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In late May 2014 (and previously in January 2014) I had the exceptional privilege of travelling to Aberfeldy in Perthshire to provide some 'mentoring' in Implant Dentistry for one of my oldest friends Ross Anderson.

Ross and Morag Anderson live at the bottom of a mountain near a loch in Scotland and it is as magnificent as it sounds. They have the dental practice in Aberfeldy 'Anderson Dentistry' providing exceptional levels of care for their patients in rural Perthshire.

Before I enter into this story you must understand that Ross, Morag and I sat together on the first day of dental school in the anatomy lab at the age of 17 (Morag was 18). Morag was then a Campbell, Ross was an Anderson. Morag Campbell later became Morag Anderson and we were great friends for 5 years until Ross and Morag moved immediately to Oxford to enter the rat race after qualification and I took my path via Glasgow Dental School to Nottingham. A chance meeting some years later in Dublin meant we attended each others weddings and then the children came.

We hitched up again when I did a bike race which passed the front door of their house and then Ross and I met on the Foundation in Implant Dentistry Course in 2013. This is the story of bringing implants into your practice.

Ross (and Morag too) are exceptional operators in dentistry who provide exceptional patient care. They have been Cerec operators for years and that is often a sign of people who understand their dentistry clearly.

Ross has restored many implants but decided it was time to start placing implants surgically and entered on  the FID Course for a year. He threw himself into this and then came to visit our practice to see how we did it. He then signed up for our Live Skills Course and attended again.

He invited me to come to mentor him in Aberfeldy which was a no brainer for me to travel up, spend some time with some of my best loved friends and 'work' in their practice.

In the last two days Ross has placed 12 dental implants on five patients, provided GBR procedures and watched a sinus graft being carried out.

Four of his patients were CBCT scanned, all of them were planned perfectly and the days ran extremely smoothly. He has trained and motivated his staff to provide an exceptional environment for his patients and he will do many, many more implant procedures at the practice as his service becomes highly successful.

Ross has invested an incredible amount of time, emotional and intellectual effort and money into his implant surgical service and that is why it will work.

It was a privilege to watch him place implants over the last two days and for the whole of the second day I managed to catch up with my admin in an office and was not required at all.

Over two visits to Aberfeldy I have successfully put myself out of a job and bizarrely, that is the most fantastic feeling in the world!

I haven't asked Ross this but I am sure he would talk to you if you want to know how to do it, he has developed the model of how this should be done.