I can’t remember the first time I met David Nelson. I might have gone to his practice to do an ITI study club or it might have been when we spoke together at the motorcycle museum near Birmingham airport on a nurse’s courses but either way it’s a decade or more.
At that stage tales of this extraordinary dental practice which had emerged in Belfast were rippling round dentistry and then Cranmore, excellence in dentistry won Practice of the year at the private dentistry awards and then they had arrived.
From the time that I spoke at Cranmore I was utterly dazzled with what David and his much more talented wife, Brenda, had achieved in the construction and delivery of Cranmore.
From where I could see, it was the most impressive dental practice in the UK or certainly at least the most impressive one that I had ever seen.
From that time David and I stayed in touch and we became, I hope, best of friends.
It was therefore with some surprise when I received a phone call from David one January to say that they’d sold the practice based on considerations that he had made after personal circumstances and loss of friends that had made Brenda and himself rethink their direction.
And so, they entered into the world of people who had sold to a corporate and lived the associate dream.
I looked on with enormous envy during lockdown as David and Brenda were able to sit back, contribute to society in the best way they could but with little worry about financial stress in the way that I had, and we had here.
And so, it was with even more surprise that I chatted to David on another phone call when he explained that they’d bought a 15,000 square foot healthcare facility to turn into a new, bigger and better version of Cranmore.
It’s one thing to go all in to build the best practice in the UK and then to make it an extraordinary success and then sell it but it’s quite something else to do it again.
I have had the privilege of walking round the Marlborough Clinic before the work started to convert it into what will be the most extraordinary dental practice (it’s twice the size of mine which I’m sat in at the moment).
I hope to be there on the day that it opens next year but, in the meantime, I would like to help David and Brenda as much as I can to change the face of independent dentistry (one of my first true loves).
And so, on Thursday David and Brenda start by introducing the Marlborough Clinic to the wider world with a series of webinars and the pleasure of providing the first webinar will go to Marcos White on the topic of revolution in digital dentistry.
It will be a fascinating insight with the promise that it will massively increase your turnover if you embrace digital dentistry (can’t disagree with that in any way) and that will lead into a series of webinars which are free for everyone and to give insights into a better way to do dentistry and a clinic which will become one of the most prestigious in the UK.
For what it’s worth I will be speaking for the Marlborough series on the 30th November and you can sign up for any of the webinars here.
I’ll keep telling you about them as they come up because the speakers are fantastic, and the sharing of knowledge is brilliant.
I would just like to finish by wishing David and Brenda the best of luck in what is an extraordinary and ridiculous venture (I should know) which will undoubtedly be a huge success.
Blog Post Number - 3265