My background is in mixed private / NHS dental practice as an associate, practice owner and expense sharing partner for 24 years, providing general dentistry, orthodontics, IV sedation and TMD management. To date my career has been rewarding and fulfilling combining practice, with hospital and educational / training positions. The practice became a training practice in 1994, just after Foundation Training became mandatory in 1993. We developed the practice and grew professionally as Dental Foundation Training evolved. I was an Educational Supervisor for 4 years before taking on the role of Training Programme Director in 2004.

I converted to private practice when the NHS contract was introduced in 2006, so understand the challenges and rewards this brings. In 2011, I had the opportunity to work with Educational Services at Medical Protection to develop their elearning platform, developing risk management material in various formats, including webinars and workshops. This combined with working as a Specialty Dentist on the TMD clinic in Manchester Dental Hospital, and the Training Programme Director role for HEENW, meant there were insufficient hours in the week to do everything.

I spent 10 years (until 2019) working freelance with {my}dentist running their 2-day mentoring programme for overseas dentists, which I am continuing now with London HEE.

So, I left the practice in 2017 to expand the educational work with MPS, and continue with my other work, and this has opened up new avenues. I have mentored new graduates for many years, and recently completed the PGCert in Leadership, Coaching and Mentoring.

For me it has always been a professional and personal challenge, to give up fulfilling work ; but expanding your work portfolio brings its own problems, as you can’t do it all! Those are hard decisions to make and personal circumstances often dictate the best decisions at the time. But dentistry is rich and varied, and offers places for everyone to work to their strengths. From where you stand it can sometimes be hard to see your choices.

There have been many ‘sliding doors’ moments in my career where I have been uncertain of the best way forward, but I have been fortunate to have had informal mentors throughout my career who have helped me see the bigger picture, and bring perspective. As David Clutterbuck said, “everyone needs amentor”; and this applies equally to coaching. I truly believe this sentiment, whether mentoring is formal, informal, or a light -touch approach, this really helps at critical points in your professional life. This sits strongly with my passion for sport which mirrors much of professional life - both its triumphs and tribulations. Believing anything is possible with a vision, support, focus and effort, means that mentoring and coaching can take you to places you felt were never possible alone.

My strengths lie in career mentor/coaching / PDP development / diversifying your career / developing your practice, and skills / and supporting overseas dentists.

I can offer the flexibility of mentoring at times to suit your practice schedule, within the normal working day or evenings. Most of the recent mentoring has been online, but the face- to- face will return too.

With an understanding of the challenges of running a practice, plus balancing professional and personal life, I hope as a mentor/coach I can offer support for you to develop both personally and professionally.

 Download Anne's cv here