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Be proactive. Be the master of your destiny. We have another non-clinical topic all about ‘making your own luck’ in Dentistry and in life including landing your dream associate position with Dr. Rupert Monkhouse, the removable prosthodontic wizard from Suction Lower Complete Dentures – Improve your Removable Prosthodontics
Need to Read it? Check out the Full Episode Transcript below!
“I made my own luck by thinking, you know what, I AM going to go for this. It’s the same as rocking up to somewhere like the BACD conference or the ITI conference, or Tubules” Dr. Rupert Monkhouse
The highlights of this episode:
- How Dr. Rupert landed his ideal associate position 7:04
- How Dr. Rupert managed to work full time 13:12
- Advice for a young dentists looking for their ideal associate position 18:43
- Dr. Rupert’s journey of development in finding his niche 31:22
Don’t forget to check out The Impression Club and also Dr. Rupert Monkhouse’s Instagram
If you loved this episode, you will like How to Find An Associate Position in 4 Mins Flat
Click below for full episode transcript:
“OpeningJaz’s Introduction:
Hello, Protruserati! I’m Jaz Gulati and welcome back to this interference cast, where we take a slight non clinical ditto it’s with our friend Dr. Rupert Monkhouse from #impressionclub. Listen, if you don’t follow this guy on Instagram, you are missing out. This guy is like making removable prosthodontics sexy again, and you may remember him way back in episode 73, where we discuss lower complete suction dentures, right? So this guy is a wizard, you need to check him out. And today we talk about something a little bit different. Rupert actually works quite close to me. So we met up and I like to hear stories of how he got his first or not his first associate position. But where is that at the moment, a beautiful practice. And it very much covers this theme, which is a question I get a lot of how do I go about getting my first associate position. And just if you scroll down on Apple or Spotify or wherever you’re listening, if you’re watching on YouTube, I did an episode recently how to get an associate position in four minutes. Okay, so if you haven’t seen that, please check it out. But essentially, this is a story of how I got my first associate position, his story of how Rupert got his first associate position. And how the relevant theme here is to be proactive. Nothing will happen if you’re reactive. So if you’re reactive, you wait for things to happen, and then you will respond. Whereas when you’re proactive, you are forcing change, you are a force to be reckoned with. You are actually a master of your own ship. You’re in charge of your own destinies, does that makes sense? This is what it’s all about. So the message and the lessons from this episode will hopefully inspire you to change the way you look at the world and look at dentistry and look at your career options to hopefully put yourself in a better position going forward. Let’s catch the main interview with Rupert and I’ll catch you in the outro.
Main Interview:
[Jaz] Rupert #impressionclub Monkhouse. Welcome back to the Protrusive Dental Podcast, my friend how are you? [Rupert]I’m good, Jaz. Cheers for how many back or a year on from the first time? [Jaz]
Yeah, must be a year how fast time flies. If you haven’t listened to Rupert’s episode on suction lower complete dentures, you must listen to it. It is something that is so useful for anyone who’s looking to improve their overall complete dentures, but we focused on a very tricky area, a lower complete denture, and Rupert did such a great job of that. So do check that one out. Today is a slightly different theme. Me and Rupert had a little meetup, at a Turkish restaurant in Pangbourne. It was great Turkish food. So if you’re in that neck of the woods, go to that place near Rupert’s, wherever Rupert works. Where wouldn’t near Woodbridge house. It’s called Le’ Da? La’De? What’s it called? [Rupert]
La’De. Yeah. [Jaz]
Wow, phenomenal. Donna was amazing. And so we were talking and Rupert told me the story of how he got his first ever associate position as that wow, this story is needs to be heard. And there’s some lessons that we can extrapolate from this story. So Rupert, my friend, first, just introduce yourself to those who didn’t listen to that episode. And to probably like the two people business podcast who don’t already follow you on Instagram. Just tell us a little about yourself, what you’re about. And then we’ll go from there and lead to your story, my friend. [Rupert]
Yes. So my name is Rupert. As Jaz said, I was on talking about some complete dentures last time. So I’m a general dentist, I qualified from Kings five years ago now. And my main area of interest is removable prosthodontics or prosthodontics overall, and I share lots of that on Instagram, or my page Dentist Rupert. And since doing our episode a year ago on here, that gave me the kick and the confidence to launch my own sort of platform that I’ve been thinking about for a while called impression club live. Impression Club was a sort of bit where people were sharing impressions and then it just sort of spiraled into, essentially it’s another dental podcast, people come on Instagram, it’s a live chat, more like a FaceTime kind of thing and become are a bit of everything and now there’s a newsletter and a website and all sorts so it’s yeah, it’s going a bit crazy in the years since I’ve had you on but you are the catalyst man you inspired me to do so. I owe you that. [Jaz]
Well, you’re taking it in a beautiful direction. I love what you’re doing. So please guys, check out impressionclub.co.uk there’s a big gold subscribe button and a beautiful photography of a denture, that’s a denture I believe. Lovely photo of that, you know Rupert’s photography is also just phenomenal, his case documentation so follow Rupert on Instagram. Check out the website impressionclub.co.uk, register for a newsletter and check out the podcast on Spotify, on Apple. It’s an all the main platforms. So if you like protrusive you will love impression club. [Rupert]
Very, very kind man. And that yeah, that was cool when we were chatting the other week about it and it wasn’t quite my first position. Ideal, my actual first position NHS beat me by about two months. But yeah, essentially I mean, it’s the position that I’m in now you mentioned it earlier, when we met it would be house. So coming out of Kings, I went up to FD in hole, I didn’t do very well. [Jaz]
I want to just build some context here. I just want to build a bit of context, because people need to know the kind of practice that Rupert house is, it’s in a beautiful area. It’s a fantastic private practice. Your principal is this all singing all dancing prosthodontist. Who does these amazing big cases, he has a freaking modjaw. Okay, so if you guys don’t know what a modjaw is, like, it’s like the, it’s the closest thing that you can use to basically get a motion tracking of the TMJ of the jaw. And again, Rupert covered this in one of his Instagram lives. So if you want to see it in action, check out one of his Instagram lives. But the kind of kit this practice has is beautiful. I had a you know, you very kindly gave me a little tour. What a great vibe of the practice that you have. So this isn’t your average practice, this a beautiful practice that any dentist would love to work in. So the the crux of it is we are, you know, dentists are messaging me saying there’s a lack of opportunities. How do I get this all singing all dancing practice position? So this is where I’ve just built some context. So how did Rupert at such a young age, get the position? The story will actually blow your mind. [Rupert]
Yes, I mean, I was. It all started when I went up to my FD. So I finished at Kings when FD went up to Hull East Riding of Yorkshire because I did very, very badly in national recruitment. And I thought it was the end of the world and all of that, but actually had the best time, the best year and I think that also comes into the theme of the story overall. So I ended up there and actually, I’ve landed in a fantastic practice. I mean, we talked about it in our episode of completes and it had that lab and they let me do what I wanted and things like that. And the deanery for Yorkshire row, I think it was in a pretty much earlier first sort of month saying we’ve got these two tickets for an FGDP study day. Down in Birmingham on I don’t know what it was Friday, the 10th of November or whatever. And I’m from Worcester down the road. So I was like, yeah, why not? I’ll apply for that. If I win that I can go home on Thursday night, see the folks, pop down on Birmingham on the Friday, come back for the weekends. Great, I’ll do that. So I applied for those tickets. And I won those tickets and went off down to Birmingham. And at the time, I was really interested in pediatrics. I like the bookends of General Dentistry. And I’ve got the dentures and the pediatrics. Because again, my practice are there had a charity, it runs a charity that I still do some work with other COVID curtailed it a bit called teeth team where you go into schools and they supply brushes and that is supervised brushing and then you go in twice a year and do a DMFT and all that kind of stuff. So I was really enjoying peds and wanted to go down that avenue, maybe special interest or whatever. And the, it was a holistic dentistry put the mouth back in the body kind of FGDP day. And there was a guy doing peds and he was actually the consultant from Leeds and I’d had the study day with him three weeks ago or whatever. And I chatted to him at the time. And I wanted to go and chat to him a bit more having thought about it and said, You know what, I want to explore this and maybe look at, you know, a masters or something like that, but it was one of those, you know, hour and a half talks. And then there’s a 30 minute coffee break. And I sort of sat there going, oh, there’s a bit of a queue, I don’t really want to go and then I got sort of 10 minutes to go and I thought you know what, I need to just go and do this. So I went up and stood in the queue and started chatting to him. You know, I’m enjoying this, you know, we chatted a few weeks ago. I want to explore it. And then this woman just as they do Yeah, not a lot of time left in the queue sort of just joined in the conversation. And the three of us were just chatting away and her point was the, his presentation have been mainly about pediatrics high needs being in low socio economic areas. And as you mentioned with the area Ruperthouse, it’s a pretty well off area and she went well actually she did all the pediatrics it would bring so much I see a lot of kids from, you know, not low socioeconomic status and they still have a high dental need. So maybe it’s not exactly right. But we got chatting. And then it was you know, Avi Banerjee is coming on to talk about composite everyone take your seats to do. And as we’re walking back to our seats, she said, Where do you work? And I said, hold, and she said, Do you want to move to Reading? And I laughed it off, and sat down and listened to Avi and whoever else came on after, I think Ian Chappell did some perio after or something. That’s fantastic. And then yes, three, four hours later, at the end of the day, she tracked me down at my table, the other end of the room and said, No, seriously, do you want to move to Reading and I said, Well, I’m an FD. So I’m looking for a job in September. This was November of FDs. I’ve been graduated two months at this point. And I said, Well, I’ll be looking for a job in September. So great. Here’s my card. And now a bit more context. She’s from New Zealand, her and her husband, Nick, from New Zealand, so all private dentistry there. Nick, he always loves to tell me that when they moved here, they moved to Earls Court as all New Zealanders do apparently. And he worked in the NHS for a day and gave him his notice and left as soon as he could and was like, no, no. So they been in private practice for 15 years. So they have no real context of what an FD was that it meant I was probably 23, which I was and all that kind of stuff. But she just liked our spoke to this consultant, essentially. And yeah, gave me a card and we started chatting a little bit. [Jaz]
That’s the key thing to pick there. Of all the things, she just like the way you spoke, like, what did he even say? Like, what was it just that you’re polite? You’re polite young English man, or, you know, what was it? [Rupert]
Yeah, I think probably just that I just spoke to a consultant well, and I don’t know, maybe I can’t remember what we talked about in the I knew it was roughly it was about wanting to do special interest. But I don’t know, just the way I spoke to this consultant. And I think, looking at it now. Not wanting to jump ahead, but essentially, as I transition through, she retired last year, and I became full time in her position, basically, because I think she saw herself in me and nurtured me over the three years to then take over her list. So I think that was partly it. She just sort of, we just sort of clicked and that was it. But that was the November and then she actually called me I think it was on holiday, I think I was in Italy. She called me that summer at the end of my FD and she was in Italy as well with a big group of dentists out there. I can’t remember what it was. But there’s quite a few famous Dentists there. Slaney was out there and things and I think it was about mentorship. And that email, got in her head. And she called me and said, Do you want to come and do some Saturdays? And at the time I was in my first full job which was in or I just taken a job in Fulham down the road from where I live now, ironically, and a big NHS practice. I was doing five days a week and alternate Saturdays and I sort of looked at when I haven’t really but go on, then I’ll do my other alternate Saturday mornings in Pangbourne as well. Because I just thought you know what, this is it. [Jaz]
At this time. Let’s just pause it. So at the time you committed to working every Saturday, basically, because you’re already doing Saturday practice. So you pretty much committed to working every Saturday, which no one, no young dentist wants to do really no one, forget young dentists, any dentists just wants to redo that. But you saw an opportunity here. And I think is great that, you know, that came upon you or to all dissect that a little bit later. But you know, how that came to you, what lessons we can draw from it and how we can now apply some of that magic to people listening watching. You put yourself in a position where you’re going to be overworking in a way, how did that make you feel? And how that, What about you know any relationships you’re in at the time? It just put a strain all this you know, working as a dentist, six days a week? It’s a tough gig. [Rupert]
Yeah, absolutely. It was. And when I look back at it now, I’m just like, that was crazy. But it’s got me into the position that I’m in. I mean, the good bit was is that I was living as I still do in Fulham. And it was, as we were chatting before we started recording, you know, it’s a 10 minute walk to the practice. And it was pretty reasonable nine to five hours and following and things like that the odd 12 to late or 2 too late or whatever, but on a Monday but even on that Saturday, I was working eight until 12 or one o’clock, 12:30 I think it was I’d be home by one o’clock it wasn’t that big whereas tracking out to reading on a saturday, won’t get back until half three, four o’clock. That was, it was those days that were the sacrifice not The Saturdays in Fulham. But there was that benefit that I saw of doing it and and it was great to one year out or not. We had literally straight out of FD I started I think the November then I started that so two months after finishing FD, I started doing the Saturdays and To be in that kind of environment, albeit with none of the other specialists and things there, because it was a Saturday, it was still being in that environment, having that patient base. And having the sort of support of that team around you was definitely, it was just a massive plus. [Jaz]
Did you find that you were crapping yourself a little bit? Did you have imposter syndrome? Did you feel like, Oh, my goodness, am I really about to do this? Tell us about those kinds of thoughts. If you had them. We know what were you thinking? [Rupert]
I still have them. I think no one. No one doesn’t have those thoughts, man, I think, yeah, it was the nice thing was that when I went into the position of Sarah is very good. And just said, You know what, just treat people the way that I know you will, and it will come and there’s nothing in terms of the work. And this is again, the really great bit about Woodborough, or a place low would prefer young clinicians because we’ve got endo, pros, perio, Oral Surgery, ortho, we’ve got pretty much every specialty oral-med and peds ironically, you know, we’ve got a registered specialist and everything else that actually you can just sit there and go, You know what, I just want to do posterior composites, that’s all I want to do, I’m going to get good at it, I’m going to do it. And now we’ve got Celine now. So I don’t have to do those either. If I don’t want to, you don’t have to do anything you don’t feel comfortable with. Because you can just turn and she said just use the line a little bit. This is a you know, it’s not a cheap practice. We’ve got someone here who’s even better than me, you might as well pay them a little bit more. And do it with them, you know, because they’ll do a fantastic job. They love doing this. It’s like anterior composite bonding stuff. We’ve got, you know, couples who love doing it and just go you know what, I’m gonna sit there stressing out over it. He’s gonna love it and spend all day polishing them guarantee him like, so there was nothing, there was no pressure to do anything. And a lot of that early Saturdays was a few nice family checkups, few emergencies, which you know, you can never really go wrong with an emergency and extirpation, they’re always going to be grateful that you’ve seen them on a Saturday and all that. So it was, that was a nice way to do it. I think if I’d gone into like a full list on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, that would have been a lot trickier. And maybe in a practice where you don’t have that support. And it’s just, you know, you mentioned again about Nick, and it’s not that often that Nick will do a full course of the treatment, they’ll see the endodontist, they’ll see the periodontist, yeah, that’s just the ethos of the practices, whoever’s the best person to do that, the treatment, they’ll see. So it’s, there’s no expectation that you’re going to have to go in and get a massive OPG and a do a full mouth rehab, you just haven’t got to do it. That’s not the way it works, which helps. [Jaz]
That’s great. And so I want to find out more about when that sort of initial encounter happened with your soon to be principal, at that talk at the FGDP, what lesson can we quickly sort of pass on to those listening and watching or I think that it’s a lesson of and you know, to the simple mind, you can take a step back and say, You know what, you know, some might say Rupert got lucky. And you could say that I think there’s always an element luck, like you know, who you get married to at the end is based on a little bit of luck being in the right place at the right time. So there’s always a little bit of that, but it’s more, I’m a big fan of you make your own luck. So the fact that you applied for those tickets, the fact that you stood up, and you were thinking, Oh, should I go? Should I not? But you did. You went there, and you conduct yourself the way you, you know, you’re a charming man. And, you know, that shone through and first impressions are everything, not just with dentures, but in life in general. So I think that has a lot to do with it and being proactive. What kind of advice do you give to our younger colleagues listening? I know, we’re both fairly young as well. But for some people who are just looking for that ideal associate position that hasn’t come along yet. What kind of advice could you give to someone listening and wanting that inspiration that wanting that? [Rupert]
Well, I think from from my sort of perspective, doing those Saturdays the reason why she asked me to do those Saturdays is because especially when none of our associates wanna do Saturdays, they’re all that way. They’re a little bit older, or they all they’ve you know, they’ve got their two kids or whatever, they don’t want to do Saturdays. And that’s true of a lot of private practices. They don’t want to do Saturdays. They also don’t do Wednesdays, or whatever. So whenever people ask me, I always say, Go and finds go and research 5, 10 practices in your area that look fantastic. And just go to them say, Look, do you want someone to work on a Saturday? Because probably they do. And then they’ll want to take that, they want to take that on, but 100% So yeah, I definitely got lucky. But yeah, I made my own luck by thinking you know what, I’m going to go for this. It’s the same as rocking up to somewhere like the BACD conference or the ITI conference, or Tubules or whatever it is, you know, put you go out into these environments and we always Say that cliche of like dentistry is a really small world. And it is. And if you look at the bubble of the online dentistry, it’s an even smaller world. And so but those are also the circles of people that tend to go to PhDs and things like that. So go off to these events, because one, it’s good for you from a CPD perspective and social and get out of your little box surgery and meet other people. But yeah, it’s a small world. So make sure you’re one representing yourself well, because good news travels just as or if not slower than bad news travels. And yeah, put yourself out there and just have a look around. [Jaz]
I totally agree. I think to add to that, I think don’t be shy. And to use the old cliche, your network is your net worth. So that amount of CPD sessions section 63, this column here, this freebie ones and evening in London, the amount of those I went to, was insane during my FD. And so at the time, my girlfriend at the time, now wife, she was studying in Liverpool, and so I didn’t have to worry about seeing until the weekend. So I had the free reign, during the week to go to as many of these events I could and even the weekends if I did as many free courses, cheap courses, I keep my hands on I would any opportunity to network I would. But more than that working, I just was there to learn and what happens that you’d like just like you said, you strike up these conversations, you find that you get a bit of luck, you find yourself somewhere at the right place at the right time. And things happen. But if you don’t put yourself out there, if you’re going to be too reserved, or you know, it makes life very comfortable, like just oh, you know, I sit here, my mates, my FD mates, I’m not going to go in, you know, to meet someone new today, then you know, where is where are those opportunities gonna come from. So one thing I want to add here is a story of when I got my job at Richmond, so for those of you know, I worked at Richmond with a guy called Hap Gil, amazing dentists, like he creates some brilliant laboratories you don’t even imagine, great inspiration and lovely practice by the river, we called it the Richmond Riviera. And so it’s a great place. And you know, I would have bitten someone’s hand off if they had that opportunity came to me earlier, basically. So it was a practice that anyone would love to work out. And so eventually I got the job after I came back from Singapore. But even like that was in 2017. But six years before that, in 2011, I was just tweeting because at the time I was on Twitter a lot. I’m not anymore. I haven’t got time for Twitter, but time I was tweeting out just striking conversations. And there’s one of these conversations I struck up happened to be this all singing all dancing, I use that term a lot today, dentist in Richmond, who I developed a relationship with online, and then one thing led to another, we just stayed in touch. So that is probably a more new age, Instagram generation social media generation example of how things can eventually work out for you. Would you say? [Rupert]
No, absolutely. And, you know, moving down the track of that journey a little bit more. I mean, I did those Saturdays and then I think it was about a year later. So 2019 I think again, November, I don’t know why everything happens to me in November, I started doing Wednesdays, I started doing Wednesdays and just working with Nick. So they it was sort of service when this will be really good. You know, come in and just shadow Nick, you enjoy Pros come and shadow Nick on a Wednesday, it’s his consultation day he’ll do, he’ll fit the odd implant crown, fit the odds, you know, set of crowns but no surgery or things like that, that just come on in and shatter that. And I was like, well, I need to drop a day and my NHS and all that. And they were obviously very supportive with that and essentially just sort of sorted that. And then I spent what would end up being six months with, obviously, then COVID came in 2020 But I did six months of doing those mornings, and then my Saturdays started to get full. So then I started seeing patients on the Wednesday afternoon as well and then eventually became all Wednesdays. And then just as lockdown happened I left my NHS job to start a part time job in Worcester, where I’m from, and that was through Instagram. So that was the Tom Crawford Clark’s practice, it’s his family’s practice. And he just put on Instagram lichaam story, we’re looking for an associate. And again, just sort of when you know what I’m gonna go for that, couple of phone calls later shoot down to Worcester and have a meeting and ended up going to work there. And unfortunately, had to leave that place after a year because then Sarah said, You know what, you know, when I said I was going to retire at the end of 2023 I think she said, it’s gonna be like next week. So I had to finish that quickly. And literally, I think she said, I’m gonna I think end of 2020 End of 2022. And then she just turned around, I think as a lot of people did sort of COVID wise and just when that I don’t really, I’m not sure I think yeah, and again, it was sort of stuck between doing the business and doing the running the practice and doing dentistry and all that stuff. And I think I’d earned my stripes or whatever by then and got the opportunity to then go in and replace a fully which, looking all the way back to it became the sort of master plan I guess, I was going to be molded into this replacement. But yeah, that other job came through Instagram and I’ve got Yeah, people who get it through not maybe not dental Twitter anymore. I know that’s still a thing that’s a bit more political, isn’t it? But yeah, definitely Instagrams are good places to keep an eye on the ground. And again, if people know you through whether it’s personality, your work through your digital portfolio, it’s, an easy foots in the door, isn’t it? [Jaz]
Great point and term of use the term digital portfolio because nowadays, more and more dentists, especially young dentist, new qualified, they’re journeying, they’re journaling their dental progress on the Instagram. And I’ve known plenty of colleagues who’ve gotten their jobs because someone just messaged him saying, Hey, I like your work. I like your composites, come and work for me. Because they see that okay, if this dentist is taking time to a photograph, so meticulously their work, and B) the hardest step is B, which is share it to the world. The first time you post the cases. I mean, you’ve been doing this for a while now. But if you remember the first time I, gosh, I remember the first time I posted a case, I was shitting myself, man, I was like, Oh my God, what’s the world gonna think and whatnot. So to put yourself out, there is a big step. And when you get comfortable, and you see that the world hasn’t exploded by you posting case, then you start posting a few more, and then it’s okay to take some criticism and you learn and stuff and that’s okay. But I think that shows that okay, I’m meticulous, I like to document, you take a lot of zoomed in shots and you show it to someone that you know what I care about little details, I care about my, what I’m doing, I care about how I roll the marginal ridge and all those little things. So attention to detail really shines through. So that’s the digital portfolio. But just to take a step back, there is still a role of the classic way IE, one of the other jobs I got very early on as a DCT in hospital, I wanted a Saturday job. So I didn’t deskill. So then I just rocked up at my local practice. Even though they weren’t hiring, I just gave my CV, dressed up smart on a Saturday, had a polite conversation with the receptionist, and lo and behold, also in November, but also in November. Okay, I need a new associate, you know, come and get a job. So there are those traditional way as well do it. And I think your advice just do, in case someone missed it. Your advice of the top 10 practice that you want to work for in your vicinity, go out there. And if that job, advert doesn’t exist, doesn’t matter, you make your argument compelling. You say I’m willing to work Saturdays, I’m willing to do this, I’m hungry for knowledge, I’m hungry to learn. This is me, I’m smiling. Look at me, I can, you know, I’d love to work for you kind of thing. So that is going to be a great way to help a lot of people I think. [Rupert]
Yeah, I think absolutely. And yeah, it just shows your, as you say, the photography stuff, as you say is important. But yeah, putting yourself out there and willing to learn and even just things saying, can I come and shadow every other Tuesday or something, you know, because it’s easy when you’ve just come you’re early on your career, you worry more about your earnings and things like that. But doing a bit of shadowing like that is going to be so so valuable. And think even my sessions with Nick those mornings and I got essentially salaried to be there and things like that. And the which was which was of course helped it but I took so much away from just being in that environment. Because even on my, say my Saturdays it was me and a hygienist that kind of thing I wouldn’t necessarily see as much of, you know, how the specialists or the more experienced dentists would be with the patients and how they put things across and even sitting there watching Nick put a plan together and do a letter and suddenly you’re seeing four or five page you make it clears or whatever. You know, really extensive thinking and putting it across like that, that learning things like that is so so valuable as well. And again, it just shows that you’re willing to get in there and be a part of it. But I think Well the biggest piece of advice clearly is be on your A game in November because everything happens. So we’ve got one seven, eight months to get on point for November. [Jaz]
Very good. Very good. Now, you reminded me of something had a chat with our Paul Goodman recently, episode at the time of recording this hasn’t been published yet. But he is the head of dental nachos. And he, you know, made a really good point that when you ask someone, if you can shadow them, that person who’s allowing you to come to your clinic is doing you a huge favor like enormous favor. When I have a dentist shadow me. I’m going to be slower. It’s gonna take me more time. I love it personally, but it does take me more time, more effort to make sure that I have things a bit more structured and I’ve checked my diary in advanced to make sure that that dentist is well cared for and the team can look after them as well. So we, you know, when a dentist allows you to shadow them they’re doing your massive favor. So A) don’t be afraid of rejection, ask if you can shadow and B) if the dentist doesn’t reply or you get a no, don’t take that to heart, okay? It’s a big deal to let someone come into your clinic, come into your space, come into your surgery to let you do that. So definitely asked, but don’t be disheartened if you get some no’s not everyone is comfortable with, you know, with their dentistry being watched. I know some great dentists who still, to this day will not allow anyone to shout at them because it’s not comfortable. And that’s fine. That’s cool, let’s make this make peace with that. But still get your message out there that I am hungry for, to watch someone and definitely find those opportunities. Even if you have to take on a sacrifice a day sacrifice and pay any way you can to to get that experience is invaluable. Shadowing for me as a young dentist is great. And I still am looking for opportunities to shadow now and again. And I love it. [Rupert]
Yeah, 100%, I took so much fun. And I was already in the practice at that point. But it definitely helped me integrate or transition even better into that role of private practice, or high end sort of specialist referral private practice. And yet you get so much more out of it than that alternate Wednesday or whatever it is that you lose from your other work. See, I think definitely worth doing. [Jaz]
My final question for you, Rupert is in your journey, how long did it take for you to come to a point to feel confident to be like, You know what, I’m cool to be associated as the dentist who loves dentures, and I’m proud of the dentures and here’s my photos of my impressions, because you know what, I’m proud of my impressions and they look good. And they are, Rupert they’re amazing. So how long did it take you and all how can you, it doesn’t matter how long it takes anymore it’s more about reaching that stage. So on that journey of development, how can dentists listen to this, expedite the development in a way to find their niche and then be proud of that niche and be able to share that niche because like I said, most people are afraid to show their work. So takes a lot of steps, sacrifice and hard work to get to a stage where you have now created a niche and like you know, everyone knows you’re awesome. A lot of things, but especially dentures like you are known for it. So how do you get known for something? How do you become comfortable in your skin to be able to do that? [Rupert]
Yeah, I think it’s funny one, really, in terms of the social media stuff, I never did it with any intention of becoming the denture guy. I literally, I made the account. And the way this is said was we sort of cruise over, we almost got onto the star when I was doing the six days kind of thing. And there was a point where I was really, really struggling in practice and things like that, in terms of just the blasting of NHS and things like that. It just wasn’t for me. And I’d have these bits where you start to follow a bit more on Instagram, and we talked about it in our other episode, I do a lot of landscape photography and all that kind of stuff. And my normal Instagram was getting filled up with, you know, George, the dentist doing remarkable things or whatever. And I was some days, I don’t want to look at this. So I’m gonna make another Instagram, I’m going to make Dentist Rupert, just so that I can unfollow it all from this and follow it on that. And if I don’t want to look at teeth that day, I can switch over and I can look at lovely pictures of the mountains in China or whatever it is. And that’s what I did. And then there was the odd story, posted the odd story picture of an impression or whatever. And then impression club became a thing. Someone else tagged it first. I didn’t come up with it. Someone else tagged it. And I thought I’m having that that’s good. And, yeah, it just started a little bit like that. And then I did it stories first, dip a toe in the water, right? Because they disappear after a while, so it’s fine. And it got some traction. And people wanted to ask us some questions as Okay, people one are interested because you don’t think that someone’s going to care about primary impression of a edentulous patient or something. And they respect my opinion and want to know, so I thought you know what Go on, then, as you say still first case is terrifying, right? But it was yeah, that was sort of it really, I thought you know, people actually do care and people want to hear about it. So I’m going to I’m going to go for it. And it started off slowly. And a lot of the pictures were horrendous. And then you go and do Manish Patel’s course and learn how to take them properly. And shout out to Focus as everyone does. And yeah, I think you just take it like that. But the weird thing is I always think I did the, you know, the drill podcast of the day if you’ve heard that on the two chaps, 40 episodes, kings and they were asking me about running a successful dental social media account. I said like I had no intention of doing it. I think the weird thing is people that you go out and got Want to be an Instagram dentist. So I don’t really know about that, because it just sort of again happened by accident probably in November. And I think yeah, it’s just start steady, have some stuff banged up and just do it because you enjoy it. Like, it makes me enjoy my work more. I think the even though I get, you know, get a lot of questions do you have all the time for the live sessions and the podcasts and all this, it’s probably the same for yourself. That’s actually my favorite part of the week. I love so much, my Tuesday nights when I get to call up some epic dentists from wherever, and have a chat with him for an hour about teeth. Because we’re both the same. We’re both a bit geeky, really and enjoy teeth, maybe a little bit too much. But yeah, I just it feels my passion for it. I’ve had the passion in the first place, but it just feels in and keep driving it on. So I think you’re doing it for the right reasons is really important as well. [Jaz]
I totally agree. And I think just to remind everyone, the way this podcast started was I, I mean, the whole overarching theme is sharing because I was driving to Oxford, back to London, to Oxford to London. And every time I was driving, I was speaking to a new dentist, telling them about my experiences in Singapore as a dentist, and therefore it got very laborious. And eventually I was like, How can I record it on a voice recording and just put it out there? Oh, there’s these things called podcast exists. So essentially, I was sharing my experiences. And then I was sharing some other people’s experiences. And then that’s how it grew. And in your case, you are sharing your impressions, you were sharing your enjoyment of dentistry. And so the lesson here is share. I’m not saying give up density and become a content creator or anything, I’m saying just share. And if nothing comes up, it doesn’t matter. Do it because you love to share, and you will help someone else who may be a few steps behind what you’re sharing to figure out oh, if I just now start using polyf as my temporary cement for my temporary onlays I might get better success, then I then they’re not and then you little nuggets, you know, not everyone knows what you know, and you have to be comfortable if that that even though you, the listener right now, the watcher right now, even though you feel as though you don’t know everything, no one knows everything, you can still contribute to our community of learning. And therefore, the answer is Share, share, share, don’t be afraid to share. [Rupert]
And that’s the beauty of doing it on Instagram really is that everyone’s there for the same reasons. We’re all just sitting there trying to get little tidbits and some people want to sit there and absorb it all. Like that’s what I was doing at the start just absorbing it all, that’s fine. And as you say, we’ve all going to have something and we’re all going to have a tip that someone else maybe doesn’t do or not even maybe a new tip, we maybe just say it differently, and other people that resonates with people in different way and things like that. So it’s even just so how you put it out and put it across which is important. And the funny thing with your story and I remember you talked about that with how the podcast started, it’s exactly the same as how the live session started. Because I’d get lots of DMS and I’d get the same few DMS. So I thought you know what, I’m gonna make some videos and I may as well do them on a live with my technician and we’ll run through five different cases and answer them all it’s an FAQ. So yeah, I think just go with it and just share, if people are asking you the same stuff it’s probably means that people want to listen to it right. [Jaz]
Amazing. So right, Rupert, it’s been a pleasure as always You’re very welcome. Protruserati and alumni of this podcast, guys, please check out impression club, just his Instagram account, but also the podcast. The newsletter is full of absolute gems, as we say. So Rupert, my friend, thank you for making time for this. Thanks for sharing your journey. Again, back to sharing. Thank you for sharing your journey. I’m sure that will help a lot of people [Rupert]
Cheers both. Thanks again for having me on. And I’ll catch you soon.
Jaz’s Outro:
There we have it guys. Hope you enjoy that chat with Rupert Monkhouse. Listen if you found this to be inspiring or uplifting, or there was a nugget in there, which you really thought yes, you know, I needed to hear that today. Then please can you say your thanks by going on iTunes, or Apple and Spotify and giving me a rating of your choice? You know, ideally five if you thought so. But please do rate the show. That’s how other people, other dentists around the world can find out about Protrusive so we can share the love, share the love with everyone. Anyway, I’ll catch you in the next episode. Be a clinical one. I’m not gonna tell you what it is. I’m gonna keep it a surprise, but it’s one I promised quite a while ago and I’ve been you know, holding it as like a trump card for that way. I’ve got a little trump card on my pocket and I’m about to take it out. So catch the next episode, same time, same place. Thanks so much