CATEGORY 112 AUSTRALASIAN DENTIST A: Martin, nice to see you again. My aim today is to talk about ten years ago to the time when my life changed and your life changed. M: Absolutely. A: Jodi was just telling me you actually came to the practice a few times before you actually bought it. M: Yes. I was working as an associate dentist. It is always nice to have professional colleges to bounce things off and one of the people I really respected from a point of view of having a nice work life balance, looking out for family and just looking after their patients and not focusing on too many of the business sides of dentistry was yourself. And there were a number of times where I had a bad day and decided I was just going to go and bounce off someone at lunch time and maybe discuss a case or maybe just say hello and you were always very welcoming. And I appreciated that. A: I don’t remember much of that. A: I remember I was in hospital and Lorna (my wife) said she had sold the practice and I said who to and she said Martin Fernedo and I said that’s good. Thank God for that. And a couple of months later I said how much did you get. A: And had you heard of Jodi in those days? M: Yes, we had. Dentistry was probably a little bit different the way the practices were run then and they often had long term principal dentist. They often had practice managers or assistants that had been there for a long time and when you speak to the patients they would talk about the rapport with not just the dentist but the nurse or practice manager that played a hugh role in supporting the practice and those dentists. A: Obviously there a came a time when you were talking to Lorna about buying the practice. What were you thinking at the time? M: Personally, at the time I received a phone call from Jodi, it wasn’t about anything that would affect me dramatically it was about supporting a college of mine who had suffered a medical issue who needed help. M: I was very busy and very stressed with the joys of having my own practice and my young family, Jodi said Alan needs help. And we were able to manage those patients. So that’s how it started. When it became known that you wouldn’t be returning to clinical dentistry that’s when I got the taking over the practice phone call. I thought these are great patients they need to be looked after. You’d been doing the right thing for so many years. We jumped at the opportunity to take on that practice and look after your patients and that was challenging for a number of years but now, we don’t look back on it. A: Anyway, what did you have to check out? M: Initially I was working in the practice at the time so I thought am I comfortable seeing patients in this environment and answer was yes. M: Running a good dental practice has very little to do with the equipment and materials so long as the clinical dentistry is good it is about people the dentist and nurses and staff and how they look after the patients and there was no doubt to me that Lorna and Jodi were your greatest asset in that business and if I wanted to keep any of the goodwill of that practice then it wasn’t about the chairs so it was no-brainer for me that we needed to keep Jodi and pleased that Jodi was able to adapt to changes. M: And then when it came to taking over the practice there were definitely somethings that we thought we would need to change or upgrade. A: How have you changed the practice since you have taken it over? M: initially we thought there are a few things that need changing. And we soon realised that any change within that practice was going to be difficult when the patients were used to the last 15/20 years. So how do we take a practice that needs updating or tweaking and update it in a way that is not going to upset the patients. And the answer was slowly. And we did what a we needed to do and left the things we didn’t need to do. The overwhelming vast majority of those patients are happy and continued with the practice. A: I’ve been back to the practice myself as a patient and initially I thought you must move that machine. That is in the wrong spot. But now I go back I think going well. Going well. u THE FULL COMPLEMENT Alan Carlton shares a coffee with Marin Fernando and Jodi Sutton My aim in this column is to understand the dental community. I want every section of the dental community illuminated. Everybody has a story to tell. Everybody has a story worth hearing.
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