We seem short of heroes in dentistry now; short of people to look to, to trust or to be inspired by or to show us a way for the future.
To me, at least at my age, it has always seemed to be like this, and Kevin Lewis was one of the guys that so many of us looked up to as one of the heroes, one of the leaders, one of the people to guide the profession to what we hoped or thought would be a better place.
Kevin died recently, at the age of 76, and much will be written about him, but I would like to take my turn, my little piece about Kevin Lewis, even if it is only for dentists of a particular age or stage. Kevin influenced so many of us in such a positive way.
In a world where heroes are picked apart, their flaws are demonstrated widely, and their impact is dampened down by stuff like that, I would like to hold Kevin up as one of the people who influenced me in my career and someone whose stories I have shared widely and whose influence was a big part of how I wanted to conduct myself.
I first met Kevin properly in the early 2000s when I was secretary of the East Midlands BDA, organising dental meetings for hundreds of people every month. In this particular year, our President-elect, Malcolm Pendlebury, had died very suddenly and tragically, and so we were hosting meetings without a president or with a stand-in president, but Kevin had been booked by Malcolm to come and speak.
Kevin spoke at Loughborough University; it was extraordinary, inspirational, and insightful. His appearance was equally impressive, beautifully turned out in his Thomas Pink shirts and classy overcoat, making him look absolutely the full part of a historical professional.
He was kind to me that night, and we chatted after the meeting. I explained to him that I had recently started working in medical legal issues as an expert in oral surgery, and so he was very keen to talk to me about engaging me to do medical legal work for dental protection. He gave me his card and told me to contact him. I contacted him several times afterwards, but never received a reply. It was one of those Richard Branson moments where he was being kind in the evening, but probably has way too many other bigger things to think about than the promotion of a young specialist in oral surgery’s medical legal career.
At that stage, Kevin was off building dental protection in Australia and other countries and making it into the massive behemoth that it became.
I was never bitter about never getting a reply; I still watched Kevin's work and what he did. I still saw him speak at conferences and places, and admired him and what he stood for, but I was always struck by two stories that I'd heard Kevin tell in different lectures that he provided.
It's worth knowing (if you don't know about Kevin Lewis) that he had a practice in Peterborough that went bankrupt (by his own admission). He would admit that he was not the best principal or practice owner, and the story that he would tell to exhibit that was the one about the sequence of appointments he used for making dentures for his patients.
Kevin would tell the story that if a patient attended to have new upper and lower dentures made, the appointment schedule would be as follows.
1) Impressions
2) Bite registration
3) Try-in
4) Fit
5) Ease
6) Ease
7) Ease
8) Ease
9) Ease
10) Refund
What Kevin learned then was that later, when a patient would come in to ask for upper with lower dentures, he would give them a refund at the first visit to, as he would say, “cut out all the wasted appointments”.
The second, even more insightful story from Kevin, though, was about the patient with the brown paper bag full of money. He would describe a situation where a patient attended your surgery with a brown paper bag full of money and passed it over to you, and asked for some elaborate treatments. He was always trying to encourage you to avoid the situation where 3 months later, you were trying to pass the brown paper bag full of money back to the patient because it was outside your skill set or your ability or your practice and you were in trouble and the patient would not take the money back, they wanted something else.
All of these stories were wonderfully insightful and instructive, and I would learn from Kevin through his writing in the Dentistry magazine and from any lectures that I would see him speak at.
But funnily, and crazily though, after I had spoken in what became for me one of the highlights of my career in a bizarre way about my GDC case to the British Dental Conference and I'd written the blogs about what my GDC case was like I was contacted sometime afterwards by my friend and colleague and mentor and inspiration, John Gibson.
At this stage, John Gibson was the chairman of Dental Protection, and Kevin was on the board of Medical Protection, and John had told me, “Kevin Lewis wants to invite you to London to have dinner”. This is the same Kevin Lewis who never replied to me when he asked me about medical legal work, some 15 or 18 years previously, but I was intrigued, and so I met John Gibson and Kevin Lewis outside the BBC in London and was whisked away to Kevin's favourite Italian restaurant.
Halfway through the meal, Kevin said to me “I suppose you're wondering why you've been invited here” (he was very charming), I answered yes and then he said to me “We thought we knew what it was like for a dentist to go through a GDC case and then you wrote a blog and we put it on our wall”. I was staggered and blown away; it was super kind. I'm not quite sure exactly why I was there or whether that was it, I'm not sure whether it was a job interview for a job that I never got, but it was certainly a highlight of my career, great enough to post here and great enough to give you an insight into what a man Kevin Lewis was.
I was sad to hear about Kevin's passing. I knew he was ill, and after that meal, we had spoken several times in different conferences and places. He was a brilliant man in so many different ways, kind, ethical, honest, and wise.
I don't know where all these people have gone; maybe it's my age, but dentistry is worse now that Kevin isn't in it.
Blog Post Number - 4254
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