I'm not sure about you guys, but for me, the start of September always marks the 'run into Christmas'.

There's a wonderful slowdown in the pace of life in the second half of July and for most of August, certainly around someone who still has at least one of his Children at school (sixth form). 

I think the pace of life alters and changes when kids leave school. Still, for most people, there is a steady downturn for the second part of July and August, which ramps up usually about the first week in September. I've noticed that as we get towards writing our usual colleague update, we write on a monthly basis from The Campbell Clinic.

So, for this update, as the nights start drawing in and as the emails start flying in, I wanted to offer you some opportunities for camaraderie, community, discussion, and support. We do this through what we call our General Dental Practitioner Liaison Project, which is a project to get as many people together as possible to talk about dentistry and other problems.

It was only last week, during one of our courses, that one of our course delegates popped in to see me in my office, asking if I could have a chat. They then started to recount to me some terrible personal circumstances that they were encountering at the moment.

I think this happens a lot between like-minded individuals; we support and help each other beyond our careers, our communities, and our work on a day-to-day basis.

So, in the spirit of getting together and being more human, we are working hard to further expand our offering to our colleagues to come to the practice (free of charge) for different types of study clubs, interactions, and interventions. I've listed some of these below.

ITI Study Clubs

For many years (since 2010), The Campbell Clinic, in whatever form it exists, has hosted ITI Study Clubs.

The ITI is the International Team for Implantology, and although this is essentially an implant treatment-related study club for ITI members, everyone, including non-members, has the opportunity to attend two ITI study clubs free of charge. 

So this year, we will complete our ITI study club offerings with a social event specifically for members (you can't just have a free meal if you're not a member) and an event from Minesh Patel, who on November 20th will present the focus photography concept for clinicians and their teams as part of an ITI study club. 

Remember, you don't have to be a member to attend this; you can come along to see what it's like. You just have to let us know in advance if you're coming because spaces will be very limited.

In this study club, Minesh will provide a live demonstration of how to take photography using the f:ocus system. Then, he will provide a question-and-answer of the photographs he has taken for all of us clinicians and team members.

Just for the record, we have completely adopted f:ocus photography in our clinical photography in the practice, and it's been a game changer.

Next year, the ITI study club will have five meetings.

A world-class speaker will present soft tissue skills, a live surgery session with Andy Legg and Dominic Smithers will take place, as will a digital dentistry session and other high-level sessions to be announced.

You can join the ITI here or come for two meetings with your team to see whether you'd like to join.

TCC Peer Review & Buying Group

Secondly, we run a peer review group that we've talked about for a considerable period of time.

As an example, this Wednesday evening, Chris Barrow will present in our Academy on the finances of dental business and dental practice.

Our next Peer Review group in November will be with Laura Horton, who will present the modern TCO concept and the advancement of TCO in dental practices (a huge subject). 

These study clubs are free for dentists and their teams. 

Also, as part of this, though, we have a dental buying group, which is run through Wrights.

It's important to understand that to be part of the dental buying group, you are under no obligation to buy all your products from Wrights whatsoever, but it gives you the opportunity to gain extraordinary group savings through the buying group, and in particular to allocate five products per chair in your practice for huge savings.

One of the great advantages of the buying group is that Wrights rebates 5% of buying group sales. 

So, we are now in a position where the Dental Buying group and peer review group have around £15,000 to spend on high-level speakers and education events next year through our six meetings.

If you would like to be part of the buying group and the peer review group, simply click the 'Join the Club' button. We'd be happy to include you and provide you with further information. We can tell you how to join, how to be a member of the buying group, and how to make suggestions about the speakers you'd like to see from the funds that we have available. 

Together with the ITI Study Club, this is 11 free-of-charge meetings per year at the Academy for dentists to connect and communicate.

Dentistry Live

The third offering we have is Dentistry Live. This is in conjunction with our friends at FMC. Once a month, we provide a live clinical procedure at The Campbell Clinic, which is streamed internationally. 

Next year, we hope to have an audience of up to 20 for these meetings, which cover all aspects of dentistry, including restorative, endodontics, orthodontics, implant dentistry, prevention and other aspects.

You can be part of the group that attends and watches this, with a question-and-answer session for the external clinician at the end of the meetings. This takes us up to 21 free-of-charge events as part of our Study Club and General Dental Practitioner Liaison Group.

If you'd like to participate in this or just get information and sign up for our regular updates, please contact Millie here for all the details you need. 

Please feel free to invite any of your team members and friends. 

All study clubs include something to eat and time to chat and mingle with others.

Learning from Failure Conference

Our final event for general dental practitioners is our Learning from Failure Conference on the 23rd of November. 

Our Learning from Failure Conference is a unique and innovative conference where practitioners can discuss what went wrong and what they've learned from difficult situations, both clinically and non-clinically.

This year, the star of the show at the Learning From Failure Conference will be Eddie the Eagle (the actual Eddie the Eagle), and there are spaces for general practitioner colleagues on this to attend.

This is a not-for-profit conference; any additional funds raised will go to charity.

This happens on the same day as our charity ball.

If you're looking for a brilliant Christmas night out for your team that can also raise lots of money for charity, why not dress up in Christmas fancy dress and come to the ball?
All the details for the Learning from Failure Conference are here.

Education

As far as educational events are concerned, in November, we will be relaunching our Digital Dental Entrepreneurial Program in conjunction with the ITI. 

This is our online six-week business course, which has been very successful over the years with another sitting.

It's an international course, a chance to meet dentists from all over the world, and a chance to learn in a self-paced, coached environment that will give you the opportunity to improve your business.

Next year, in March, we'll repeat our Business Bootcamp course, which runs for one week with a very intensive five days of business education for you and any colleague you choose to bring.

Finally, our Curriculum in Implant Dentistry will begin again; our straightforward year implant course will begin in January, our advanced Year two implant course in March, and our Year three Complex Implant Dentistry course begins this December.

For any information about these, let us know.

Social Legacy Projects

Finally, the Clinic continues to be involved in social legacy projects and charity projects.

This weekend, we will participate in Dragon Boat Racing in Newark with our friends and partners at the Children's Bereavement Centre. 

Our charity ball will raise again more money, having already raised over £100,000 in charitable donations through its lifetime and our 1% for charity project continues to support charities both in the UK and abroad.

If you'd like any more information or want to discuss any of the material listed, let us know.

I think everybody is fully aware of the fact following Keir Starmer's speech at the weekend and his interview with Laura Kuenssberg that the NHS is not going to get any better anytime soon.

Probably the best time for us to start to get together to talk about how we can go forward to look after our patients in the best way in the new and modern environment.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to seeing you soon.