school. Yeah, it was really good, really sociable.
SPEAKER_03What do you think is there anything you want to more in to achieve now, Stuart? Um where do you see yourself next?
SPEAKER_00That's right, um Workwise.
SPEAKER_03You stick with four days or do less invisaline? Or or like ideally, what would you what would your working week look like?
SPEAKER_01Not working. No, um I don't know, I'm quite happy now. Um I I this is what what you want I'm might be moving to Australia because I went there and hauled it. Christmas is like this is amazing, so why not? Yeah. I don't I really wor enjoy working in London. I've also been here like 10, well 11 years now. And I think I want a bit more of the not working balance. I want to like go to work, earn my money, and then have a nice lifestyle. Um and to be on the beach is definitely amazing, so why do that for a year or two?
SPEAKER_03Different types of life.
SPEAKER_01And not work, not feel like you're living to work.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Which I think sometimes it's actually like the depths of winter in the UK. You know, you go to work, you get home, and then like that's the end of your day and just like sit up doing all the.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you are you are like a little hibernating critter or something in London for what four months a year?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I think this year as well because it's so cold. This last week I'm like, I love London.
SPEAKER_03Me too. 35 degrees.
SPEAKER_01I was like, oh, this is gorgeous. Um because I've been walking everywhere, just being outside is really cool. I think as well because I grew up, I mean no one believes this, but I grew up on like a farm in Northern Ireland. I was back home last weekend with some of my friends, not Dennis friends, and my friend could just like, well, we actually live in a farm. He never actually believed it. It's like the call who's here? I was like, yes. I think partially why my mentality is the way it is now, because I used to work well like Buddhist school, and then the weekends I'd be like on the farm, like shoveling shit basically. And I remember there's one time that I just really couldn't be arsed, and my grandfather, who's a bit scary, I was doing like a half-assed job, and he was like, if you're gonna do something, do it properly. And I've sort of maybe had that mentality with things. That's why I don't I'm very restrictive with what I do because I don't want to do stuff that I don't actually enjoy doing. Yeah. I do like a bad job.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01I'd rather just do the stuff I really like doing and then actually do the best job I can of things.
SPEAKER_03You sound a bit similar to how I feel now. I I think the first set of years when you first start dental school is the time to like head down, hustle, yeah, get as much experience under your belt, do all these courses, teach like what you did do, you know, and then you kind of reach a point where you it makes you take a step back and you think, Well, I I am doing what I want to do now, so why am I doing extra?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You're always learning.
SPEAKER_03But it's like, right, enough's enough.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You're only young once in it as well.
SPEAKER_01I do remember I used to get this. I just want it as like the NHS. You only got like three patients at the same time, you're drunk between two rooms, and then at the end of the day, I was like, that was a good day. I had like I went up a level today. I used to always think in my head, like, I went up a level today, that was good. Yeah, yeah. Or it's like I don't really get that anymore.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you But I think that's also inevitably plateau at some point.
SPEAKER_01Also, I'm very deliberate now that I'm not stressed or everything. I think, especially since COVID, you know when you had to have an extra 15 minutes to air out the room. I still got those times going nigh.
SPEAKER_02Have you? Fellow.
SPEAKER_01Well no, I still have an extra 15 minutes just to like chill. Cup of tea.
SPEAKER_03One of the boys asked me the other day how how long I had for a fit, and then you say, you don't mean an hour, friend, it's like, but every fit I celebrate with a cup of tea.
SPEAKER_01So little wins. See, I think I think COVID was actually really I mean, obviously horrible, but I think it was actually really good in a way to everyone had to take their foot off the accelerator a bit and slow down slightly.
SPEAKER_03I mean that's when we fell into all this bioadhesive state lockdown.
SPEAKER_01I do remember back to I think it was 2018 and Matt Najame over. I did like the first biomimetic course in the UK. And if you think if I think the people that were on that course In the trajectory. Everyone's like was a high flyer. Yeah. Um in that initial course. Um and it's yeah, it's funny, like you still see all those people on the same like circuit course and stuff right now, on the same like course circuit. That was a good one. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's like a seed though with so many. It's so commonplace now and then I think the younger ones all the majority don't realise that it's still it was quite new when we started doing each.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think it's all just a bit saturated now.
SPEAKER_03You too.
SPEAKER_00It's too much.
SPEAKER_01There's too much of everything.
SPEAKER_03There is there is even in life. I I get sick of Instagram.
SPEAKER_01Well, I would so dental Instagram. Gladly get rid of my Instagram.
SPEAKER_03Me too. I mean I don't have a personal one anymore.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, see um.
SPEAKER_03Put the odd thing up on my dental one, but I think it's just a bit it's not fun anymore in a way.
SPEAKER_01I think it's it's a good way of like seeing what people are up to.
SPEAKER_03Um I don't want to say that to put off younger ones having a page and stuff, but it's it's definitely changed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because it's all like especially with our job, because our job is still macro photography. So it's all about having good lighting, making sure like everything's like set up and moved nice and clean, you've got the angle for the mirror and stuff correct. But that's just not I think it's underappreciated a bit now. It's all about doing your TikTok dances.
SPEAKER_03God, I am not that person.
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_03I have admiration for people who in practice is doing all the TikTok stuff because Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Not for me.
SPEAKER_03Thank goodness I don't work somebody that makes me sh, you know, dance and floss or something. There's so much out there as well that's incorrect. That's what drives an email on the.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it is a bit like happy clappy sometimes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, because like the same comments, you know, like, oh fire or like the seven's goals.
SPEAKER_01I'm awful, I'm guilty of that as well, because it's there's only so many ways you can say good job.
SPEAKER_03There's all the superlatives as well.
SPEAKER_01But I mean, there are some like really like you come across some people and you're just like, that is insane.
SPEAKER_03It is. Um It's inspiring. There's a place for there's a place for it.
SPEAKER_01It's just Yeah. But I think those people aren't appreciated because I'm like, that's fucking amazing. I don't know if it's on a composite that looks like that. I just want to get like And then something goes through it.
SPEAKER_03Smiling dog.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um world. That's how Instagram I still quite like, but I find it harder to discover people that are like, wow, that's really amazing. Like inspiration.
SPEAKER_03And no, it's easier to fall through than I.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Like, I think probably what I'm trying to say not very well is when I first joined it, it definitely was that the people with the most followers were the best. Yeah. And that's how you found them. You're like, oh, this quest has got 40,000 followers, and you look and their work's amazing. I think it's almost unfair now that someone can be so amazing. You find them and they've got like 400 followers.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but I also think there is a there's a bit of pride in not having a blue tick. And it's like restaurants. You don't want to go to what's on TikTok. You want to go to the cool one down the street that no one knows about, but since you top jaws ruin that now, Lex.
SPEAKER_03But I love Top Jaws. You have such a good life. Where's your favourite restaurant in London? We used to get asked this question more on Emulate than anything to do with composites.
SPEAKER_01Um I those big foodies. My favourite restaurant is going to be Noble Rot. I absolutely love it. There are three. Which one, yeah. Um, not Mayfair. It's gonna be the one on Greek Street. The Soho Square. The Soho one. Yeah. Um it's my favourite. I've been so many times. My mum gets me a voucher for Christmas every year.
SPEAKER_03Um Do you have the magazine subscription?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um Amazing Wine, and I used to go in not like loads, but like three or four times a year. And there's one time I went with my parents, and the waitress Kate, for some reason she remembered me, and every time I've been in since she's always like, Oh, you were here with your parents. I was like, Oh no, it's it's it's my favourite because it's just like really good. You get the chocolate mist, get the chocolate mess if you go. Because I because I I asked Kate like, where is it? What is this? Yeah. I asked her like what is this recipe? And she it's uh what's her name? What's that American chef that went to France? A woman back in like the 80s pair.
SPEAKER_02Oh god.
SPEAKER_01Um Julia Childs. Oh, the the film that Julia and Julia, yeah. Yeah. So it was a Julia Childs recipe, so I got every single one of her cook's books so I could get the chocolate mousse recipe.
SPEAKER_03What's the name of the actress? Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um that's my favourite restaurant. But then we've been to Logan's good ones together.
SPEAKER_03Uh in Cuevaldez.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's really good.
SPEAKER_03Another Soho one.
SPEAKER_01I mean, so it's I when I first moved to London, I started making like a list of my notes up of like places that wanted to go, and you just would like constantly be like topping it up and never actually taking anything off.
SPEAKER_03I um I save them now on Google Maps.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um and then when I've been I change it or get rid of them depending if they'll be good or not.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I like it's maybe um maybe it's that's unfair actually, because the Noble Rock and um Quavidus are like fine dining, aren't they? But I like finding places that are really good for one thing. So don't let they do the best burger. Yeah. Like you go there and have the best friend chicken.
SPEAKER_01Or Andrea Admonds, that's like I look like restaurants.
SPEAKER_03These are all similar vibes, aren't they? Free Charles was nice early.
SPEAKER_01I really like wine as well.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01I really like wine as well. That's probably my other thing that I really like. Good wine. Um I'm useless of wine.
SPEAKER_03I mean I like drinking it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um I mean I'm not like a super winery, but I just like appreciate a good wine. I think a restaurant that has a good wine selection.
SPEAKER_02Like the time.
SPEAKER_01And Adrianne's is good because they do wine tastings.
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01Which are really good. The smelly is really good, the Dawson as well. So that's like probably a little hobby I would say that I've got to do that.
SPEAKER_03I'm trying to think well, but Mana Ben Hotel was always nice.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, food was always good. Yeah, because I hate when you go on a course, it's like steel sandwiches.
SPEAKER_03Okay, final questions. I always ask people, what advice do you think you'd want to have been given if you went right back to like first year graduated or dentist school? Um someone giving you really good advice.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I would probably say the advice that I'd have for my career is I felt there was like a lot of especially when you're VT, everyone's like, oh, you need to go in and do like hospital training, or you need to do a math of like masters, or you need to do like a year-long course with someone. What I I mean, because I never did that, but I think I'm better for not doing that. I would always say pick and choose, like, I want to do this, so I've done this course, I've found whoever's really good with this thing, so I picked and choose like little niche things rather than doing a big because there's some of them so expensive and buy your instruments. So like when Richard Field's messing me around getting the blue rubber dam, my principle wouldn't get it, so I just bought it myself and I start buying my own instruments and materials and that's one thing that really winds me up when um someone will send me a case and they say, How would you how would you do this?
SPEAKER_03So they're like, Well, I haven't got one of those in my practice, and it's just like a matrix band. Like, go and buy one if you that bothered.
SPEAKER_01But I'm also really cheeky. So I would um buy it myself and then it's like, we're running out of fish.
SPEAKER_03And they're gonna matter for the order list.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I I think that's fair there, because if you if you've got them to buy it and then you never use it anymore, like it's any good. I think that's fair enough.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, we've then I've always got, oh, can I borrow this? Can I borrow this? I'm like, well, yeah, you can, but it's mine. Buying something.
SPEAKER_03I don't think um when you first come out dentistry you appreciate how much as an associate you can buy yourself if you want to get half good. Yeah, because if it helps I wouldn't expect my principal even now to buy, I like a load of variety of sectionals.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Like this be fair.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean it's what's Ed always says, like, overgoing disturbs from he's got all like the really nice stuff. And as the principal has just like a stuff.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But because I like I think that's a better investment because I'm using these like rubber dam clumps all day, every day. They last years. They last years if you get a good set. Um I mean you don't need the gold ones. And they they're a bit floppy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they are they're huge. They don't stay um rigid.
SPEAKER_01No. Um but the last years, and then make sure your assistant nurse knows that that's yours that has to come back. Um otherwise it just isn't the van.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um that's why I probably say invest in those things more rather than doing a master's.
SPEAKER_03And look after yourself.
SPEAKER_01Look after yourself, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Take a step back to the case.
SPEAKER_03Cows are going now. Thanks, Judge. Should we go for lunch? Yes. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Thank you.