This week at the practice, I found myself consoling one of my colleagues, someone very close to me that I've worked with for a long while, as one of the cases they were looking after encountered an extremely unexpected and heart-breaking problem.

Not only was this case extraordinarily important for the patient and for the clinician, but it was one that the clinician had documented obsessively and seamlessly throughout the process from start to finish, hoping that it would be able to be used as an educational presentation case for years to come.

So much work had gone into this, so much emotion, therefore, so much heartache primarily for the patient, but also for the dentist for the time spent, the work done, and the outcome that was not expected.

To be clear, we fully expect the patient to obtain the same quality of outcome as they had started out to achieve, it will just take a bit longer for the patient and a bit more money for us (all of our patients are guaranteed through treatment).

The main problem when you encounter cases such as this is accepting the fact that they happen.

The main problem is dealing with the fact that as soon as you treat a human being, you're interacting with biology and sometimes biology is unpredictable.

This is obviously something that happens to all of us: cases that we undertake with the best of intentions, which don't go the way we are hoping for them to go. 

On reflection and in my position, both in the practice but also as I look after the ITI's Online Digital Education System for 100 countries, it's something that we overlook all too often.

It's very easy to stand up and present a showboat, something which has gone perfectly either by luck or by judgment; it's much harder to open your soul and present something that isn't perfect.

The fear of doing that is enormous; you worry that you will lose respect from different people, or you will lose patience, or people won't think you're good enough to undertake the treatment, but the truth is that only the very very best, the very, very honest, the very, very very classiest clinicians are able to show the things that don't work.

This falls back to the philosophy of how should we educate or be educated. 

The picture above is the graph of the standard deviation curve related to The Dunning-Kruger Effect, which has been discussed and talked about in medicine and healthcare over the past 20 years.

In effect, this represents a grading of the competency of any group of people you care to mention, and certainly, you can do it for dentistry.

The middle and shaded section represents 80% - that's almost all of us. We fall into the competent area, which is not exceptional and not unacceptable, but just competent and competent enough.

On the left-hand side are the 10% that are unacceptable and need help, and on the right-hand side are the exceptional people who we cannot help and cannot be taught by because they do not understand why we cannot do what they do.

The punchline here, though, is that competent people treat the vast majority of patients, yet we repeatedly educate at an exceptional level.

This year, in my job with the ITI, I had the opportunity to travel to Singapore to the ITI World Congress for meetings and presentations and to do all sorts of work.

The stuff that was presented on the main stage to 6000 dentists there was extraordinary and of the very highest level, but many (not at least me) left the auditorium at times wondering if we would ever be able to achieve such level of work and then feeling almost demotivated instead of absolutely inspired to move forward and be better.

It's for this reason that as we redesign The Campbell Academy Digital platform for education (a project which will take 2 to 3 years), our primary focus will be on how to educate the 80%, the people like us, the people who know that they are not exceptional but are trying their very best to provide the best possible work.

Campbell Academy Teaching 

And so, with all this in mind, let's return back to the top of the page to the case and circumstances my colleague faced last week in the practice.

What should we now do with all that collected teaching material, all that heartache, all that effort, all that investment? What they should do is present it! 

Of course, they should 100% because digging deep into that (and they have and we have and we will) means that we will learn more and more for the next time for the next patient, for the next way to do it.

That is the principle that The new Campbell Academy digital platform will be built upon; it's also the principle that the ITI Academy is about to be rebuilt on because, at the present time, I have the reins, and until I don't, it will be that way.

But it's also the principle the Learning from Failure Conference, which occurs later this month, is built upon.

It's much past the time when we cast aside our arrogance and embraced our humility.

I'm not suggesting that all we do is present failure after failure after failure, but the flip side of that is that just showboating for the ones that luckily went well is not good enough and not a decent enough way to educate the future of the profession.

Things that are happening at TCC and TCA in the next little while. 

Lots of the focus here this month is on the Learning from Failure Conference, the visit of Eddie the Eagle and the Charity Ball. I've written about that here a lot, but you know what's happening there. 

There are still a few tickets to the Learning from Failure Conference, but the ball is sold out. Let us know if you fancy attending! 

We're also finalising bookings for the next edition of a Year One Implant Course, which is close to full and our Year Two Implant Course for more advanced practitioners who want to improve. 

We have the second edition of our Year Three Implant Course starting next month, and there are still a couple of spaces remaining for that. 

Another thing that's coming up in the first quarter of next year is our Dental Entrepreneurial Bootcamp, the five-day course over one week to take people from zero to hero in business understanding.

If you ever see my blog, which publishes every day in the next few days, you'll see stuff about an associate contract coming up there.
 It's fascinating to look at that.

I have also recently launched a business blog that goes out on a Sunday evening, so please subscribe if you want to read about all things dental business! 

TCC Dental Implant Pricing

Other than that, we continue to develop the practice day by day, week by week, month by one.

We have now further developed and integrated our tiered implant system for pricing guarantees and complexity.

We've given pathways to patients at each level of the price point and complexity point to enter into the practice at level one with 10-year guarantees for the most complex cases with our most experienced clinicians. Level Two with five-year guarantees and a more affordable implant treatment product and option for patients, and Level Three, which is our patients who are involved in our Academy courses who get an extraordinary deal on implant treatment with the highest quality materials provided by the companies, but a one year guarantee and a fabulous price point.

If you want to access care for any of your patients through these levels, just get in touch and let us know.

Finally, a development product at The Campbell Clinic. 

My friend and colleague over the last 10 years, Andrew Legg, has been honing his skills and diving deep into the world of bone grafting in implant dentistry and has now followed the teachings and career of Istvan Urban in developing the ability to grow bone in bone grafting circumstances in places that we never knew before.

Andy's skills and abilities in vertical bone grafting in the posterior mandible and the Maxilla, together with new and revolutionary ways to provide horizontal bone volume, make implant treatments much more viable for patients who never thought they were able to have it before.

This is particularly stark at the back of the jaw in the lower, where people for years have been told that it's just too close to the nerve and nothing can be done.

If you know of any patients who might want a conversation about whether it's not possible to do this, then get in touch with us and get them to see Andy; his work is extraordinary.

 I'm sure he'd be happy to chat with you about it, and he'll be showing some of it off at the Academy coming up.

Our Peer Review Events

Next time, in these pages, we'll unveil 21 GDP events in 2025, all of which are free of charge and all of which encompass this philosophy of education for the 80%. 

There will be six Peer Review meetings based around team education, where you can bring your team together to learn, chat, and share.

There will be 10 Dentistry Live editions with FMC. Next year, we will include in Dentistry Live the ability to be a live audience member to watch it unfurl and to watch the surgery of dentistry being done as it happens. 

Finally, there will be five ITI study clubs next year.

ITI Study Clubs are generally for members of the ITI, but you can attend up to two ITI study clubs as a non-member to get a flavour of this; you can also bring your team.

It may not be that you are particularly obsessed with dental implants, but you may well be able to learn massively about what's happening in implants from something which may be of interest.

Our prospectus will be coming out to all our GDP friends in early December for the whole of 2025, and we really hope you might come and see us, say hi, and meet some of the guys here.

If you want to reply to this email, please hit reply because it will come straight back, and I will see it.

I can't guarantee I'll respond to every single one, but I will try my best.

We'd love to hear from you if you've anything to say or feedback.

Best wishes, 

Colin