Everybody knows that life isn’t perfect and the real clever people are the ones who manage to balance the compromises.
Strike the balance – accept the imperfections.
This week it was day three and four of our Year Long Implant Course. The course was set up with Michael Bornstein as one of the faculty members and I have written much in these pages about what I think of that guy and how good he is. Michael was Professor at the University of Bern with Danny Buser and Thomas von Arx. He is an exceptional Oral Surgeon, researcher and speaker but is most renowned for his expertise in CBCT (there is a lot more to him than that but he is good at that!)
In preparation of this year’s programme for The Campbell Academy course, which Michael loves to come and teach on as he loves to come and work with us, he let us know that he had accepted the position as Professor of Oral Surgery in Hong Kong.
This causes somewhat of a geographical problem.
Michael being Michael he said “Don’t worry, I’ll fly from Hong Kong and speak on all my commitments” but we though that was somewhat ridiculous, not just for Michael’s sanity but also from even an ecological point of view of dragging someone for one days lecturing from half way across the world on a plane. So we investigated a way of compromising because he’s worth it.
On module three of the course, Michael presented from his office in Hong Kong via the Zoom platform that we use for this, for our Year Long Business Course projects and our team discussions remotely. It was wonderful at 9:00am on Thursday morning to sit in the lecture room in The Beeches Hotel and have a chat with Michael about how he was doing in Hong Kong and what it was like to live in the city. He has become a great friend of ours and it was lovely to see him.
It’s not ideal. It would be much better if he was stood in front of people and able to have lunch with them but I think everybody on the course appreciated the fact that life is complicated and sometimes difficult and it’s much better to have a Bornstein on the course from his office in Hong Kong than it is to not have him at all. Any substitute for him on this course would have been poorer quality, it’s not always possible to hit perfection.
Blog Post Number: 1220