I’m married with two little boys who keep me extremely busy. I work at the dental practice a couple of days a week. I’ve got a couple of mummy days, a couple of kiddie days, and a couple of teeth days.

I’ve recently completed a Sedation and Pain Management, post-graduate certificate. It didn’t just look at the sedation side of things, it showed you a process of how to help an anxious patient, what methods you can use to manage their pain and manage their anxiety, which for us, trying to provide that pain-free care, is fantastic.

I completed the certificate at the University College London. It’s well-known, not only in the UK, but all around the world. A lot of the professors travel in from all over. Even on the course itself, I think about 25% of the intake were foreign students. That people were prepared to come quite a long way to go to that course which I think says a lot about the course and the quality of teaching that we were receiving from there.

If you are a nervous patient and you come for your first consultation, the first thing I normally do is just ask you why you’re here and what you’re hoping for. I tend not to do this in the dental chair. I prefer a couple of chairs next to each. I’d rather know what concerns you and I probably spend about 10-15 minutes just finding out about what you want.

Usually, I prefer to say that sedation is not necessary but if you feel as though your anxiety is either going to stop you from having that treatment done or being able to sleep, then we can look at using sedation.