When you walk through the door after work, are you actually present or are you still running the day’s to-do list in your head?
Is there ever a “good” time to have a baby in the middle of specialist training and how do you fund it?
How do the best dentist-parents you know protect time with their kids without their careers stalling?
And can technology actually give you hours back — or is that just another thing to feel guilty about?
This is one for the dads. In this Interference Cast episode, Jaz sits down with Dr Sunny Marwaha — a dentist completing part-time specialist training in prosthodontics at Guy’s, who became a father right in the middle of it. It’s not a clinical episode. It’s an honest conversation about doing the hardest career stretch (training, buying practices, building a name) at the exact same time you’re raising young children — the sleep, the money, the guilt, and the strategies that actually help. Two dentist dads, comparing notes.
What You’ll Take From This Episode
- Priority management, not time management — Decide what this season of life is for, and protect it; priorities shift as the kids grow.
- Leave the day at the door — both directions — The driveway is dad mode, the clinic is showtime; you can’t take work home or home to work.
- Run the family like a small business — Regular family meetings and a “mind like water” system can help carry the load without living in your head.
- Use AI to buy back time — Make use of dictated notes, auto-drafted letters, and turning papers into audio for the commute. This is leverage, not cheating.
- Specialise or self-direct? — An honest filter for whether a structured training pathway or private courses and mentorship suits you better.
Highlights of This Episode
00:00 Teaser
00:42 Daddy Dentist: Balancing Fatherhood and Dentistry
03:42 Should You Specialise or Learn Through Private Courses?
10:12 How to Time Having Kids Around Specialist Training
13:32 Paternity Leave for Dentists: What’s Realistic?
16:42 Funding Specialist Training With a Young Family
20:02 Why Family Support Is a Privilege, Not a Given
22:57 Time Management vs Priority Management
23:42 The Two Moments With Your Kids That Matter Most
29:12 Protecting Sleep, Fitness and Your Mental Health
30:13 Midroll
39:03 Top Tips for Dentist Dads
41:53 Using AI to Buy Back Time for Your Family
45:53 Run Your Family Like a Small Business
53:33 How to Cut Kids’ Screen Time (and Make It Stick)
59:23 Life After Specialist Training: A Shorter Week
59:57 Outro
From the Guest
Dr Sunny Marwaha is a dentist completing part-time specialist training in prosthodontics at Guy’s (King’s College London). He’s passed the MProst (Royal College of Surgeons), with his final MClinDent and GDC specialist listing still ahead. He became a dad to son Kabir midway through training; his wife Amrit is also a dentist.
👉 Follow Sunny on Instagram: @dr_marwaha
References & Further Reading
Listed for reference (mentions, not endorsements):
- NotebookLM — Google’s AI research tool; can turn a source document (e.g. a paper) into an audio, podcast-style discussion for the commute.
- Trello, Inkpad Notepad, and Google Calendar — The “mind like water” offload system.
- Loom — screen/video-message tool, mentioned as an alternative to written tooth-by-tooth reports.
Want more?
If you enjoyed this episode, check out: [Screen Times and SmartPhones for Children – Best Practices – IC061]. The screen-time reset comes up near the end of this chat; that episode goes deeper.
Tags
#InterferenceCast #CareerDevelopment #BeyondDentistry
Listen, Subscribe, Earn CPD
Listen: Subscribe to the Protrusive Dental Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
This episode is eligible for 1.0 CE credit via the quiz on Protrusive Guidance.
This episode meets GDC Outcome B.
AGD Subject Code: 770 Self-Improvement.
Aim & Learning Outcomes
Aim: To help dental practitioners balance the demands of a dental career — including postgraduate and specialist training — with family life, through practical strategies for managing priorities, presence and time.
Learning Outcomes — by the end of this episode, dentists will be able to:
- Describe practical strategies for protecting time and presence with family alongside the demands of clinical practice and postgraduate training.
- Apply a priority-led approach to structuring daily routines, role transitions and study commitments during a demanding stage of life.
- Evaluate when a structured specialist-training pathway, versus self-directed learning and mentorship, best suits an individual clinician’s needs and circumstances.
Continuing Education Information
This activity may be eligible for continuing education credit through Protrusive Guidance. Participants must complete the associated quiz inside Protrusive Guidance to obtain a CPD/CE certificate.
Cost:
Access to this CE activity is included with an active Protrusive Guidance membership. Current membership pricing is available at www.protrusive.app.
Cancellation & Refund Policy:
Memberships may be cancelled at any time. Access to CE activities remains active until the end of the current billing cycle. Subscription charges are non-refundable once processed. Full details are available at www.protrusive.app.
Delivery: Self-instruction (online) · Location: Online
Contact: manager@protrusive.co.uk
