As I look back writing this post, I have been lecturing to General Dental Practitioners for 15 years (since August 1998)
During that time I have had my fair share of highs and lows, presentations that have enthused me and real howlers of which I have been embarrassed and swore I would never speak again.
Until recently, one of the most soul destroying experiences was a long trip to Durham on a Thursday afternoon/evening to lecture at Durham Castle on aesthetic implant dentistry. This was many years ago and if truth be told, as I look back now, I don't know that I knew anything about aesthetic implant dentistry but I was quite excited about the whole venue and testing myself against an audience on a subject which was really up and coming at that time.
When I arrived at the venue, I found an audience of 2. The worst thing was that one of those had been invited to introduce me so really there was only an audience of 1. I remember crying to me wife (literally) on the way home on the phone, questioning it all and wondering why I was bothering.
Luckily since then I have been able to speak to bigger audiences but recently we had our fourth ITI Study Club of the year which was a case study evening. This was designed for members to bring their own cases so that we could all have a discussion forum and delegates book onto this in advance. In the lead up to this there were only 4 people booked on (school holidays ending etc) we were running the event anyway and decided to make the most of it but in the end only one person turned up.
That person was Rana Chatterjee, a General Dental Practitioner from Leeds who had travelled by train to Nottingham and then walked from the station to come to the ITI Study Club.
When he realised he was the only delegate in attendance he offered to leave immediately and go back on the rain but I was having none of that and I was able to send away the rest of the people from our practice who were in attendance and Mel the Straumann rep. I was able to sit with Rana in front of a monitor and go through cases together and discuss them from each of our points of view.
I have known Rana for a while and I knew before this that he was a hugely ethical and talented practitioner. What I didn't realise was that he was previously a registrar in oral pathology and I was able to show him a heart break case of mine where a patient had had a sinus lift and subsequently developed a squamous cell carcinoma in the same site. I honestly learned more in that evening than I have in countless evenings over the last 20 years of dentistry and I am so grateful to Rana for his time and expertise in helping me out with a case which absolutely broke my heart.
There was a turning point that evening when Rana walked in an offered to go home, we had already finished the pizza we had ordered and I would have liked back with my wife or to put my kids to bed but we owed a debt to Rana for turning up and giving us his attention and in fact he repaid his debt ten-fold for which I will be forever grateful.
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