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Four years ago, I decided I’d like to swim a little bit better for the triathlons I was competing in at that time. I was invited to join an ‘improvers‘ group at my daughter's swimming club which was to be taught by a young lad who had just received his level one coaching badge.

So I pitched up one Sunday morning and the whole content of the improvers group was me and an 18 year old called Matt.

I did this for a few weeks and in the second week I asked Matt what he planned to do with himself when he finished school. He told me that he wanted to be a dentist.

So started a relationship with Matt and The Campbell Clinic.

Matt came to us every week during his final year of school and threw himself into the practice, into the business and into the team.

He snatched and grabbed at any opportunity to come his way, even building the metal shed at the back of the practice that holds our lab work!!

He became an expert in digital matters in the laboratory and a brilliant data inputter.

He edits clinical videos better than anybody I have ever seen and is amazing at putting together Keynote presentations (I think that’s his age)

He makes the tea if the tea needs to be made and he scans in on reception which is one of the jobs most people hate.

In short, he is utterly brilliant.

It’s four years on now and he’s finished third year at Bristol Dental School.

I can have conversations with Matt about clinical issues and matters that I can’t have with many dentists I know, so advanced is he in his understanding of things.

He attended our Peer Review group for intraoral scanning last week and when there was an offer for anybody to use the different scanners we had he was first with his hand up and trying out before anyone else.

Four years have passed already since I invited Matt to come to the practice to do a little bit of work experience and in four years time he’ll be two years qualified.

Vision without action is a daydream and action with vision is a nightmare.

It seemed easy for me to see how good Matt would become but it still took the action, the hard work, the graft and the effort that Matt puts in.

I always thought that Matt would come back and work with us after he qualified but I think I’ll have to fight for him. So good will he become and so far head of the others.

It reminds me of a fantastic quote from one of my favourite episodes of ‘The Simpsons’:

“Remember this – when the world takes you to places the rest of us can only dream about”

Blog Post Number: 1724