I was born and went to school in my hometown of Southend-On-Sea. In 2004, aged 22, I graduated youngest in my class at the Barts & London Dental School. After qualifying I carried out the one year mandatory vocational training at a small dental practice in Gt Dunmow, Essex. After my VT year I was lucky enough to secure a job as a Senior House Officer (SHO) at Guy’s & King’s Hospitals in central London. As an SHO my duties involved teaching the undergraduate students, carrying out my own restorative clinics, and working in the oral surgery department extracting teeth.

After my SHO year was completed I had the option to begin work in my father’s well established dental practice here in Southend-On-Sea, carrying out routine day-to-day dentistry for the rest of my career. Although this did appeal, as it would mean no more studying and give me a fairly standard daily routine, I decided I needed something more. As someone who is always looking for a challenge, I decided that I needed further formal training in the areas of dentistry that interested me. After all, if I’m going to be doing dentistry for the rest of my life, I’d better make sure I was good at it!

After some advice from a very senior dental consultant, I began a one year full-time MSc programme in Prosthetic dentistry at the Eastman Dental institute which is part of University College London. This was a really challenging year! Ask any dentist who has graduated from the Eastman, the work ethic here is basically work, work and more work! As this was a full-time post-graduate course I supplemented my income by being the Emergency Dentist for Essex on the weekends, this made sure I still carried out routine dentistry and kept my experience level high. During this year I completed an original clinical research thesis that looked at the prevalence of MRSA living on the dentures of the elderly admitted to Hospital. This was one of the most rewarding endeavours I have ever undertaken, and I am very grateful to all those at the Eastman who gave me this opportunity. The abstract of my thesis is available to view in the research section of this site.

Once I completed my Masters, I decided that Implant dentistry was the area of dentistry which most interested me. Formal training in Implant dentistry is difficult to obtain in this country. There are numerous well taught weekend/week-long courses, but I wanted something much more in-depth. After much work, I was able to obtain a place on a two year part-time Masters programme in Clinical Implant dentistry at Guy’s Hospital. My friends were a bit concerned about my sanity, having decided to do two Masters degrees back-to-back but after completing it all, I can safely say it was a great choice! Guy’s has always been my favourite dental hospital in London, the staff, and the nurses are very friendly and it has a certain family feel about it.

During my two years at Guy’s, I worked part-time in the NHS at my father’s practice and treated private patients at the London Bridge Dental Practice. The two years flew by and I can now proudly say I hold a University of London degree from all three dental schools in London, something which is unique in the dental world. Currently, I work in two practices, these are: