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It’s traditional so we should do it.

We should look back today at what we’ve managed to get through this year and what we’ve managed to survive, both personally and from a family perspective… and maybe even professionally too.

I started the year in January on a ‘pseudo-sabb’ where I was having time off work but was still working so I kind of shut down all the practice stuff but had still kept going with everything outside of work so laptop, emails, teaching work and other projects were still going on.

It was a different kind of time off and although I look back at it really fondly it never bought me the contentment that the first proper, full sabbatical did.

Always for me when I went back to work in January it was mental and I would be wrecked by February and so I guess if it does nothing else then it pushes back being wrecked until the end of February / start of March which is what happened this year from working too hard.

In January I met Chris Barrow for a coaching session for the first time in a long while on the day he spoke to our Year Long Course in implants as they kicked off a year which would see the academy grow again.

I had a meeting on the 30^thJanuary with Karl O’Higgins which was an 8am breakfast meeting which lasted 4 hours and ended up with him getting a parking ticket. It will go down in history as one of the most significant meetings of my little career in terms of what will spring off it I’m sure.

After the sabbatical it was into the usual mental three months of February, March and April teaching, clinical work and the odd trip here and there while trying to ride a bike and get fit without much success.

Life changes for me when the nights get lighter and the days get longer and I had a brilliant bike event in June followed by a disastrous Outlaw bike in July which made me sit back and reflect on how good I thought I was and how good I actually was.

We had the usual family holiday in Italy which was amazing and gave me time to take stock and get my head straight (my life really does exist around a pattern now through the year) and I came back from Italy for the last four weeks of big training and weight loss before I hit the Dolomites and the Haute Route and the most amazing physical event I’ve ever done. I wasn’t back 10 minutes it felt like and then I flew to China to give three lectures on anterior implant placement and returned back for another 10 minutes before I went with the family to Northern Ireland for a few days for an amazing, unforgettable family trip.

In amongst this was all the clinical work, the start of what seems to be some success with the research department and the end (which is always sad) of our Year Long Courses – Year Two Implant Course, Year One Implant Course and our business course)

As we reach the end of the year and into November we won the research poster prize at the British Hygienist Conference which was actually a real highlight for all the hard work that’s been done and carried out.

Am I better at the end of the year than I was at the start? I’m not quite sure.

They pass so fast now it just feels like a month ago when I was waiting for Christmas to happen last year.

Blog Post Number: 1872