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Just before Christmas I met Rachel in the practice. She came down to me on introduction from people I know in Aberdeen Dental Institute.

Rachel is a trained medical artist, dental therapist and tutor, who went back to train as a dentist in Aberdeen, but primarily is an artist at heart.

Her artwork is incredible and tremendous, and she is beginning to gather a bit of a following having produced work for some major dental organisations, covers for journals and talks at conferences etc.

She held an exhibition at her place of work in London last year and exhibits in Edinburgh November 2020 and please look at some of her work below, it is fantastic!!

Rachel was introduced to me because we are a bit weird and we often like to chat to people who do things that are a little bit different.

She came to see me over 2 days towards the end of December and was catapulted into the utter madness of trying to open up a new practice.

It is my hope that Rachel will display her work in the new practice as a “living gallery” for people to look at, learn from and to buy if they wish.

The greatest thing Rachel is doing though, is trying to introduce the concept of art to dental education.

Many years ago, John Gibson, Professor of Oral Medicine and Dean of Aberdeen dental institute introduced me to the concept of the art of dentistry, this is the science of dentistry (read the art of healthcare vs the science of health care).

So, since the time that John taught me that (he was also a part of a group that introduced me to Rachel) we have moved further and further away from the art of dentistry.

Part of the art of dentistry is to be able to “read a patient” to read their expectations and their emotions, their fears and their aspirations and everything that goes with that.

In order to do this, you must have a creative mind and in order to have a creative mind, you have to engage the arts. Science doesn’t teach you how to communicate to someone, regardless of what behavioural scientists say.

Rachel and I have instituted a couple of little projects together, one in which I hope that she will sketch, some of our clinical slides, so that we can use them in lectures for better explanation of concepts we’re trying to teach.

Second is to put the pictures on the wall.

If for no better reason to come and visit us than to look at what Rachel has done, I would encourage you to do that, to see connectedness in the art and science of dentistry.

I would also encourage you to seek out her work and details of how to get hold of her are here.

Blog Post Number - 2247