So I’m now away, for 46 blog posts worth of time off.
I wrote about this yesterday, I’ve learned a lot of lessons from the last time I did this.
Last year I tried to blog myself through the time off and to type and publish everyday, it didn’t fit into my life at all.
The blog became a stress, much more of a stress than it ever is normally. I found myself typing on an ipad in my car on Christmas day while I dropped my girls off to ride their horses as well as various other things that didn’t fit into what I was trying to achieve in my sabbatical time off work.
So this year I’m going to schedule in advance because I wanted to take the time to look back through the 1500 blog posts that I’ve written and pick out some that I liked but then to add a little bit of content related to them as to how I feel about them now and how times have changes since 27th September 2011 when I started writing,
I hope you like this; I hope you share it if you feel it’s worth it. You never know, I might put it all together and print it with some of Stuart’s photographs just for fun and then hand it out to people.
The reason for doing it is as I stated in the “10 reasons why I’m writing my blog” which published in October 2011, I’m re-publishing these blogs ‘because I can’.
For me that seems like a good enough reason. It’s a celebration of 1500 and a celebration of my second sabbatical.
I hope you enjoy re reading these as much as I enjoyed writing them. I hope there are some that you missed or didn’t get a chance to read.
Best wishes
1. Jack of All Trades Master of Some – Published 27.09.2011
This was the first blog that I ever published on the 27th September 2011. Although the spirit of the blog is absolutely right the content is a little bit shameful and it’s funny to think back, The essence of this though is something that still holds true all the way through to the stuff I write now which is we can’t be good at everything and we shouldn’t even try. Focusing on the things we like (even love) or the things we want to like or love are the most important things.
Around three years ago I entered my first small triathlon and began training regularly to participate in multi-sport events...
It seemed a natural progression as I’d always done a little bit of running, enjoyed cycling (although my swimming was a little bit rubbish). Recently when I was out on a bike ride I was bemoaning to myself about how difficult it is to improve any of the three triathlon disciplines without neglecting the other two and therefore generally going backwards. It struck me that this is very similar to the dilemma posed to many really good general dental practitioners who are expected to be “experts” in every aspect of dentistry.
I can vividly remember the difficulty of balancing all the plates as a general dental practitioner working in Bilborough in Nottingham and jumping between root canal treatments, severe periodontal disease, reasonably large restorative cases and oral surgery, often all in the same morning. We do like to think at Campbell and Peace that we understand the difficulties posed by general dental practitioners, and consider this to be the hardest job in dentistry. It seems to us much easier to focus on one area and try to be as good at that area as possible and we often discuss how difficult it must be for the modern general dental practitioner trying to excel in every area of dentistry.
With that in mind we’re always here to help, for any cases that causes difficulty, or for any aspect of advice in any of the cases in your practice. Jason Bedford does Endodontics all day, and Neil Poyser provides Restorative dentistry without dabbling too much in the other disciplines of dentistry. Ian Peace provides Periodontal advice and treatment and my area is restricted to Oral Surgery and Dental Implants. We’re always available to discuss cases with colleagues in order to make the difficult life of a general dental practitioner a little bit more straightforward. If you ever send cases to us and you wish to follow them up carefully or be in attendance when treatment is carried out in order to try and improve the skills you already have then please feel free to ask as we are always delighted to welcome our colleagues to the practice. Since my first triathlon things have moved on with my training and I suppose I have become a little bit better in all three disciplines. I do understand the difficulty of “keeping all the balls in the air at once” and we at Campbell and Peace are always here to help with any difficulties you might encounter. Best wishes, Colin
Blog post number: 1498