SPEAKER_01 0:01

Happy New Year, everyone. Dr. Ruduwan Hefiji. Welcome to Joe Burg, man.

SPEAKER_03 0:05

Thanks for having me. How are you? I'm good. Good. I'm excited to be here. A privilege to be here as well. Thank you so much. On a need to basis. Yeah. Yeah. Like this is a need to basis. Beyond this, do we kind of fly in and fly out?

SPEAKER_01 0:23

You're based in Cape Town, yeah?

SPEAKER_03 0:24

Based in Cape Town, originally from Durban, though.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Yeah. How long have you been in the Cape? Since undergrad. I think uh 2007.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

Yeah, okay. So I took a break for ComServe, but then I've pretty much been in Cape Town.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

So are you a Cape Tonian now? Really?

SPEAKER_03 0:37

It depends who I'm speaking to.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:39

If I'm speaking to family, no, I'm still on I'm still on a working holiday in Cape Town. Yeah. If I'm speaking to a Cape Tonian, then I'm a Cape Tonian.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

But you haven't you haven't got an accent, I must say. You sound you sound very like us. Okay, definitely assured.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

I I might have asked you this before, but you're a DHS old boy, aren't you? Most fly, yes. I recognize you from from from school. Did you know me in in high school? Or or of me at least. Big boys don't talk to the small boys. Wait. Who's older you? When did you call it? Uh 2005. How's 2006? Okay. Here after, yeah. Okay. Well, good to see you, man. Welcome. Which primary school do you go to? I was at Clifton. Yeah. Okay. And you? Brio West. Okay. The Durban boys are sorry, Yak. Yeah. You guys carry on. Go get a room. I was thinking about this when I was driving, guys. I thought it's a very random thing, but who do you think is like the most famous doctor in South Africa? It's just a random question. It has nothing to do with Rudwan.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

I was gonna say uh Prof. But then when you say famous, you mean in what circle?

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Just well known, anywhere, like popular circle, like not academic or not clinical, just if you mention their name. I mean the names that came to mind for me were Dr. Nandeepa, Magudumana. And then it's then it's either Doc Dr. Kumalo or Dr. Shebeleza or Dr. Duda, but that's just the joke, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Doc Marty.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

No, but yeah, I don't know. I don't know why I even thought about that or even decided to bring it up, but yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_03 2:12

I think Dr. Nandeepa does take it, yeah. Yeah. What is she who is she? What does she do?

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Yeah, you just go watch Netflix, you'll find out. So it's Tabo Besta's girlfriend. Oh, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Rodan, what do you do? You're a prostodontist, right? What do prostodontists do? Yeah, it's always a tough one, eh? Yeah. Um and I'm asking as a lay person.

SPEAKER_03 2:35

A prostodontist is basically basically a specialist dentist. Uh advan play a role in the planning and execution of advanced treatment and rehabilitations, which involve the maxillofacial structures. So the average patient wouldn't know that we're not just involved in the mouth, we're involved with facial structures, basically, eyes, zygomas, ears. Um I normally tell patients that if you don't know what's a prostodontis, that's a good thing. The day that you know what's a prostodontis, you know that there's trouble, basically.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

Yeah. And my interpretation of that is prostodontis exists when the when dentistry has failed, and then you guys make it look like it was intentional, like there was a point to it. Am I correct?

SPEAKER_03 3:17

Something like that. Yeah, it was meant. It was always going to fail at some point.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Because you don't have you ever worked on a okay, as a prostodontist, have you ever worked on a on a vital tooth, a tooth that's alive?

SPEAKER_03 3:31

We have. But the strange thing is that now with and and this is the cool thing about media marketing, online marketing, that you now get patients who will come to us not just from referrals, but will come to the practice as first-line presentation. And then they'll come in with the usual, uh, I like my teeth whiter or straighter, or am I candidate for veneers? Um it is reassuring that messages are getting out there and patients are seeking information from different sources. What I normally tell patients is that if we primarily earn our living from the failure of dentistry, you don't need that veneer, don't get it done. Um and aesthetics is short-lived. It's it's vanity, but it's it's short-lived. It's it makes you feel good about yourself for the first 10 years. And then beyond that, you end up those in those ages of functionality. And when your complications kick in, suddenly that perfect smile doesn't mean that much anymore.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

You know why I asked this, ask what a prostodontist does is because you know, I'm just thinking of myself growing up, I would or anybody in general, you know, you say I need to go to the dentist, right? You never say, I need to go to a prostodontist, but because it's not a commonly known specialty, you know, not like an orthodontist.

SPEAKER_03 4:39

Or a maxillo fatal surgeon.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yeah, even that. So but it's interesting to say that you to hear that you're saying that patients are coming to you directly now.

SPEAKER_03 4:46

Aaron Ross Powell I think it's because of the practice as well. I think prostodontists and your periodontists fall in that same little category where they don't normally say, I'm going to see my periodontist. Uh now you start seeing those changes, which is which is great because this is the idea what we want patients to be more informed uh and educated and seek out referrals or seek out contacts themselves directly.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Um is Cape Town the place to be? Would you would you ever move to Joburg or anywhere else? I like Cape Town.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

Uh I I enjoy living in Cape Town. I I'll admit that I do miss living in Durban, though. Um I think forever I'll always be a Durbanite. Uh you grow up to in that space that everything relates to you. Uh it's home. The way the people are, the roads, the way the people talk. It's it's home. Uh so as much as I've been in Cape Town all these years, there's still a part that'll always fantasize over life in Durban and what life in Durban could be. I don't think you ever really get rid of it.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Just to give the guests some context, that part is still with you. In fact, you brought it, it's sitting in the other room there. He rocks up to the practice now, just now, with uh I think that's about a 60-litre Thule bag, but it's empty. But uh he's gonna pick up chow from Durban, some Mussas.

SPEAKER_03 5:57

Yeah, because we start fasting in a couple of weeks' time, so you need to get your stock.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

Yeah, so uh that's the Durban and you that will always be. Always be, yeah. But if I can ask more about the um the prostodontic part of it. Look, when even when I was growing up, not growing up, I meant like growing up professionally as a dentist. Um my interpretation of prostodontics was that it was um just removable appliances, just dentures. That's all I knew. Because as part of our curriculum and specialization, the prostodontic department would just train you to do RPDs and and uh full full dentures. But you you mentioned just now, like if are you like is that within your scope of practice? Like if someone comes to you, they're like, I need a full mouth rehab, will you like do veneers on them?

SPEAKER_03 6:43

100%. If it's necessary. I think it's also just that phase of life that we're in at the varsity, the only contact undergrads generally have, and unless you one of those more eager, enthusiastic undergrads who wants to know a little bit more, the only time that you meet the pross registrars are in either your Crown and Bridge Clinic or in your prost clinic because we have to rotate and supervise students in those sessions. Um but you get those students that will filter their way up and start asking more. But more often than not, it's surprising the number of dentists that qualify and are not fully familiar with what a prostodontis is. Um you get a lot of dentists that don't even know there's an auto pathologist out there. So I think perhaps uh I think it also is changing. I'm obviously very familiar with UWC. I know now they get us more involved with undergrad training. We give them lectures in implantology. Uh so we do play a role in their lecture system, so they start picking up things as well. Um I think in the same light, once again, we can talk about this quite a bit. Instagram, Facebook, social media plays a big role in also dental students becoming more aware of what happens in dentistry beyond the faculty. Historically, we only knew dentistry as the four walls of Tigerberg or Witz or Petoria or wherever we study. Uh so now at least students now are aware a little bit beyond that. It does give the university lectures a bit more of a headache because students can sometimes acquire information before they've got to that stage of learning. Uh but it's it's a good problem to have, I feel. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Yeah. Yeah. You were speaking of social media like two days ago, or maybe even yesterday, I saw one of these big dental companies put a post on Instagram and it's your face there with a mic on your on your cheek, and it says, you know, you're going to be speaking here. I can't even remember exactly where. You do this quite often. You go and speak and you train people and teach, right?

SPEAKER_03 8:31

Yeah. I'm I'm quite privileged and blessed that uh my career has taken me into that field as well, uh teaching and learning. Massively passionate over it, but there's so many little nuances about it that I think I feel that the average practitioner in the audience may not always be aware of. Um I think from an ethics standpoint, uh, you'd know everything about this, that teaching is a privilege, but it's also a massive responsibility. Uh in essence, you are lecturing for an hour, you're giving an audience a snapshot of a highly complex or possibly a highly complex procedure that can be life-changing to a patient in one hour. To do justice to something like that is impossible. You can't even say it's difficult. It's impossible. And the way that message needs to be relayed in both informative education, but also responsible, because you also don't want, in my opinion, I wouldn't want someone to attend a single-hour lecture and feel like, you know what, I can go back and restore an implant. Um I think I would look at these type of CPD events or you're giving an hour lecture as give that general dentist or give the audience that little glimpse of what is available and what they can learn, and then use that lecture or use that seminar to go and acquire more information in a more formal sense.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

So like to spark an interest and then 100%. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

And responsible learning. Correct. Informative teaching, but it's responsible learning. Yeah. You show me something, I'm not just going to go try it out randomly.

SPEAKER_03 9:56

Unfortunately, it does happen. Uh and unf and the only people that are harming this are patients. Um I think with that, for me personally, the the selfish part in it is the more that I teach, the more that I learn. Uh, as much as I'm passionate over teaching and sharing and also for the profession to grow, I love that that concept of village growth. We all support each other. Uh, but there was that old saying that if you want to learn something, read about it. If you want to understand something, write about it. And if you want to master something, teach it. Um and I I know one of my big character defects is that I perhaps can get stuck in that conveyor system. I want to get I want to be at the gym, I want to run, I want to be at work, I want to be everywhere, but I still need to be the best possible clinician for my patients. And how do I keep current with that? Give a lecture in in a month's time, have to read what's relevant and what's new now. Otherwise we end up on that same you you're not relevant anymore, you're not current with information. So I guess it's beneficial two ways.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Yeah. So I mean, so that you're the type that gives these lectures and trains people, right? Which just give it automatically gives me the impression, and it's probably it could be right or wrong. It gives me the impression that growing up from a light days, I think you want to be in dentistry. That's just when I look at you, I think of that. Is that true or uh what did you want to do? No, no. Uh uh Honestly, like if I see you, you you're at the peak, right? I mean you're getting there. You're you're quite high up, you know? I wouldn't say peak. Look, I don't want to but but you people come to you for advice.

SPEAKER_03 11:35

They do. I think I probably decided I want to do dentistry in grade 11. I still remember the conversation with my mom and dad. Uh I think they were more relieved than anything else. Like, okay, at least this guy wants to do something with his life. Um because I think up until grade 11, I wasn't too sure. And I asked me why it happened, I have no idea. Um it was never medicine, it wasn't anything else. And I think if I got if I didn't get into dentistry, I would have been an extremely unhappy individual. I I love what I do.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

And then my mom Can you unpack that first because no one just says I want to be a dentist and nothing else. What influenced that? Well, no, we'll get there.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

It'll come it'll come out.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

I honestly can't say it because I've been asked this question a few times. My mom's brother is a dentist, but I don't think he played an influential role in me wanting to become Don't worry, we'll figure it out in this.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Yeah, we'll figure it out.

SPEAKER_03 12:20

Okay, just it's a safe space. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

So just for the record, I don't think you look like a dentist. You you look cool. Thanks, man. I appreciate that. No offense, dentists.

SPEAKER_03 12:28

Um but yeah, so I and then uh uh that was grade 11, and then Matrick, you do the usual story of applying.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

And but wait, wait, wait, take take us back, take us back to like your earliest memory. I'll tell you my earliest memory of what I wanted to do, right? I wanted to be a truck driver. Like, that sounds cool. I used to have a toy truck and pull it around and I and I remember telling people I want to be a truck driver when I grow up. Transporting what? Like just goods. Just drive trucks. I don't care what's in the back, I can drive a truck. Okay. So what's your earliest memory? I mean, if we had to go and ask your parents, maybe they'll they'll be able to tell us, I guess. But did they ever tell you that you said you wanted to be a policeman or a fireman or something? Nothing.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

Like it's weird. I I if I think back, I for me it was pretty much I enjoyed I won't say I enjoyed school, yeah, but I mean primary school. Okay, where bought you from? Uh Sydenham Overport. Okay, I know Sydenham. My parents still live there, just off just off Keel Road. Um Yeah, I I kind of just went about just went about life. Do you play sports? Yeah. Cricket, I love cricket. Yeah. Um obviously we all have these boyhood dreams that one day we'll represent the country, but we know it's never gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

So did you have that? Not everybody has that, eh? Really? Yeah, uh there was uh literally yesterday I was watching a video about uh about the psychology of people who are not interested in sport at all. And I never watched the whole thing.

SPEAKER_03 13:52

I struggle with it.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Yeah, it's apparently those of us that are into sport, it's it taps into the whole tribalistic uh commun community mentality, which is a primitive thing. So I didn't get to watch the whole video, but they said that the people are not that into sports.

SPEAKER_03 14:08

Okay, so you're gonna think you're doing a good job. You're unpacking this.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:11

So in primary school, I think I was very average, if not below average, student at school. Academically. Academically. Enjoyed my sport and go about my business. Go to school, do my thing, write my tests, come home. I had no aspiration of getting an A and what an A plus or whatever it is. It wasn't even the most important thing in my mind. My mind was just go about my days. It's just enjoy being in school. Um, I think my parents had it pretty easy with my brother and I. We kind of spent about a business. We didn't rebel the system. Go to school, do your thing, come home, do your homework, go to sleep, and move along with life. What's the point of fighting the system? You're never gonna win. And then came grade seven. We're finishing primary school, and I really wanted to go to DHS. Uh, I come from a working class family. Um, my mom and dad work very, very hard. My dad still works very hard. So we don't come from what we would call privilege. Uh, but I would like to say that I was not short of anything growing up. But I wanted to go to DHS. And DHS, the fees, as we know, were high. But my dad and mom, being the people that they were, wanted to give us the best that they could and an opportunity and opportunities that they perhaps didn't get themselves.

SPEAKER_02 15:19

Why DHS? That's also very sp specific, like dentistry. Because Lance Klusner went there. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 15:26

Yeah. Cricket, cricket. There we go. Yeah. Um and then came the first scam of life. Yeah. So the first, so we went to the open days for all the high schools. And then I remember it was in also grade seven, we went to George Campbell. And my dad told me, I think you probably will be good at this, like technical stuff. And I think he was right. Well, he is right. Me being a prostodontist, every time I pick up a talk wrench, I think about my own man. And but it wasn't in my head. Like, I want to go to DHS. Like George Campbell, I can see it. I can see myself plumbing electrical, I can see myself being a fitter internor, and I think I would have enjoyed it. But I wanted to play sport. And DHS was that place that I thought I wanted to play sport at. And my best friend from primary school was going there as well. So my dad said, here's the agreement. I'll send you to DHS, but you need to give me results. The current results that you give me don't warrant me putting you into the school. So this is our first trade. And I think he he obviously knew I wasn't going to make it for the Pro Tier's team. And but this was a good leverage for me to start working at school. And from there on in, it started growing where I started focusing on my education because I want to be in the school again next year and next year. And I think what also happened, which I didn't realize at that time, the friends that I made and the friends that I kept were pretty intelligent guys. I'm still friends with them, really good goes. Um and I think that was also that motivation and that inspiration that, you know, just keep working and you hang around these guys and learn, learn the way they're learning. Um and you go about playing your sport and having fun. Um wasn't A team, wasn't first team, but it was just having a bash. Um yeah, and that's how it eventually came to be. And eventually now I'm in grade 11. I'm thinking, you know, I want to do this dentistry thing.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

This sounds cool. Don't laugh. It's a genuine question. I mean, had you been to the dentist quite a bit as a kid? Who was your dentist?

SPEAKER_03 17:22

My uncle. Um he's known as Mota, Dr. Viad. He's still his practice is still in town, Durban, Lawn Street. How is he related to you? He's my mom's brother. Mum's brother. He's my godi. Um I do have a dental story, but I don't like talking about it because it it becomes that cliche. Because this happened to you, you became a dentist. Like it's nothing like that.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

So just tell us and we'll we'll decide.

SPEAKER_03 17:44

I was I was walking on one of those rolled-up carpets. My aunt just moved into a house, she had a new carpet, and I was just walking onto this rolled up thing, and obviously I wasn't supposed to do that. And what happens? I fell. And I fell and I hit my face on the floor, and my one, one, two, one cracked in half. Wow. And then you sort of went into the carpet industries and like made sure they don't roll it up anymore. Fold it. Here we go. And it wasn't painful. I remember crying after I spat out the those fragments. What age? Probably primary school.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

Uh obviously my uncle wasn't around, he was away that time, so I saw a locum. Uh put a little splint for me, built up those teeth with composite, and that was pretty much the most that I had with dental treatment. And then obviously I replaced those composites with ceramics later on. Um, it was in varsity. I was in third year, I had a fifth-year student do it for me. Yeah. Um yeah, so that's pretty much the earliest recollection that I have of of dentistry. My uncle did premolar extractions for me as a kid, so I've never needed orthodontics. Uh and I think moving along with life, there was nothing, nothing too too cool about it.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

This is um jump back to the DHS story. So did you know Yash or not? No. I didn't know yeah. You were a prefect in school, were you? I don't understand that. How would you not know him? It's a big school. So I was excuse you did know him.

SPEAKER_03 19:06

Know the face, know the name, but you know, in school you largely hang around with the second formers are together, the grade nines are together, the grade tens. Um and I probably just in cross paths. And at that time, you kind of want to keep your head down and hope no one makes eye contact with you. Because if someone makes eye contact with you, it's only bad news.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

Because I mean, Yash is my cousin, right? You know that. Yeah. But it's it's weird. I know most of his friends, and I'm from Peter Merritt's part, but I knew most of his friends, and his friends all know me. Like we still communicate with each other on Instagram, and we're that far apart. That's why I find it strange. Like you're just one grade below unknowing.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

And the funny thing is, I also went to DHS for cricket. Like I Which you were in Clifton, you said yeah. Yeah, I was in Clifton, and then I I wanted to be a cricket cricket player. Like Farnie de Villiers was uh Farny DeVilliers. Yeah. See, you won't remember because Farney de Villiers used to have a very interesting um unique polling action. It was from behind these torso, yeah. And when I used to play uh cricket on the street in the circle. In Tongart, I used to be Farney de Villiers and I play with all the big people.

SPEAKER_03 20:13

So did you travel from Tongart down to DHS?

SPEAKER_01 20:15

No, we ended up moving. Uh but initially it used to be Tongart to Clifton and my dad would take me and drop me off and all that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 20:22

But I think it's a lot for us, eh? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Proper sacrifice. I wanted to be a cricketer. And then I slowly lost interest as I got into DHS. It's like the dream the dream to become a cricketer seems to die for some people at that school. What happened to you? When did you when did you stop? I don't think it died.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

Yeah. Man. You still walk into Sports in the Wayhouse and pick up the bat and think that, you know what, there's still hope. I don't do that. Uh you don't do that anymore. I Do you watch cricket? I don't even watch cricket. I still watch cricket. I still enjoy watching cricket. Um I can't I don't obviously it's no time to watch a test match anymore, but I still enjoy sitting on a Saturday afternoon watching a game of cricket. Uh it's weird. I don't know. It's one of those things that that I still enjoy. Cricket and rugby are the two, but cricket, I still watch a birthday game. I think the the part about I don't think the dream died. I think it's one of those phases of growing up. You start realizing where you are in life, uh whether it's a conscious decision or not. Uh and you realize, you know what, hold on, like this is what it is, and now you've got to start thinking about other things. It's the same thing like, are you ever gonna drive a Ferrari one day? Are you gonna drive a Lamborghini one day? Like, it's attainable, but realistically considering the profession that you are uh in right now with that income, is that possible? No, it's not possible. Then you move along with life and you put that dream to bed and there's no hard feelings around it. It's just the deck of cards that you were dealt and you move along.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Yeah, to me, for me, the dream died when I couldn't I didn't make it into first team. I got into first team squad and I went on tour with them, but then the school um acquired some younger players. Um you know Jonathan Vandia, you must know. Yeah, Jonathan, yeah. Brilliant cricketer. So you can't go. Compete with those guys. Correct. He made first team even though he was like a couple of years younger than me. And I was like, I I won Batsman of the Year and under 15 A, yeah. I was Batsman of the Year. I made the most runs. Congratulations. The next next year I didn't make it to first team, but the newcomers made it. And then I just didn't have that will and drive to practice and put in effort because talent is only like a small percentage of it, right?

SPEAKER_03 22:22

So that's probably also why the why your passion for cricket also fell away, because you had a very high goal for that. For me, like I still play a bit of action cricket. If I could find 11 guys to be committed to play Red Bull cricket on a Sunday, that would be amazing. But it's difficult to find that. And for us, you wouldn't find that in our schedules. But it's funny because yesterday I was I drove past. So we're we're talking about this. I drove past Pine Lands Cricket Club. And there was like a high school having one of their interschool days. And it was so cool. Like I I she pulled up on the side and I sat for about 15 minutes just to watch a bit of schoolboy cricket. It was it was really cool. And I think I was excited for the lighties as well because now they've got commentators, they've got kit colours, numbers, uh all the parents are there, and it was like a real a real vibe. Good point. Have you ever seen yourself play cricket? Uh like on screen. I haven't seen myself play, but I've I've been to the Nets a couple of times and then I pop up the GoPro just for the shits of watching it. Okay, so you still do that.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Because I used to I used to play cricket, Yaknos, every weekend. My parents would be going to Hilton, Maritzburg, everywhere, right? For that bus triple. The whole Saturday. I was proper into cricket. I mean, we went, uh I made Natal under 13, although the the the third team or whatever. But and I was really into it, but I've never seen myself bowl or bat because you you know um these gadgets went around those. We came before the age, so it never happened. It never happened. Yeah. And I'm trying to spark my passion into cricket back again. And what's leading to that is Instagram, because I've just the algorithm put this account on my on my page called Backyard Cricket. Oh yeah. Have you seen it?

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

It's these guys in in India or Pakistan or somewhere in the subcontinent.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

And they like mix real commentary with their backyard cricket. It's amazing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:13

Well, they actually commentating on themselves.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

So they take the commentary from a real, like, international cricket game. Oh, okay. And they're overlaid on the video.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Yeah. So okay.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

I watched the cooking videos. I mean, there.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

We we'll have a game, maybe. We'll have a game.

SPEAKER_03 24:27

There we go. Funny enough, I think when I when we just opened practice just before, just after COVID, it was. Yeah, just after COVID. Uh, I actually got together a group of dentists and specialists in Cape Town, and we played a little game of indoor. Uh, it was amazing. In fact, I think I need to do another one like that again. It was fun. Um, and there was a the the variety and the demographic was so vast. And I my inspiration for that was one, I enjoy cricket. But the other thing is I think as soon as you throw a ball in a guy's hand, he becomes a child again. And the one thing that I felt getting into private practice was immediately there was certain clicks and certain groups and certain sections. And I was like, guys, we only my thoughts, I was thinking, we're just humans. We're here to serve our patients and to be good to our community. And the egos that we have are great because it helps the profession grow. But when we relate to one another, let's relate as humans. And that night was probably one of those memorable evenings for me personally because I'm I I got the guy's kit. I got the names at the back of them, asked them for their nicknames and put the whole thing together. It was lots of fun. Um That's so cool.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Yeah. Bring you back to your childhood. Just put a ball in your hand. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:39

Uh it was amazing to see really intelligent and highly influential guys in our dental community playing cricket.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

Okay, so if you set one up, invite me, please. And then let's let's put it on Instagram. Like let's do one or two things and do it. Seriously, maybe I'll get back into cricket.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

No, I won't.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

My dad, my old man told me at the end of, you know, when I was trying to figure out what I want to study, he said to me, You can go to the UK and try and get into county cricket if I want, but I I lost interest by then. So grade 11 comes for you, and you're not influenced by the the breaking of your teeth, there's a light tea, your uncle has no influence subliminally. You just think I want to do dentistry, I'm gonna apply for dentistry.

SPEAKER_03 26:18

Yeah, I don't know where it came from. It's one of those moments that I just like to put it down that what divine intervention or something. I wouldn't say it's as deep as that, but I guess every thought comes from a source, and if it came from there, then holy law, that's great. Uh but yeah. And then applied for it and I got in at Western Cape. I was on the waiting list up at Wits. And Cape Town happened to be convenient because my dad would come down for business every eight weeks or so. Uh my dad's in the clothing business. And so it also happened to be convenient that at least then I could see my dad every every couple of months.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

So you applied everywhere, all the time. Applied everywhere. That's Pretoria, SMU, Witz, and where else? Uh UWC. UWC. There's only four universities, eh? Four. Yeah. For dentistry, yeah. And you uh okay, so Cape Town comes through.

SPEAKER_03 27:07

Obviously, I did apply KZN for accounting and optom. And you you you gotta apply for everything.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Why do you say obviously? No. Tell us, what what did you apply for?

SPEAKER_03 27:15

Optometry was one. It was in KZN. Um Bcom Accounting. Gotta apply for BCM Bcom Accounting. I didn't.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Sorry? I didn't, yeah. And um No medicine.

SPEAKER_03 27:29

No, never. I was that was never on the cartsmere. I'm not sure why it was also never on the cartsmore. Um But it was it was definitely professions or careers that were that were mainstream. Um and I think looking back now, I can understand the wisdom. Everyone has a little chuckle about if you're an Indian, then you've got to apply for medicine, dentistry, accounting, pharmacy.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Engineering.

SPEAKER_03 27:54

Engineering. Um and I think at that time I used to laugh a little bit about it, or we still make a bit of jokes about it. But I think if you look at our our history, we had to choose careers that gave us an income. Our forefathers came in this country with nothing. Um and if I look at my family, um, a very working-class family, and I think the only thing that actually, other than divine intervention, but the the thing that you can tangibly hold to that helped our family progress was education. And this comes down from my grandfather. Um, my grandfather's family, um, they were in trade, clothing trade as well. And my grandfather looked back and he said, you know what, he can't do this forever, and he can't have this for his children forever, and he needs us to progress. Or he or I was not even a thought at that time. Uh and I think the most difficult conversation that he says that he had with his father was that he needs to go back to school because he had to leave school at grade eight to go and work because he was the eldest or the second eldest of, I think, ten kids. Um, and you the the elder kids have to go and graph. And he went back to school, he finished metric at night schooling, and then he went and did teaching at training college. Um and then from teaching he started working, and then he ended up doing his honors and masters, and he eventually retired as school principal. Uh, and I think for all things said and done equal, education is what is the constant. So I won't I won't say we won't have the privilege of studying airy-fairy stuff, but you're but you are the backup plan.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Yeah. We didn't have the luxury of doing the gap year and let's go and study. 100% ourselves.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

Um and we've got to be proud of it as well, and we can't laugh at things like that because it is part of our legacy. And it's important to acknowledge that we are where we are because of that drive that our parents and grandparents put for us. Um The cool thing for me was that I had my mama's family, there's a family of academics, um, professionals. My dad's family was a family of businessmen. Um, they are academics in my dad's family, uh, but largely business and trade. Uh so you get to see both sides of life and the pros and cons to it all and how that works. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

You know, that's that's so ironic. I mean, uh, let me know if I'm using this uh term correctly. The more academics that I hang around with in a social capacity, I feel like there's a little bit of uh retrograde, but almost parallel to what you think. The academics that are in pro in their own profession, I try to leave that and go and get into business.

SPEAKER_03 30:36

So it's cool, it's great, but it's because of their foundation that they can do it. If I decided to leave Dental Street tomorrow and start a business, let's go and buy trucks. You and I are gonna start buying trucks and we'll drive trucks. Yeah, we've got we've got to drive already. You can live out your dream. No, no, it's too late. AI is gonna take that. AI is gonna take that. But if that falls, it's cool. We go back in full teeth.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

So we able to do that. Correct me if I'm wrong. You you've got your own practice, right? You run your own practice. So you are a businessman. There we go.

SPEAKER_03 31:08

100%. So now that's exactly where the benefit of the two family backgrounds comes and and and does help. Um being in healthcare though, we have to use that term businessman very lightly. Uh why? Because we are a service-based business. We are in the service-based industry, but we're also in healthcare.

SPEAKER_02 31:28

And so what would you call yourself if you're not a businessman, but you own a practice?

SPEAKER_01 31:35

Yeah, but I get what I get what Rudy one's saying is.

SPEAKER_03 31:37

I would call myself a healthcare practitioner first, over businessman. Earning an income is the bottom line. We all have to earn an income. Uh, and we all want to live a certain quality of life and be progressive in our life, et cetera, et cetera. But I think we are accountable to higher power over what we do to our patients because that stays on for eternity. And business would dictate that we find the quickest, cheapest, easiest way of getting it done, regardless of the consequence, so that you can make that extra buck. That's what that's a successful business.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

No, no, no, not a successful, that's a cutthroat. Because you can be successful and and and you you're running a business.

SPEAKER_03 32:14

But then again, where do you define success? Because success is relative. And I think this is where I'm very grateful. I'm I'm referencing my parents a lot, but I didn't even think about this, it's just coming along. Um, where that term that my mum would use very often, Alhamdulillah. Like, just be praised. Praise be to God. Like, you got a glass of water, you got half a loaf of bread, that is success. Your success is someone else's dream. Um, and healthcare puts us in this in-between spot. And look, I'm I'm faced with these challenges daily. Um Timu, for example. Let's let's talk about Timu. We open up this can of worms. I have colleagues, friends, good friends of mine, which I I also struggles in the conflict. And the and the thing is, no man, get off Timu. It's cool. Get off Timu. And then I'm like, it's a problem though. Wait, wait, what do you mean? Just tell me like Timu, the online site.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

Are they buying from there or buying stuff? Okay.

SPEAKER_03 33:12

Buying stuff for their practice. Oh, for their practice. For their practice. So now you're buying whether it's consumables for the practice. And I think at one stage in my career, and this is where learning and and reading become such a big thing, at one stage in my career, I'm thinking, okay, things that don't go in the patient's mouth, buy off Timu. Maybe. You're gonna buy a plastic cup for patients to rinse after their procedure, you're gonna save a couple of bucks. Cool. You're gonna buy gauze and cotton roll? Cool. Composites and materials was a big no-no. Can you buy that from Timu? Brew, these guys are buying everything off Timu. Like you're gonna buy anything online, you can buy it. And But isn't that so pro-regulated, like composites? It's supposed to be. Yeah. But I I don't know how they do it, but they're able to work away through the system, and then you can bring in materials. Or you get, or let's just take Timu away, you got the trader who comes to your practice with whole of the composites in his backpack. And he's selling you composites. Do you buy it or not? That is not called a medical device, that's a pharmaceutical product that has been kept in a non-regulated environment and now we're buying it because it's cheaper. Uh I I have a problem with that. Um and but now you start thinking a little bit more. And recently I saw a post on composite bond brushes. You know, the bill brushes that we use to apply bond. And in my simple mind at one stage, I thought, you know what, if the guy's gonna buy that off Timo, who am I to judge? And then there's even different quality grades of brushes. That when you're buying a brush from, say, Ivor Claw, GC, 3M premium companies, the quality of bristles is superior to getting something that is a copy of that. What happens when you use cheaper stuff? Those bristles fall off the brush and get embedded into your resin.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:55

And now you're restoring it in there. You're restoring it in there. So now you're looking at post-op sensitivity, micro leakage, these restorations that are falling off. Who are we accountable to that? Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Okay, well you can see I don't know in a practice, because I was just under the impression that what you get on Timu is the same thing that you get here from it's just would you get the same Louis Vuitton bag from Timu than you of Sheen that you'd get off Louis Vuitton?

SPEAKER_03 35:18

Well you see, that's I don't know because I And I think when we apply that logic.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

As a lay person, I know you don't buy Louis Vuitton from anywhere else but Louis Vuitton, but so do you buy composite of Timu? Aaron Powell Okay. So it's like that. It's like because I can go and buy detergents. I can go and buy like domestos from clicks or disc the same thing, same product, right? But it's not so you can't equate the two like that. You can't.

SPEAKER_03 35:39

And I think in the same way that you get counterfeit products in every other industry, you're gonna get counterfeit products in our industry as well. What does it take someone to print a little 3M or GC label and stick it onto this glass and say, like, this is a gift from GC? Well done. Okay. Like meanwhile, it came from Max Practice. Trevor Burrus, Jr. I didn't I don't know that guys are buying composites over from like I won't say specific Timu, but I know. But you yeah, yeah. But I'm saying that you're buying it from a non-regulated source. Yeah. Yeah. Um and that's and that's an important ethical conversation to have. And that's that conversation is between you and the dark ceiling at night. Uh because no one's going to come to your practice to ask you, and no one should. Where did you get this from? Is this right? And patients, unfortunately, can't know this.

SPEAKER_02 36:24

It's difficult for us to even know how these products are being imported. But on that note, while we're talking about it, who do you think's responsibility is it to look at the finer details of like quality control within a practice? Aaron Powell I think it's the practitioner, yeah. I think um from an ethical perspective, I'm saying from a regulatory perspective. Is it SAPRA? Is it the government?

SPEAKER_03 36:44

Can we expect them to I think as humans we need to take some accountability for our actions ourselves? And I think we can't expect SAPRA, HP, CSA. There's so many other things we're probably going to chat about where I think they should rather focus their energies on than worrying about whether you and I have bought our composites on the right sources. Um and if I if I take it further, where it becomes more dangerous for patients and and the profession is that it's easy for us to build beautiful practices. And patients buy into the look of a practice, but who knows what's in that draw. Uh and we have to have some sort of accountability to a higher power, higher order, or someone beyond us. I'm not saying has to be to a God, but to something that this is a level of care that we need to give our patients. And take it further. Now I I I got a lot of mates of mine that will work in medical aid practices, and they say whether it's a medical aid practice in the middle of Cape Town, or you got a practice in Amlazi or Kailicha, it doesn't justify it. It doesn't justify some I'll say that again.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Good catch it, good catch out. For the listeners, there was like a little bug which should one just uh eradicate it very well.

SPEAKER_03 37:57

I thought we were gonna cut it out, but okay, now it's part of the all in. This is all in. You can see he's a left-handed bowler. But but I think in all of this, you chose the profession. No one lied to us about the profession. I think a lot of dentists say we were lied to, we were duped. Who lied to you? You consensually applied for a profession, you went into this profession, and then when you realize it wasn't what your expectations were, not what factual reality was, you created an expectation for it, and then you say, you know what, we were duped into this profession. No. And if you really think the profession is bad and not fulfilling what you want out of it, leave. Or go and study something else. And then the argument is, but I've got commitments, then maybe sell the Mercedes-Benz and buy a Teota Corolla for a year, downgrade the 5 million rand house to an apartment, use that extra money to educate yourself and change professions. And I promise you that often the guys that are complaining about a profession will probably complain about the next profession anyhow, because every profession has its challenges. And like I tell my staff this, that the stress that the cashier has in the corner shop is comparable to the stress that the CEO of Alan Gray has. When her till doesn't tally up at 50 bucks and his stocks have dropped 30%, they both have stress. Because the number is different, they both have stress. And we need to appreciate this. And now you you can't say that because I'm working in a medical-aid practice, I have to find, yes, you have to save money. Yes, you have to find ways to be innovative in keeping your costs under control. But at what point are you now heading into that place of being unethical to your patients? And even more, name one dentist. Okay, let's not name. But most dentists out there are living a pretty good quality life. Yes, they may not fly business class, yes, they may not drive Porsches. But if you look at the country we're living in with an unemployment rate of 60%, our families are living comfortable lives. So are we justifying a medical aid reason to cover up costs and use great products, but to give ourselves a higher quality of life? Our business needs to match it. And I think, and I said this to someone else the other day, that your profession is what governs your income. Unless you have family money and a trust fund. But largely for guys like us who are earning our money from our practices, your profession governs your lifestyle. With all things said and done, if you have a certain profession, let's talk about the cashier at that corner shop, he or she can't have aspirations with that job to drive a Porsche. So why do we think that by running a certain practice, we want that life, that model doesn't work then? Or open a practice elsewhere then.

SPEAKER_02 40:53

Yeah. Yeah, I should often ask that question to guests, like why did you get into dentistry or whatever? Was it is it for the money? Did you think that you're gonna be rich because you chose a certain profession? I don't know how we started talking about this, but one of our other guests actually said as a fact that it's it's so easy in dentistry just to hide things. Who was it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:13

And just to like, oh yeah, it was Dr. Kai. He said he said, Oh, yeah, yeah. If you if you're a dishonest person, you can you can you know be very dishonest as a dentist. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:24

100%. And it's it's frightening for us to think about it in that way. Um look, w when it comes to if you're choosing a profession because of of money, the simple thing there is your bread is put out for you. The amount of money that you're gonna earn in a lifetime has already been written before your time. So whether you're a dentist or whether you start up as a dentist or you start up as a physio or a pharmacist, or whatever it may be. Anyone that traded like their services for the time from or whatever profession we may be in, your karma has already dictated that you will earn a certain amount of money in a lifetime. How you how you earn it is up to you to decide, or the profession is largely the means. Um God Almighty is what provides our bread. And he just found a profession that gives it to us, or is the means or the vehicle of that. So don't think that by being a dentist we're gonna earn more money, or I'm gonna leave dentistry and I'm gonna become an architect and I'm gonna earn more money. So you satisfaction may change, your job satisfaction may change, but your income, as long as you present yourself to work honestly and do what you should do, it'll be. Don't sit at home and think I'm gonna earn my money because I'm put out there. No, that's a different thing altogether.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

Aaron Powell So you never you never found yourself in that situation where a lot of dentists do find themselves where once you start working, you think, uh, I've been duped into this profession. Aaron Powell Not a single time.

SPEAKER_03 42:46

Not a single day. I do have the stress. Look, make no mistake, the same stress that everyone has, I have, whether it's the patients, the staff, and maybe I'm a little bit more I personally feel as a prostodontist, I see we see stress differently. Patients already don't trust dentists. Now they're coming to us after they've been duped by multiple dentists, and now they have trust issues and they've got financial issues because they've dropped a bucket load of money. So now they're coming to you broke and with trust issues. Uh so you obviously deal with the the psychology of what those patients come with, but man, like this is what the profession is.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

But maybe it's you didn't feel duped because you didn't have expectations.

SPEAKER_03 43:24

Like what were you what were you doing? Also true. I'm generally a guy that doesn't have expectations.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

I mean, just thinking of I can't I still don't know the reason why you got into dentistry. It wasn't because you went to bed.

SPEAKER_02 43:33

Yeah, I I thought I was lost, but you didn't really uh answer that.

SPEAKER_01 43:36

So maybe that's what makes it easy. You you didn't have any expectations of living an extravagant lifestyle or doing XYZ. Just go with it and make it work.

SPEAKER_03 43:44

Yeah. I think so. In dental school, maybe this will also lend yourself to prostodontics. Went through first year dental school.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Tell us about that. Tell us about leaving Durban and going to Cape Town. Did you have family in Cape Town? Had you been there before and lived there?

SPEAKER_03 43:56

Never. Because it's far. Very far. Uh even though I tell my mom it's It's a two-hour flight. It's a long two-hour flight. We went one to like once as kids, but no real attachment to it.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Who dropped you off at campus? Did you stay at Rez or?

SPEAKER_03 44:11

No. I stayed in a student house with two other guys. So when I finished Matrix and I got my results, my I think this was the second thing that my dad, was the the big thing, came out to me and he told me, got a black book in my hand. If you want the respect of being a man, anything that you spend from today on in, you're accountable for. And you've got you've got one chance at life. If you stuff this up, you come back to Durban and you're gonna work in New Shop. New shop, not specifically New Shop itself, but through high school, I had my first job in grade eight. My first job was for farm it pharmaceuticals. I used to work in the dispatch and receiving, so I used to offload the trucks. Basically, normal manual labor. You go in in the morning, you're with the boys, having a sandwich and your juice, and you're offloading the trucks.

SPEAKER_02 44:59

Tony Ashware made a good team with the trucks.

SPEAKER_03 45:02

He was a driver, I was in the graph. He was sitting there and just smoking a cigarette while I was offloading the truck. And I think I did that through school holidays. Why? Pocket money. Um basically pocket money. Um and you earn your bucks and you learn very quickly how quickly your money goes. You work a whole Saturday and you get paid 30 bucks, and you buy a 29 Rand Vodacom recharge card, and that thing is done after one phone call, and you realize, like, man, this phone call's not worth it. So you learn quickly the businesses of life as well. So these are good lessons that that at that time I didn't realize. And at that time as a kid, you think, man, oh my friends are having holidays, my cousins are having holidays. But we had this culture. And also the way it turned out was you learn to talk to people. I used to use a taxi from Overport to town. Uh, walk to the taxi rank on Randall's Road, hop on a taxi, drops me off in town, and then we move along from there. If you don't have a taxi, no taxi, you find a lift. If it's raining, you put just your watch in your socks so no one steals your watch when you get there because you want to watch it work. Um Yeah, so that was kind of the way through through high school. Uh Saturday work and holiday work. Um and then it evolved. I I worked for at a lawyer's office at one stage. Uh doing what? Dropping off mail, dropping off accounts that they hadn't paid, uh basically being a runner, and then typing out letters for. So she would have letters written up, and then I must be that boy that types out these letters for. And then that evolved into me working in a clothing shop. And the clothing shop job kind of stayed with me for a little bit longer.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

Um did your did your folks encourage this sort sort of independence and like you Yes. Was it cast on you or you decided yourself?

SPEAKER_03 46:46

It was I'd like to s it was cast on me. You have to go work. My parents worked in the holidays, my mom worked through school holidays as well. So it was part of the thing of where this is how you learn the the ropes of life. Whether it's public transport, talking to people, making friends, engaging with society, you also start, I think subconsciously you start realizing that whether you like to admit it or not, there's different classes of people around. And when you start engaging with different people, the people that come to buy from your shop versus the people that work in the shop. The people that I worked in the dispatcher Farmed. I'm with the boys, emptying a truck, it's Durban summer, that perspiration is dropping. You're wearing two t-shirts in that day because you've sweated through the first one by 10 o'clock. And then you look at, as they would call it, Delani. He comes in his Mercedes and he parks off in that office upstairs with an air conditioning. That seems cool.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

And then you start-Telani's the boss for those that don't know him.

SPEAKER_03 47:39

Yeah, there we go. And then you start realizing there's different areas. And then the in-between, then there's admin staff in different businesses. Okay, so they're not working as hard as what I'm working. They're still using, they're not using public transport. They come with lift clubs, but they work in the offices. They still got an air con, but they got an open plan office. And you start as a kid, start learning these little elements of life.

SPEAKER_01 48:01

And did you used to take a taxi to work?

SPEAKER_03 48:03

You said, but for to school or to school, my parents dropped us off, uh, which was very nice. I think uh we used to use like a lift club coming home, but in the morning my dad would take us to school.

SPEAKER_01 48:13

I'd never used it. I've never been in it. I always used a lift club in chick. You didn't let me finish this like public transport. Oh, okay. Really? In high school, no. I was private transport.

SPEAKER_03 48:24

You were private transport.

SPEAKER_01 48:25

Literally private transport.

SPEAKER_03 48:26

You were Uber black before Uber became a thing.

SPEAKER_02 48:28

Yeah, Uber Yak. Yeah. Uh but I used to enjoy it because I never used to go to college or like university. So I was to go pick him up.

SPEAKER_01 48:35

So who so who dropped you off in Cape Town the first? Do you remember that?

SPEAKER_03 48:39

So leaving home was a big thing. Obviously, I'm the eldest of obvious, but I'm the eldest of three. So my mom had never left, um never let us leave like this. Uh in my family, though, my mom's brother, my mom asked, he did dentistry in Manipal in India. So my grand had already gone through the thing of letting a son go, and that was a very different world because we still had cell phones. Where my uncle would land, the telegram comes back three months later.

SPEAKER_00 49:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:03

Uh this was in the 1980s. So I remember like my mom going to my gran and feeling my grand's late now. Uh but my mom going to my grand and feeling sad. My grand's like, you got it easy. Like the letter came three months later to say he landed. Or if he did call, then he the call, I think they said the call first went to London, and then the guy would pull out one cable and drop in the next cable to connect it to SA. And uh it's a different life.

SPEAKER_02 49:28

Something just hit me. What is your uncle's name? Uh Mohammed Viad. I met your uncle. Really? About six months ago. He studied with one of my mentors, dental mentors, Dr. Reddy, in Manipal. And Dr. Reddy introduced me at one of these functions.

SPEAKER_03 49:43

Okay, because they still have their reunions. The most humble, soft-spoken guy you're gonna find, yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 49:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 49:50

And I think also with him, like spending time with him, also put a very measured perspective into the profession. My uncle will always tell me, Yeah, Redwan, I go to these CPD events, that guy got a Porsche and he got a Mercedes, I go with my old jetta. And make no mistakes, uncle is comfortable, alhamdulillah, and but that perspective of don't live on debt. The banks will throw money at you and so your lifestyle. Yeah. The banks will throw money at you, but you're basically going to work to pay that back. It's it's not not for free. Um I think that also added a b an element of culture to it. And when things started changing a little bit more through high school and especially through varsity, when I used to work in the holidays, my uncle's practice was in town and the clothing shop that I used to work at called Top Buy Factory Shop. Uh, it was like one street away from my uncle's practice. So either I would take a taxi to work in the morning or a bus and then go to my uncle's practice and then get a lift with him home afterwards. So you he may not have specifically spoken about dentistry, but just spoken about these as an uncle would, the philosophies of life, like while you're this little kid listening to him and you move along. I think maybe a lot of the younger guys don't understand or appreciate the value of just listening sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 51:02

Do you think that's subliminally influenced? 100%.

SPEAKER_03 51:04

100%. I think my uncles and my family, creative family, my mom's siblings, my dad's siblings, did play a role in my upbringing. Uh so you you get this. We grew up as a very close-knit family, so it played a fairly decent role in all of that. So I know he's still asking that question about Kiddon.

SPEAKER_01 51:20

And you had early exposure to like the real world. Correct. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:23

The working work. Yeah. Man, I still I still told my mom, this is like child labor. You can't make me work, like I'm under 16, blah, blah, blah. The whole stuff heard nothing of it. Go to graph and you do your thing. Um I also had my first incident of theft in primary school. I had a little money box that I wasn't supposed to take to school, and obviously I took it to school and someone stole it. And in those moments, eventually it was recovered. But in those moments when that money was stolen, you also realize that if you don't hold my granny always said, don't throw money by not holding on to your money and protecting what you've actually earned in the moment someone takes it away and it's gone. And that's not just gone by theft, whether it's by interest. Um, interest is the biggest thing uh and that's why we need to stay, try and stay as far as possible away from it, because it is an oppressive financial system, and we need to be aware of these things and before you sign anything. Um Yeah, so anyway, it's got into dentistry. My parents came down with me for a week. Uh my dad at this time is now trying to like make friends, make friends. He looks like he could be in your class, go make friends with you. Like, you need a lift club because we had no car. I had no car. And anyway, I got This is a Tiger Bird campus, right? Tiger Tiger Burk campus. I got the phone number of two of my friends. Uh I became friends. One was Sejil Hari Pasad and the other was Nadia Skunrad. Um Sejil, because sh sh she and her name and my name were uh our surnames on on the roster were just on the same one after the other. This is 2007, right? 2007. And then because I they were all staying on Res, and I had no idea what was going to happen on the first day and how it works. I needed a contact of someone. And then um came back to Durban, settled in, and then the house that my parents chose me to stay in was his name's Uncle Mohammed, ex-school teacher from Durban, who moved to Cape Town, and he had a little it's a very simple three-bedroom house. Uh and myself, Nather Idwan, and Yusuf, they were in you know Yusuf, Mohammed.

SPEAKER_01 53:27

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Joseph, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:28

Yeah. He was in your year then. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 53:30

We were in high school together.

SPEAKER_03 53:31

Yeah. So myself and Yusuf were actually in Buria West together and DHS together, and we shared the same student house together.

SPEAKER_00 53:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 53:37

And so they were a year above me in dentistry, which was a huge help because now I'm living with two guys who were year above. Like you kind of learn the ropes, get their notes from them. And my parents did the right thing as well. They it was embarrassing at that time, but they did the right thing. They went to visit Yusuf's parents, they got to know Redwan's parents. Like, who are these boys? Who's their families that you're living with? Uh, and they're both stand-up guys. Like I'm I'm really grateful that I got to live with the two of them. Uh, because also your company that you keep through varsity years does shape not just your varsity years, but your your professional years of. His wife. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:11

Can make or break things, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:12

100%. And then the first day of varsity, I was supposed to get picked up by this guy. I don't know who this guy was, some family friend of mine. When I landed in Cape Town, a different family friend person came to fetch me at the airport and dropped me off at home. It was the first and last time I ever saw this guy. Right? There was no WhatsApp at that time. It was mix it, man. The Bali's didn't have mixed it either. So anyway, but very nice, he invited me home for supper. I was like, no, it's okay, Uncle, I want to go home. And after that, I never saw him. Then the next morning, first day of school, varsity, I had to get fetched by another bloke. This guy came to me the day before varsity started just to see where I live and meet me and whatever. And he looked a bit of a shady character. But anyway, he's gonna take me to first day varsity and from there I must find my way. Um, he didn't rock up the next morning. There's me, like hair combed, side part there, shirt iron, socks matching my shoes. Now, where's this bra? Like it's first, it's first assembly and the whole thing, and now you gotta go. He doesn't rock up. Fortunately, Uncle Mohammed hopped in his car, um, took me to varsity, and there you start networking the same way that you networked back on the bus or the taxi or at work. Who's coming from Rylands? I need a lift club. And you realize that there's a lot more people hustling.

SPEAKER_02 55:34

Everyone's yes, and that's all being done instantaneously. Instantaneously. You didn't know where that your next lift was gonna come. 100% I got to varsity.

SPEAKER_03 55:40

But look, also the other thing is what my parents did, right, which also it worked was that we knew from Tigerberg and UWC how the bus and the taxi system worked back to Rylands. So I knew that from Tigerburg I could get a taxi to town. Oh, so you're staying in Rylands? Yeah, staying in Rylands. So I knew that I could get if I if I had no lift back, I could get a taxi or a bus back. And from the bus stop to where I lived was about a two-kilometer walk. My uncle's a runner. If he can do 80 kilometers, a two-kilometer walk is not far. Um and that's what happened. I got to varsity and I met Darshan. He's now a practic he's a dentist here in Johannesburg. Uh he's Panoni. Yeah. Darshan left after the first year. Oh, the first year? Yeah. Yeah. He left after the first year and he came up to Tux, I think it was.

SPEAKER_01 56:29

Yeah, I know him well.

unknown 56:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:30

Went to his wedding. Is it? Yeah, last year. Yeah, he's a nice guy. Proper gentleman. Yeah. Uh Darshan and Suvir, and then they introduced me to Savir's thing.

SPEAKER_02 56:41

Oh yeah, Sachdeva.

SPEAKER_03 56:42

Uh from Nairobi, yeah. Yes, yeah. So myself, Suvir and Darshan all lived in Rylands. And we got introduced to a guy named Anil. Anil was a finally a pharmacy student. And he was at main campus, but Anil, still a friend of mine till this day, proper oak, and he would take us back and forth. He'd fetch us in the morning and he became our lift club because our our lectures in first year were at main campus. So again, like it wasn't ideal, but the the discomfort of the situation that the three of us found ourselves in allowed us to network and become friends and make friends. And you start talking. Now you rock up with your own car to varsity and or an Uber, you have no need to talk to anyone. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:27

Yeah, there's no link and no community. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:29

Yeah. So and then that became varsity.

SPEAKER_01 57:33

UWC, did you do you guys also do the thing where you with the med students? No, you wouldn't be, yeah. You wouldn't be with med students. It's just dentistry from like a small class from year one. We so we had a big class because we When I say small, I mean less than a hundred.

SPEAKER_03 57:47

We were about a hundred.

SPEAKER_01 57:49

Yeah. And you all dentists, dental students. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:51

So UWC is a product of the amalgamation of the original UWC and Stellenbosch faculties.

SPEAKER_01 57:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 57:57

And since then it's always just been a very large class. On average, it's between 80 to 110. That's huge. So it's a massive. It's almost unfathomable for us to think that you're in a class up here with 30 odd students. Yeah. We didn't engage with the with the medical students, but in our first two years, we did hub human biology with the Stellenbosch Medicals. So we did our cadaver work and the dissection stuff all on that side there. But you guys traveled to Stellies. No, no. The medical campus and dental campus is on Tiger Book facility itself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:32

But you guys are together from year one. I mean you know, at at Pretoria, I could have gone through the first two years and not even known a single dental student. Oh, really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:40

Is it still like that?

SPEAKER_01 58:41

Could I dunno now, but it could be like that. If I just didn't interact with a dental student for the first two years, I might not have known. I might be wrong. But yeah. So but you guys uh form like this tight.

SPEAKER_03 58:51

Yeah, so you grouped. You you are grouped together. And then even within your group of a hundred, your group, I was group two. Group two becomes even closer because you do all your rotations together. Um I think for me the big kicker came in second year. Uh it was the one time that I pulled a favor with my uncle. And second year dentistry, you start doing removal pros. Uh you do the lab work, special trades, the bite blocks, the pouring models, trimming models. And my uncle got me in contact with This is for dentures, for the non-dentroller. For dentures, yes. And he got me in contact with Durban Dental Lab. Uh he was in Kenilworth Road in Overport. And I spent my Easter holiday or my June, July holiday, Easter holidays at the lab. Just sitting at the lab, watching how the guys do wax ups. So I in essence went through the denture process before I started university. So it sounds like you had directive with your specialization way early. At that time I didn't realize it, but at that time it was more look, I was you was the same. Consistency beats talent always. And I knew that I'm not the most intelligent guy in a group of 100, but if I work hard enough, I can definitely compete with the big guys. And if I'm gonna be doing removal process in second term, and my roommates are telling me it's a very different thing, you've got to work with your hands. I'm like, I'm good with that. And you're gonna be doing these things. Let's go and learn a little bit about it beforehand. But you took the initiative to do that. 100%. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:23

And I just have to point out, like, this guy's a real dentist. Because you know, the only other time a student will meet a lab guy when they're not qualified is to get their quota done.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:33

Yeah. You did it voluntarily, right? But it might have been going that way when you said your uncle uncle hooked you up, but then. Oh, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:39

So pretty much I spent the holiday there. So by the time I came back in second term, I had already done my first denture. Packed, flasked, polished, trimmed, the whole story. You enjoyed it. I enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:49

Okay, so you must have been one of these guys that were top of the class all the time.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:52

No, I wasn't. Really? Uh top of my class was Riyaz Jainerdine, Jonathan DuToy, Fadiah Tintinchi. Jonathan Dutoy, the R. The periodis. Okay. You were in your class. In the same year. Our class was actually a very nice, good class. Um Fadiah Tintinchi is a maxillofacial surgeon now. He just moved to UAE. Extremely intelligent guy, uh, but humble oak as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:14

Can I just ask Savir? Did he finish in your year? He finished a year after me. A year after me. Because I technically finished with him because I'm a foreign graduate when I came in 92. You wrote that exam with him. Yeah. Okay. Yes. So that's how I know Severe.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:26

Okay, but you were mingling with the top guy. You were one of the tops.

unknown 1:01:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:29

Couldn't have been one of those people that proactively went and did lab work and then you weren't. Come on.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:34

Yeah, that would be a problem, mate. That would be a problem. That would be a problem. And then uh but I think I always just enjoyed it. I think even when it came to anything technical that to do with my hands, the studying we all hate. But the studying I knew, again, staying with Joseph and Ridwan, they had a set routine. Those guys were like military academics. Saturday and Sunday, the house is quiet. Those guys will study the whole day. At night, they'll go out. Friday night was the rule, we don't do any work at all, regardless whether it's test week or exam week. Friday night we never work as a rule. Saturday, Sunday nights, we won't work either. But during the day, I'd still go to the gym in the morning, but those guys would study the whole day. So when you're the culture at home was to work and there's a consistency of working or even just reading. And then you realize when the boy is older than you are there, and now their friends become your friends, they are what do dentists do when they meet other dentists? They talk dentistry. And then now suddenly the conversations are happening about pros and autal path. Then I'm still learning about like tooth morphology. So it did help significantly. You've got a very conducive environment to 100%, yeah. So I think my parents did a very, very good choice in how that's set up there. And then third and fourth year, obviously it was tough. Uh everyone knows third and fourth year is difficult academic years because now your clinical load is increasing and your academic detail is also increasing because now that foundation of what you form as a dentist is happening now. What I did realize though from the older guys was you could spot, you could go through past papers, and you could do very well. Um I think I took the scenic route. I remember going through the module outcomes for auto path. And I knew it was the long way. I knew I wasn't going to get an A because of that, but I just felt it was going to give me a better reading of the subject matter. And as it happened, I didn't get a COM because I studied more than what I should have and I didn't spot. Um but it did make me feel more comfortable in having a conversation with colleagues and peers afterwards. Uh fourth year was uh more enjoyable because the clinical work, meeting patients, engaging with patients, uh, but the work the the workload does increase tremendously. And then fifth year was an absolute joel. I loved it. Why? It was clinics. Like, yes, you've got your OSCIS and things like that, but it was probably one of the best years because it was doing everything that I enjoyed doing. I loved it. It was so much of fun. And again, planning. I knew that in fifth year you need to do um 12 units of Crown and Bridge. I met my Crown and Bridge patient, and he's still a patient or patient, he's still a contact of mine. I met him at the end of third year. Met him in third year, and I followed him through. He had period, managed his period, did the whole story with him, and I told him, Bro, when I mean final yeah, we're doing all your crowns.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:28

Remember what I said at the beginning? What is why does prostodontics exist when the entity fails?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:34

Yeah. That's basically it. And he he had his old crowns done in the military. So he was one of those guys that we're gonna do. Oh, you didn't do it. No, I didn't do it. No, no. So he had a whole token. Yeah, sorry. So he had a mouthful of crowns done called full maxilla of crowns done in the military, and those had now started failing, but he had other issues that we had to work through. And my crown and bridge supervisor in final year was Ashin Singh. He was a prostregistrar. And I think he was the one that really tickled that inspiration of prostodontics, because he held my hand through that case, explained things to me about crown lengthening and recontouring, post-en cores, intrusion, extrusions, and he linked me up with another guy, Ashraf Ali. He was a peer-registrar, and instantaneously that knowledge increased like that. And it was it was crazy. And I'm still very grateful for for the role that Ashen played in those years. I still call him, I still need help from him.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:34

Um, right. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:36

Yes, yeah. Um, and that was really massive. And I think as as a finally a student to have a cross registrar take an interest into your teaching and learning and your growth and development and to spend time talking to you. And I remember going, look, a regime is grueling, and this guy had time for me to go pop by his clinic to ask him questions. Um Dude, you're making me want to study dentistry. You you I like it sounded like you had a really good time. I loved it. It wasn't easy. We I had my challenges. Look, uh again, challenges, hustling for a lift, trying to make a plan, getting someone to pick and drop you off, take to take your laundry. You got no one to take you for groceries, and you gotta make a friend and you feel bad. Are you are you making this friend because you need a favor from him, because he's got a car? It was never that. But you're also living a very different lifestyle. Um food was another story.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:27

Could you cook? No. But my mom would pack food for us like every good mom would do, would pack food little containers and have it labeled. And then you would defrosted. There we go. Yeah, there we go. She still does that. Uh but maybe feeding is a love language.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:45

We didn't have Uber Eats and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:47

At that time, Wacky Wednesdays was a thing. Steers.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:50

But again, box was a problem. I couldn't afford to eat out all the time. I had a certain had a certain budget to work to. Uh, and that's why I had to work in the holidays because that box keeps me going through in the years. So my father was obviously instrumental in keeping me through varsity, but if you want to go for a movie, I could calculate to the last to go play action cricket. Yeah. I could count to the last power raid how much that evening would for action cricket would cost me. It's going to cost me a 15 Rand ride, because I'm not going to take a lift from someone for free. Gonna pay him 15 or 20 bucks for petrol, then the game fees, then if you want to power raid afterwards. So what do you do? You start buying your power raids in bulk at macro over the weekend. So if you're playing cricket in the week, you've got that sorted out. So you start all those lessons start coming through now in student years. Um and then Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:38

So you don't have any of these horror stories from dental school like me. I mean, I used to run away from Dr. Lowe, who was looking for me for my one partial denture that I didn't do for quota and the doctor that made me go and check it out. To be fair. I hated it.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:51

To be fair. Yeah. Like let's take it. Our last guest hated it also. We in a country where identifism is a problem. How can you not have quotas for partial dentures?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:01

I think it's more important than you know any math sex work.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:04

To be honest. So what did I do? I went into and look, it's it's not even crooking the system, it's just taking time. I would go to the prostlinic and Moira was a lady there. She's still working there. Moira was there, and I asked her for the screening file. And I would go through that file myself and I'll phone those patients. Hello, Mrs. Naidu. I see you on the list for partial denture. The one option is what all students do is you write their new patient and they book your new patient. And luck of the draw, you get what you get if the patient comes. So I was physically calling those patients myself based on the screening form. So I knew that I was getting my patients to come in. And then you've got your patients, you book them in. So in essence, you're running your own little, I didn't realize this, but I was running my own little practice. Calling patients, booking them in based on what I needed, screening for. And you're taking the initiative. Also the other thing is sorry, I know you're going to jump in, jump in there. When you at the faculty, you got patients on different classes. They classed as H0 to H3 based on their financial status. And they obviously pay a nominal fee, but according to what their ranking is. So I would call all the H1 and H0 patients because I knew then get those patients in, there's no cost involved with them. Our good government is paying for it. And you just keep churning through the numbers. Do you have any horror stories can can be averted if you just plan around properly.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:30

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:30

And you gotta pray, man. I think I think my mom and my grandpa in that time. So I guess I'm also grateful for that. But uh I think it's just taking initiative and just just being consistent. And and again, Ridwan had this thing in in his bedroom. Ridwan, we call him Fox. He had this thing in his bedroom of all of his quotas. And he told me every day that you get a quota, whether it's a one-surface amalgam or a tissue conditioner, it's on that thing and you put a little line through it. And he says, in final year, you make sure that every day you come home, you've got at least one quota done. Don't go to campus and leave anything behind. So again, at the beginning of final year, I already had my quotas that I knew that I needed for the year. I had my patients that I knew that I had been starting to build up from fourth year. And I had the same number of days as every other dental student. It's just about using those hours wisely. Um and yeah, look, I had the supervisor that I tried to dodge. If I had a certain supervisor who I didn't like the way she spoke to me, then I knew that day I'm only going to be booking my recalls and my adjustments. And I know that that guy who had Dr. Kathy, I learned so much from Bashir Kathy. Um all these weird altered cast techniques for partial dentures. He sat there, showed me how you put the beeswax on and all of that stuff. Yeah, it's interesting stuff. Interesting stuff can learn. And I booked my patients according to the supervisors that I would have. Uh yes, Prof. Wilson didn't like that. But I knew that I'm gonna have a hard time. So let's just be efficient about this.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:01

I just want to go back quickly before we we uh before I forget that what you just mentioned there that I think that is, you know, of utmost importance. Our country is a massive country of edenturalism. There's so many for the guests and listeners, that means a lot of people don't have teeth. Yeah. Majority, I would think, of um our working class actually don't actually have teeth. And I came to a realization, um, not when I lost the two that I have all my teeth, but when I lost some fingers, actually. I don't know if you know this, I'm I'm missing partially four fingers. And when it comes to quality of life and functionality, something as small as not having a little bit of your finger makes such a big difference. And it's something that I had to adjust to very, very early. And that cost-benefit ratio, because at the beginning, when before I started, you know, getting more involved in the rehabilitation of my hand, I could see how something as small as a prosthetic, a hand prosthetic, would make such a big difference. Me holding this cup, for example. And I said this before in a previous episode. But it costs almost nothing to make a hand prosthetic. And it's the same thing with dentures. But no one seems to place emphasis on it. In order to improve quality of life in the public sector, just by giving someone a little partial denture to improve their smile or their chewing capacity or whatever it is, even their persona and their their confidence, it's not being done. And I think that's a good idea.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:41

I think to be fair, most dentists don't enjoy prosthetics because they didn't have very good experience working as students in those years. So your formative years where these skills are are learned and almost refined, you've had bad experiences. Uh look, you're also dealing maybe I got lucky with the supervisors that I had. Um look, and I but again. What did I get lucky?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:07

But I I mean you could have also just hated the industry. I could have also got it. You could have gotten there and realized, damn, I made the wrong decision here. Look and then you won't put in the effort.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:16

Let's also not bugger around about another part of this. Supervisors play a very big role in your perception of the pro of the profession. And this is something I wasn't planning on this coming up, but if you feel like cutting something out, you by all means you can cut it out. So I'm just gonna let this go. By virtue of being a dentist, it doesn't qualify you to be a teacher. And I think the problem with with our system is that we have many educate or dentists in positions of being educators, and they are not educators. And now they've also become dentists who are non-practicing or non-clinical dentists. So what happens? We all have egos, we all have projection of insecurities. So now you yourself haven't done a denture in 20 years, 10 years. You're supervising the student who's coming and telling you this impression keeps getting an air bubble on it. How do I fix this? And you're thinking, man, I haven't taken impression in 10 years with SSY. What do I do? You start projecting your insecurity onto a student, an innocent student, in a way that makes a student feel scared, intimidated, and repulsed to attending the clinic, purely because from our side as educators, we haven't looked at it. And I say this because I come from a family of teachers. My grandfather's teacher, I've got two aunts that are teachers, and the amount of psychosocial awareness that needs to come from an educator is sometimes greater than the skill set that you that you're imparting. You're nurturing an adult who's going to become a professional. Your knowledge is something that they can keep learning and they can keep developing, but nurturing their student. I've been in clinics where I've heard in the next cubicle, I should have failed you in third year when I could have. You don't tell a student that. It's almost emotional abuse. And that degrades that persona. And that girl left dentistry and went and did medicine. Um and I was with her through five years of dentistry, and she left all together. And she's a pretty intelligent girl, but she just struggled with the skill set because dentistry is a very demanding dexterity type of profession. Um and I think the other part of it comes to, and I think this is the part that I learned very quickly in dental school. I'm very grateful that even though my parents grew up in apartheid and lived in all that, and we I don't like getting into it, but my parents never brought their experiences to us. I honestly can't remember having conversations where there was hate and malice towards an apartheid regime. They and I think if I look at my granddad, remember he working class, worked as selling clothes in Grey Street and Lawn Street and Victoria Street in Durban, and he went and got an education, became a teacher and a principal under the apartheid system. And I think that ideology of the system we don't agree with doesn't work for us, but we need to get on with our business. Adapt. Adapt. Adapt or you're going to crash.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:19

And what happened now is in dental school I realized that firstly UWC came from that phase of amalgamation, which whether it's like to be said or not, at that stage, it was still fresh. The amalgamation happened in 2002. So you had a Stellenbosch and UWC at that dynamic which came together. And whether I think they did a pretty good job at doing it, but you can't hide human emotions. It's there. Those comments are passed, and as students, they hear it. And I normally tell friends of mine, you know, uh man, apartheid's over, forget about it. Like, let's let's move along. And that's extremely insensitive of me to have even been thinking that way. Because I realized one of my good friends, who's about in his 40s, his mom had to leave school and she couldn't study because of group areas, she had to move out the area. Because they had to move out the area, they were relocated, the whole story. And his mom has this thing that I never got an education because of group areas. His mum's lived experience obviously resonates strongly with him. It's impossible for us to tell him, don't we need to adapt what we have now. And that's a sense of his truth. It's his truth, and we need to accept it, and that's why we have to be very sensitive about these topics. But the great thing is that he doesn't pass it on to his kids, which I'm very grateful for, and it's amazing to see him do it. But in the university setting, and I'm sure this is not just dental universities, every faculty, it's every every industry where there's teaching and learning happening. But certain comments that are passed should not be passed even in moments of jest. And the thing which dental students are, which why they have bad experiences, because now they're impressionable, they're scared. And now, if I'm gonna report my supervisor for saying this, the supervisor is gonna victimize me. And if the supervisor is told that you can't supervise the student, what happens? All of the supervisor's friends are then gonna victimize me. And then I become that problem child. So you know what? I'm not gonna complain about it, I'm gonna move along with life. And it's such a sad thing for a student to go through because I fortunately either was oblivious to it or I didn't give a shit about it, but or I didn't face it, I don't know. But for someone to not have the dental experience that I had is sad because I love UWC, I love the institution, I love the process of going through the type situation. And I think those experiences that they have are not representative of the university. But you can't yeah, that that social dynamic is challenging.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:57

Um, yeah, look, I don't think we need to cut anything because there's nothing too controversial that you said there.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:02

It's the reality. Like I'm understanding like you started off saying that like it could be something controversial, but I think it's from a moral perspective, this is something that's all-encompassing, not just with dentistry, but you shouldn't be belittling anyone, especially if your job and your I mean your purpose is there to teach.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:21

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: I think the faculty is perhaps should look at having, even though there's they're they have become really progressive about the rights and voices, they should have a separate point of contact, not corporate as HR officers, but a point where students can go and talk. But how do you manage that? Because in essence, now we always talk about it's a big thing on gender-based violence, and we talk about sexual harassments and you must talk and you must but the students now in their 20s are learning about they're gonna take insults, which is racially biased or racially has racial prejudice to it, and they're not saying anything about it. It's also bad habits for them to take through their profession as well. And then a lot of them just have negative perception of the profession.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:05

Aaron Powell But it's also about training your your trainers. You know, we spoke about this with Ibn Patel. And I asked him the question, like when they recruit you as a lecturer or whatever at a university, do they go through your teaching credentials? And the answer is no, because you need to be qualified as a dentist or whatever, that specific And that's a problem. You know, but teaching is so important. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:25

Exactly, but that's what you were saying. Yeah. Like you you gotta be able to be a good idea. Teacher teacher, an educator, yeah. Trevor Burrus, Jr. You can't just be good at your profession and expect that to be an inference. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:35

And then yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:36

No, no, go on. Yeah. Yeah. So that's kind of where dentistry led to. And then honestly, qualifying as a dentist, I don't want to sound ungrateful, but it was it wasn't the excited moment that people would think it is. Because I already knew in the What did you comserve? Matuba tuba at the military base, they're just outside St. Lucia. But you already knew that KZN. Yes. But I already knew in fifth year I was gonna do prostodontics.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:59

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:00

And I was gonna get in at some point, but my career from fifth year was going to be directed towards becoming a prostodontist. I already knew that. Um again, ComSurf applying for it. I was male, unmarried, no kids, no property. I'm gonna get shafted. So I went onto that list to look at which are the posts that I want to get shafted at.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:25

And then I apply there. Like, what's the point of saying I want to apply for King Edward Hospital in Durban and then cry that I didn't get it afterwards? Like, get on with life. You're gonna go in the bush, find a bush that you're gonna enjoy being in.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:36

I mean, you're telling, you're doing you've done all the things that you've avoided all the things that I did as a student, honestly. Because I even did that. I applied for all the nice places knowing and I should have known better.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:45

And then we cry victim later. But this is not ComServe's first rodeo. Talk to the guys before, and then they're gonna tell you, dude, you're not gonna get it.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:53

And then my priority was passing, right? So we had different priorities. Exactly. Yeah, and then ComSurv had to get back in the industry.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:01

ComServe happened, enjoyed ComSurv. And again, I chose the military because I wanted to prostodontics. I knew that I wanted to continue partial dentures, crowns, fillings. I I don't want to do extractions. I have no desire for extractions. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:15

Do you think it's still that same way with military? There's more opportunity. There's definitely more opportunity.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:21

I mean, any uh final year students that are watching, they can Yeah. The application process has changed a little bit though. Uh I think now they've got to apply in different regions or different sectors. And previously we just knew apply everything military, and your form goes to military, and then I know the systems change. But for the final years that are watching, military is what will give you a slightly better edge. Um and then after comserve, you need to find graph.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:48

Uh she would have thought about this probably two months into comserv.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:52

But this is a variable you can't control. Right. Because where do you work? Either you go into private practice, which was not an option for me. Uh stay on. I tried to stay on, but the wheels move very slowly in the military. My Colonel Barry Pfeiffer, he was my SO1. And he asked me if I want to stay on. I said I'd love to. I applied, I interviewed, but because things move so slowly, by end of ComSub, I still needed to work. I still had student loans to pay, so I went tharsity, it was bursaries and loans. Remember the black book that the Bali had after Metric? The black book comes out now. Fortunately, he gave me a good discount. Uh he gave me a very good discount. Uh, but there were a few things that he couldn't write off the invoice. So hectic uncle is. It's a good bali. It's a good bali. But he's hectic. Yeah, I changed you. But for good reason. And then so now I it's again, save up money and comserve knowing that I may I might be I might be unemployed for the first three months. And that's when this is where the fun started, actually. Like the fun is in the life lessons. All of that that happened before this was kind of preparing me for these years here. Because I applied different practices, but you can't find work. And then someone told me of a practice in Cape Town, CBD, that needed a dentist. And I wanted to come back to Cape Town because I wanted to specialize. I knew being in Cape Town or Johannesburg would be advantageous. Closer to the university, I can be present uh in whatever form it may be. I didn't want to be in Durban and just work and say, I want to specialize at some point. That's another thing. A lot of guys say I want to specialize, but they haven't been intentional on that journey. So don't again play a victim that the race card, like what have you done? Um and then moved to Cape Town. I took this job, and then when I got to this practice, I realized I'm working as a locum, and that's where I met Nazir Natha. Um decent guy, uh, became one of my first friends in dentistry, uh, and he really helped me a lot in managing my emotions as a young dentist. Nazir's a good couple of years older than I am, but he's very much young at heart. Are you saying applicable to private practice? To private practice, yeah. And I realized that working at this practice, Nazir was also a locum at the practice. And I think I think the boss at that time, I can't mention his name, was looking at getting rid of Nazir. And the first month, I earned pretty decent bucks. I paid with bills. The oh, I I had to I bought my first car then, because the car that my father gave me in Facity, which is a course I liked, had to be sold. It wasn't a car that I could use beyond it was over 10, 15 years old, it was done. So again, I needed to buy a car, so got a loan from my mom, and I signed my first vehicle finance agreement with a TH Corolla. Um not the car that I would have wanted as a first car, but it was the thing I could afford. And that's when I realized the banks are dangerous. I'm signing a finance agreement with a ComServe contract. Like, come on, but I I had to at that time. Anyway, I had expenses, student loans, the car, I had to pay rent, I'm living alone, the whole story. And the first month's salary was okay. The second month took a drop. By March, my salary was 13,000 Rand?

unknown 1:26:07

Five.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:08

What were you earning at the at in uh military?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:11

Come set up at that time, about 35, 40, somewhere they're about.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:14

So from 35 grand going down to like 13.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:17

13. And now rent in Cape Town, you're looking at about 8,000 Rand, repayments in a car, about 4,000 Rand, your student loan repayments, you're well into your savings now, my man. Like debit orders are like about to start bouncing. And then this guy would also now, and I'm saying this not because I'm complaining, no, but because I want younger dentists to realize that the battles they're fighting is not unique to them. Like as a young dentist, you're not special. Your problems are with everyone. And I had because guys complain, yeah, this and whatever, but it is what it is, you're a locum. And I'm looking at this thing and I'm not earning much because this practice was not in a bad light, and I gotta make some bucks. So I had the first hard conversation with the boss. I was like, look, but I like it took me a week to pluck up the courage. Um, I can't be a full day. There's no patience to see for me to see the full day. I'm like the third dentist, I'm seeing overflows. It's not what I thought it was gonna be. Um, I need to find another locum. So then I found another two locums. So then I would work in the afternoon and the evening to supplement the income for the day. And before this happened, I'd I'll clearly remember this day. I went to work in the morning, I ironed my scrubs, packed my little camp master cooler bag, put my little juice and my fruit, and I felt all accomplished, and I went to work. Set the whole day at work, and I saw not a single patient. I came home from work and I put my little cooler bag on my little countertop, and I switched on the lights, the lights were off. I was like, yo, like if there's one day that you're gonna feel this small, it was that day. And then that's when the next day I told like the guy, like, look, this I know you can't pay me if there's no patients, but if there's no You shouldn't have got a third locum. But I'm not going to just drop you. And then I found a second locum where I was doing afternoon work for this lady. And then I found that a third locum where I was going to go in the evening, it was in Balha, lowest socioeconomic area. Like in that area, they they chained the computer screens to the table and to the floor because the patients will physically take a computer out and walk out. And I used to do extractions in that clinic in the evening. So I don't like extractions, but still private though. Still private. All private. I didn't want to go back into state because I wanted to specialize. This dentist used to place implants. And he wasn't using a CBCT. There were CBCTs available at that time in 2013. And he told me, Ridwan, I've been doing this for all the years. Take a pan, I do a little measurement, I got the ruler that calibrates some nonsense. And he places implants, and he's got years of success, and guys refer to him and blah, blah, blah. And this guy placed an implant in a patient, in a couple of patients, and then it was a week later, so around May, June of year post-comserve. Howard Glackman is calling the practice. And he wanted to speak to Dr. Haferjee. I'm like, I don't know who how I know who Howard Glackman is, but why is this bra calling me? Like, like, what business does Howard have? And are the receptionists that are diverting the calls? Dr. Hafigy's not in, he's not available. And now I'm getting a little bit scared. Like, why is Howard Gluckman trying to call me? Like, this is why were they diverting the calls intentionally? Yeah, intentionally. And then but I'd hear whispers, yeah, Howard called to speak to Dr. Haferjee again. And then eventually the one day I remember this night. I went onto Google and I searched Howard Gluckman. Found his number and I called him. With a little stutter in my voice, Dr. Gluckman, my name is Redwan Hafigy. You've been trying to call the practice. I know these guys have been diverting calls and telling them what available. What's the story? Okay. Sound that makes sense. And then he says, Do you know Mrs. So and so? And then I'm like, Yeah. And then he's like, uh, did you work on her? And I'm like, no. She was a very sweet old lady. But I know that she was in the chair a week ago with the good old doctor. And doctor placed an implant and she came back to the practice saying that her lip feels a bit numb. And he told her it's a bit of inflammation according to the pan, and he showed me the pan. It's far from the nerve, it's all good. And Howard told me, Well, my boy, I took a CBCT, this implant is through the nerve, and he says that you place that implant. And I'm like, swearing on all the heavenly gods, I didn't place this implant, I didn't do it. Wait, wait, wait, sorry. The the the boss says that you placed it. And so when Howard called the boss, the boss told him, My associate placed the implant, I'll deal with him, don't worry about it. But then I realized that the boss had a bit of a reputation. And Howard called me to warn me and tell me that I know you didn't place this implant. Even though I don't know you, I know you didn't place it, but this is what the guy said about you, and that he's gonna deal with it. And my advice is run forest run. And I put the phone down with this little bead of sweat that went down my spine. I think I changed my underwear after it as well. And what do I say? I can't tell the boss that this is what happened, uh, that Howard called me. And what do I do? So what what do you do? Uh this is a dilemma. You are the medical legal guy, yeah? This is a dilemma. Tell me, you're the medical legal guy. What do you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:31:36

I don't know, because you see, it's a real-life situation. Well, I'm calling you for advice.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:40

You're the lawyer.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:41

I would uh I would make up a s excuse indeed. But then you look guilty. It doesn't matter whether you look guilty or not. So the guilty party is not you.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:52

So what I Well Well, look, I don't give employment and labor advice, but um you gotta be open and honest and raise it. Deal with it. What else are you gonna do?

SPEAKER_03 1:32:00

I'm I'm what, I'm 23, 24 years old. Yeah. I'm talking to a guy who's in his 50s. Listen, here boss, you place an implant in that auntie earlier. What's the story now? You're blaming me. I'm hearing stories on the street, I place it. No, it doesn't work like that. And you also need a salary at the time. I don't need the job because right now my debit was a bouncing, and this guy, when he was paying me, he was paying me by check. And then now he tells me I'm I I deposited the check and now I wait for that box. They don't do checks anymore, thankfully. And then the check will bounce. Now your gym membership is bouncing. And look. Dad, I'm sorry. That's a privilege. My father didn't know any of this because my dad always said, if ever you're in a problem, call us, we'll help. Like I'm not saying this that I had no family help, but I figured this is what I need to like up until I really can't do it. I still had money saved from ComServe. This is my family.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:49

You had money saved from when you were working in the trucks. Nah man.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:52

That depended that Vodacom recharge vouchers chowed that up quickly. Anyway. So what do you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:32:59

Because clearly you wouldn't have listened to a lawyer either. But I couldn't afford a lawyer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who could box for lawyer at that time? You guys are expensive. You need dental protection.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:06

Ooh, don't tell that.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:07

Don't even start with that thing. I couldn't afford DPL, bro. Okay. I'm starting to pay again, young dentists will uh will understand this. I'm struggling to get my debit orders to run through, medical aid and all that nuts.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:17

Literally keep the lights on.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:18

Literally keep the lights on. So I did what I thought was best. I went to the faculty and I spoke to Prof. Osman. He was the dean of the faculty. I was like, prof, I need help. This is what happened. And Prof. Osman, such a stand-up oak man. Like in that moment, it reminded me that, and forever, the university will always have an important part in our dental community. And we can never discredit the role of the university. Because in that moment, the safest place that I could have gone was Prov Osman's office. And he opened his door willingly. No appointment, no issues. Come. And I didn't have a personal relationship with him. I didn't know him as a Ridwan and Prof. Osman. I only knew him as student 274-2730 and the dean. Cut that out too. My student number, basically, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:05

Can I can I just reiterate like my belief in Prof. Osman as well? I've got a story there about him, and I firmly believe that if it wasn't for him, I would not have passed my interest board exam getting into South Africa because it was just a small group of us and the pass rate was very, very minimal at that stage with these board exams. But he, we just reached out to him and he allowed us to come to UWC. Oh, yeah. We spent about two or three months in the faculty, like shadowing the distributed heads. So shout out to Prof. Osman, I think he's a very pivotal role in success stories at Boston.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:47

I think that's why we spoke about educators and teachers at varsity. They're leaving legacies behind. Exactly. And you and they and or you can choose whether you want to leave a positive or negative, and that's an intentional decision you make every morning you enter the faculty.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:01

And what was his advice? His advice to me was look, Ridwan, let's not panic. Right now, no one's been sued. Right now, Howard Glackman did the right thing and called you. Howard understands the truth and he knows the truth and the reality. The patient was sedated, so she doesn't remember. So basically it was word against word. Don't run away. He says, go to the practice, take photos of all the notes that are written down because the doctor obviously wrote down notes, which he did. It was signed by him. So I took photos of that and he said, keep that. Don't leave your job right now. You need to earn some money. Stay there. I know it's uncomfortable, but remain there, earn a couple of bucks, but start looking for work elsewhere. And then he also gave me some really beautiful advice. When you specialize in prostodontics, you don't have to be in a high-end implant-based practice. He says, can you do, and I tell this to I lecture at the bridge program every year, and I tell them, tell the dentist, can you do a DO on a 2-7 with a rubber dam and a garrison matrix band or a garrison sectional with indirect vision. Can you do that confidently?

SPEAKER_02 1:36:15

So before you try to run and sprint, for the viewers and listeners who are not dentists, that is a very difficult thing to do.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:22

And it's a simple filling. It's a simple filling, but a very difficult one to execute. It's complex because based on the location in the mouth. And you're working upside down. He says, do basic dentistry well. Do your bridges, do your crowns, do your dentures. You don't need to do a full rehab. You don't need to do all of that. Just do the basic things well and build your CV. Attend what you need to attend. I was okay. That that was also good advice, like at that point, because you're thinking on a specializing process, do I need to be doing full mouth rehabs? And um I went back to the practice. I took my photos of all the notes. I felt like a little James Bond in that moment, like hoping no one's gonna see me. Did my thing. And that's when my first friend Nazir, who had already left the practice, was working at Chromeboom Dental. And Chromeboom Dental was looking for a locum, and I submitted my CV, and Nazir put in good reference for me, and I started working at Chromeboom Dental. I worked under Shinaz, Shinaz Khan at that time. She owned the practice. And I think that's where I learned that good people in dentistry exist. Shinaz Khan and Nazir. Nazir, I'll say this to his face, he's got a bit of a hot head. Uh he's got a bit of a temper, but you also learn that that that's he that's that's him. And you he's got a very good heart as well. And he's passionate over what he does, and you just need to understand where that is coming from and realize he's not he's not malicious, he's not a bad person, he's overly passionate, kind of like what old Dr. Patel was. Um Dr. Patel would say that I swear you because I love you. I was like, yeah. And uh Shannaz taught me that you can run a busy big dental practice and still be a good person. I used to submit my stats to Shenaz um at 8 o'clock at night on the 30th, and I kid you not, that lady used to pay me almost on instant. No assessment of stats, no scrutinizing things. And the one day I asked the election, I was like, Don't Dr. Khan, don't you look at our stats? And she's like, you know what, if you're gonna steal a couple of hundred bucks from me, it's not gonna make me richer or poorer, but it's gonna sit with you. And I was like, she's actually right. And obviously you do want to do things the right way, but coming from where I was coming, where the guy was checks were bouncing and paying you late and deducting weird things from you. Um Yeah. So then in this time, I'm studying primaries, I'm doing my PDD in implants as well. And you gotta pay for primaries, you gotta primary. You gotta pay for primaries, you gotta uh pay for your PDD. And now because you're trying to recoup money that you didn't make in those months when you were earning below your I was working eight to eight. I just work one locum from eight to one, another locum from two to six or two two to five, and then from six to eight, 15 something in between. So it it takes a lot of work, takes, takes time. Uh, and then you come home in the evening, and then you've got to study primaries in. So it's long days. Uh but again, the culture of the household that I came from, uh, student house as well, you kind of learn discipline. Um in that time I climbed Kilimanjaro as well. Uh so that was fun as well. So you kind of told you he's a cool guy. You start making time. Cool dentist. You start fitting in things. And with Ashen, when he was a cross-registrar, at that time I asked him, What's your registrar number? And I, when do you finish? And I told him, I want to get your contract. And God is my witness, that's the contract that I got. So I I we planned it. I'd like to say I planned it, but Ashen definitely helped guide me and tell me what to do. That when he finished, I interviewed. Um, and then I in this time I also worked at Dr. Patel's private practice. So I was his fill-in dentist in the week. Dr. Patel used to be at his practice in the weekends, Saturdays, and I used to see his patients or whatever patients they were, or the families uh in the week in the afternoon. So I used to work at his practice from two to five. Uh and then I also got to know Mrs. Patel as well and how they ran their practice in a very honest, pure way. Mrs. Patel, really good soul, like really, really good soul, where she says, Ritman, like she she's accountable to God only, and you just do right by your patience. If you don't make much money, you'll be fine. And I promise you that that purity in earning less goes further in trying to earn more. And I think those were good lessons to keep me grounded in that time. Um and then I interviewed and at UWC. At UWC. And by then I had my primaries, had my diploma done. I had done a research presentation in the military. So the military had an academic day. And again, I knew that I wanted to see things. So they had a deployment base in Pongola, the Swazi-Mozambique border. And one of my comserv buddies, he's a dietitian, Korene, he was going out to visit the soldiers on deployment. So I was like, can I come as well? And then he was like, How are you going to motivate for this? I was like, I'd like to know how the soldiers manage oral hygiene on deployment. What are they doing about themselves? And I also would like to know what nutrition are they getting, because nutritional deficiencies do manifest in oral cavity. So myself and Cornei went off to Pongola in the deployment base. We stayed in a little BB and we spent about two or three days out there, and I presented my findings at the military research day as well. And then I did a little bit in between, attended a few short courses and workshops, but from a skeleton of a CV, the university work was what I put down as the primary. And that was your first application too. My first application. Okay. I was fortunate enough that I got it. Looking back, maybe I shouldn't have got in so early. Now, if you told Ridwan this at that time, he'd have told you stuff you, like what do you know? You don't know nothing. I think maybe Ridwan should have wasted it. Is there a right time to get an opportunity? I mean, it was an opportunity. For for a registrar post, yes. It's a fine balance between you don't want to get in when you're too old because life has happened already, meaning that now you're working as a locum and you're in between. You don't want to buy a practice and then have to sell the practice to go specialize. So you don't want to go too late in life. Uh but in my case, I think I was perhaps a bit too early. Uh I think maybe the sweet spot is 30, age 30. Um I was I was still probably a little bit too young in in energy, and I needed a lot more direction and funneling of my energy to keep me focused. Because now you're in a I'm in a kid in a candy store. It's everything that I wanted to do happening every day. Like, where do you stop?

SPEAKER_01 1:42:53

It was like stimulus over like Do you think age would have changed that any bit? No.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:00

I think I would have been, but I think I probably would have approached it a little bit differently. Um But anyway, that's what I had. How old were you when you started the Rage Post?

SPEAKER_01 1:43:09

27. That's young. Yeah. Yeah. It's very young. But 27 is really young for a register. Yeah.

unknown 1:43:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:15

Yeah, so I stand by it, but I think at the same time. Well, good. Well done. The point that I would like to pass to the guys that want to specialize, be intentional about it. Don't say that I'll specialize at some point and then 10 years later say, you know what, I couldn't get in or whatever it is. Get it done as quick as possible, as as safe as reasonable as possible. Uh but I think if I to be fair, if I look at UWC, I don't have much exposure to other varsities. From as much as they use race as one of the limiting factors in specializing, if you walk through the holes of UWC, it is probably the most representative university of our country.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:54

Agreed.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:55

And I think it's it's a massive kudos to them because there's every racial group that's available in this country is at a varsity. Which means that if you've built your CV the way it should be, it's a matter of when you'll get in, not if I'll get in. Um and you may not get in the first interview. Look, there's guys out there who've got in at the third interview. It's it it's look, we have to appreciate that at certain times they need to look at a demographic number. Uh and that's fair, and I'm fully in support of that. But it's not that it's never going to happen. Uh in in the medical world, my brother, brother-in-law, um, they're waiting for Reg Post, and it's a very different animal for them altogether. I think for us as for medics, I think for us as dentals, it's still fair and equal. Uh you just may be delayed a little bit. It's not this bottomless dream that you may that may never happen.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:52

I like what you said there, like you know, being intentional about it, because most of the time, especially when I look at the younger guys coming out of ComServe and things, they're all just applying for posts, especially from like our cultural disposition, just because they think that's the natural part of progression. I'm done now with the undergrad, and now I have to because it's a cultural norm that I have to go and specialize. Yeah. They're doing it for the wrong reasons.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:16

And at the same time, also working in private practice, not just the skills, you're also developing your interpersonal relations as well. The soft skills, yeah. The soft skills. How do you talk to patients? And um so all of those things do come into play. And I think at the same time, I was reading it in a book recently that actually summarizes so beautifully. And now uh it's Stephen Bartlett's book. Massive fan of Stephen Bartlett, his book, his book, The Diary of a CEO. Did you read the book?

SPEAKER_01 1:45:44

I didn't read the book, no.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:44

You should, it's exceptional. But in uh very early on in the book, he talks about the five buckets, and every professional in any industry needs to fill up those five buckets. And the one is your your knowledge, your skills, your network, your resources, and your reputation. And you have to fill those buckets equally and evenly throughout your career to grow. If you fill the reputation bucket too quickly, everything else is falling by the wayside. So at some point, your head's gonna get too big and you're gonna fall to flat. If you fill your resource bucket too quickly, you've got a dental practice with CADCAM equipment, 3D printers, the whole works, but you're not executing treatment plans correctly. So fill your skills or fill your your knowledge bucket and your skills bucket proper, especially in our industry, and the others will will grow with time.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:38

Um I'm smiling because um no offense to the Bartlett uh fans there, but it sounds like a bit of a plagiarism on Iggy principles.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:46

Well, maybe you got it from there. Maybe you got it from there. Maybe I just forgot uh who you referenced. Bartlett does nothing wrong. So don't talk bad about Bartlett. You've got big fans. Yeah. But um and and I find that so eloquent or so well put because especially in our industry, you've got a trust fund, dad's got money, let's set our son up in the practice, and it gives him all the bells and whistles, and he's got this five million grand practice, and he doesn't know how to cut a crown properly. You have to work as an associate, you have to work as a locum, you have to not not earn your stripes. I hate to make it sound military, like so militant, but you have to learn those soft skills and how the dynamics of a practice and a business would work, and then you build. When it comes to that skills and knowledge, uh, and as your career grows and develops, as you want to start executing more within your practice, you've got to go back and build the knowledge base. So the PDD that you did in 2009 is no longer relevant. Because you've done a PDD in implants in 2009, it doesn't mean that you can do implantology that's worthy of 2025. So you and I think this is where dentistry is so different that you have to always go back. And this is not for specialists, it's for the general dentist. Um and now you start looking at the other buckets and slowly filling those guys. The part that you start seeing is, and I've got friends as well, guys that will call me and tell me I need help with this case, I need help with that case. And then you scratch your head and wonder like when last did I see this guy or this girl or this lady at a CPD event? And I I I also get why specialists, and sometimes the general dentist will think that the specialist is gatekeeping knowledge and information. Uh perhaps they have to. Perhaps at times they need to, because you've got a few responsible guys out there who are the outliers, but then you've got a large majority, unfortunately, who are calling you and telling you, I've got this patient, what do I do? How do I do it? And we were talking about that earlier, responsible learning. Responsible learning. And man, I've had guys call me and tell me, I want to do this treatment plan for the patient. Can you talk me through it? Like, no offense, but does a GP call a cardiologist and say, I got this cardiac patient right now. I'm thinking of maybe doing a cardiac echo and then maybe an angiogram later on. Uh, what's your indication for an angiogram? Unheard of. And dentistry is difficult because we do learn a lot more in our undergrad years than what a GP doctor does. And maybe that's why GP doctors stay in their lane. I hate using the term, but stay in their lane. And dentistry, by the profession itself, does expose us to more. But by virtue of being able to cut one crown, what gives the dentist the ability to cut 10 crowns and then 20 crowns? And I'm not talking scope of practice, because scope of practice is not well, not very well defined in our country, and certainly it's not executed or regulated. We spoke about earlier about regulating. This is something that I feel our councils need to regulate. Defining scope of practice and how do we manage it? Because it dentistry is an ego. Thing. In my com serv year, I spent a bit of time with Hassan Hafigee, maxillofacial surgeon in Durban. Another stand-up guy, humble individual. He is such a gentleman. And he Dr. Haferjee is an extremely humble individual. But he told me the biggest ego in dentistry is extracting a tooth. And I'm thinking this is one of the most humble individuals that I know. And he's telling me that he also has an ego when he extracts a tooth or places an implant. I gotta check my ego as well. So one, we're ego-driven. The other, we're financially driven. We have to be. So you've now, life's gone on, you've got family, you've got parents to look after. You've got to come.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:43

You have to explain that to you. I'm still thinking about it. What do you mean? What is what do you meant by that? Like you mean necessarily feel good about yourself. You feel good about yourself. When you extract a tooth.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:51

You've extracted a tooth or you've delivered a crown. You've done this Emacs on a one-one. It matches the two one perfect. You know how difficult that is to get color matching and shape and uh emergence. It fuels our ego. And so one it's our ego that grows, and the other, our financial commitments in life grow. So now you've got a patient that comes in and you know that you could do five crowns comfortably. But now this patient needs 20 crowns. Man, I need the bucks, but I've been doing five crowns for the last 10 years now. I'm sure 20 can't be too difficult. And you spend time at the labs and you realize that what the lab technicians have to deal with and how they talk to the and how the dentist talk to them. Man, I was at the lab once and a technician got a full mouth prep, maxilla and mandible. And with no bite registration. Because the dentist didn't know how to do a bite registration when he prepped a full maxilla and mandible. And that thing becomes specialists want to be arrogant about what they do. It's not. Again, I said your income is governed by God Almighty. I'm not fighting for money here. We're not like what's put out for me, I'm gonna get. We're worried about patients who are getting care that's driven by finances and by ego. The next argument is my patients can't afford it. I'm helping the patients. Where do my patients come from? From your practice, in your practice, if you metaphorically speaking, so the same practice that is referring patients to me who are accepting treatment plans at our practices are coming from your practice. So it means that it's not my there's no conveyor system from bishop's court to matrix. It's you're talking to patients, you're showing them the value and the need, and if they can afford a certain treatment plan, then they accept it. If they can't, you have to find a compromise that's not a compromise in care, but something that can either lead them onto getting what is ideal or something that'll prevent sepsis and infection and keep them stable without things degrading. Matrix is the name of your point, I think. Yes, matrix dental specialists.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:48

So are general dentists reluctant to refer to specialists?

SPEAKER_03 1:52:51

No, I don't think so. I think they are there there's definitely the outliers who are definitely definitely reluctant. Um and then you get those that understand limitations and and the space. Uh so I'm not talking about I'm I'm not generalizing, I'm trying not to generalize, but I'm just saying that's unintended.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:06

Yeah, we could that one there. But these things do happen, but there's that perception that specialists want to live in a different realm to dentists. No, it's not about anything other than protecting patients. Um and also to be fair, you've now invested time, money, your life into specializing, and someone thinks that they can call you and tell you or ask you, I need you to tell me how to do this. And you haven't rubbed shoulders with him, you haven't attended a CPD event, you haven't attended formal learning. I'm happy to share. That's why I teach and that's why I lecture. I'm happy to share. And if you had to call me and I know that you've done this, this, and this, and now you said, Ridwan, I've done these things here, please, please guide me. It's responsible. It's responsible. But but it's responsible and it's a safe place to share now because I know that you've got a foundation for it. Uh and sometimes they feel like why the guys are like this. And I think it's something that people need to be our profession needs to be a bit more introspective about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:07

Um There's a new medical and dental professions board that's just been inaugurated recently. And you mentioned something quite important or quite interesting, is that in South Africa, as you said, the scope of practice of the various specialties in South Africa are not clearly defined. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:26

Well, the specialties are well defined. But for the general dentists, it's not.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:29

Yeah, so that's what I'm saying. The the scope of practice.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:32

So it's it's weird that as a as a prostodontist, I know exactly where my lanes are. How do you know this? It's purely as a prostodontist, I can't do an extraction. I'm not supposed to. Am I trained and skilled in doing a surgical extraction? No. So it's outside of my scope. I don't do it. I what it wasn't part of my training. A periodontist, max fact, all the same. But for general dentist, those lines are very great.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:55

Well, that's the funny thing, yeah. Because as a general dentist, you can do everything. Yeah. You can do auto if you want.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:59

Correct, 100%. So where does that stop? And then, yes, there's that's where university-based learning comes in and proper formal private outcome or um outcome-based learning where there's some sort of feedback and CPD accredited and not a weekend warrior workshop of something in that manner there. Uh you've got to be tested, there has to be feedback to see that has the candidate learnt and gone through a process. And I think that's where uh our education system needs to go.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:30

Um, I mean, so where I was going with the question is that so do you think that maybe the the the regulator, that's the HPCSA, needs to define these things more clearly for everybody to know?

SPEAKER_03 1:55:39

Aaron Powell 100%. And then manage it accordingly, and then consequences for that. These days when dentists ask me, do you think that this is in my scope? I'm not an opinion on scopes. Yeah. But my first ethical question to them is, can you manage the complication of what you're doing? Okay, so you're gonna do an all-on-four. Can you manage the what can you manage it? And I've done a couple of these implant courses recently, and one of the most beautiful feedback that we've got afterwards is the one guy said, after doing the course, I don't think I want to do implants. And then I know we've given the right message. Not because we convince you not to do implants, but because we've shown you what can go wrong when we do implants and how severe the consequences can be that now you are thinking responsibly. So it's not he literally won't do implants, but at least he's got a measured mind in this. And the bizarre thing is there's other groups of specialists that were sometimes say that they don't want to get involved in teaching at all because they don't want to share their knowledge. Weird thing is the guys that have attended my courses are still the guy that refers to my practice.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:40

Yeah. So, which is counterproduct intuitive that what the old school thought Although I've always said this, I've always said this to specialists.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:47

And you know, collaborate with the journalists, and it'll be not representing all specialists.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:52

I'm representing myself.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:53

I know, but I said this before. Knowledge sharing doesn't mean that they're going to just take all that knowledge and stop collaborating.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:02

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I I said this to my niece, sorry quickly. Um a few days ago. Your niece. My anesthetist. Oh, your niece is. My someone said to my niece that is like, oh, your job is so easy, you sit in the corner and you you you you they let the surgeons work. And then I said to my nieces was like, You're all chilled about it, because they laugh it off pretty easy. But I was like, no, they they train there, they're sitting there, not for to do the mundane thing of putting someone asleep, because when something goes wrong, that's when they gotta kick in. And like that's exactly why they're specialists training.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:34

And then I think within our profession, something that I've also picked up in the last couple of years, uh we obviously jumped the whole thing of matrix, whatever, but going a bit off track. There's there is definitely a lack of respect within our profession. And it's it's an ugly little virus that's festers there. And it's not acute, but it's a chronic festering of low-grade disrespect within the profession. And amongst colleagues or from a patient? Amongst colleagues. I think patients are still very much respectful to us as a profession. They still look at us as being doctors, and I think patients come with their own fears. So I I don't think in that way there um that's for us to own. But I think within our profession, there's a there's an ugly chronic low-grade infection of disrespect. Um and you hear guys saying, You don't need a prostodontist. Um, I can do everything. I'm like, bro, like passing a comment like that is it's insulting. Do you know what you're saying? You're saying that someone who's invested years to treat the complications of what the profession has done is not needed in society. Um someone has oncology and someone's missing a mid-face, and only a prostodontist and a max back can rehabilitate that is not necessary. Don't say I think they are they are obviously projecting more of their own insecurities. Trevor Burrus, Jr. And it's misinforming the patient. And misinforming the patient. But these things are being said, and it's disrespectful. I've I've never heard a GP doctor say that a physician is not necessary. Because I would look at a GP and a physician as being a prosthetic and a general dentist. There's a very good, healthy respect between GP medical doctor and physician. Uh and I'm not sure why our profession has these arrogant statements that pass or that they get touted around. It doesn't affect me at all. But I I look at them and I'm thinking like that says a lot about you, buddy.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:30

Like Yeah, and it's also not good for the profession at at large, I mean when patients see us arguing and, you know, sketchy ill of each other, it just doesn't look good for the profession at a whole.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:41

And then within the profession itself. Um forgive me if I'm offending you, but I I haven't read anything about your practices yet, Sama. So I'm just gonna talk about it. Please do offend Yak. Please, please. Like the other thing is by by definition, what do we have? We have maxillofacial surgeon, a prostodontist in no specific order. Sorry. Because then prostodontists will be at the top. Uh Wow.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:05

I thought the orthodontists would be at the top.

SPEAKER_03 2:00:06

What are we talking about yet? In the financial hierarchy, the orthodontist is at the top. Okay, so we've got the oral pathologist, we've got the comdents, we've got the prosthos, max fax, the orthos, and we've got the periods, and everyone fits into that happy space. Where did the term aesthetic dentist come in? Cosmetic dentists. We are degrading our own title. By being a dentist, it's a privilege, it's a responsibility. Very few individuals get to live out that profession. Why are we degrading our title to calling ourselves cosmetic dentists? That's a made-up.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:38

You said no offense to Yak, so do you think he calls himself a cosmetic? No, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 2:00:41

I'm not sure. I don't see his website not taking it. He's aesthetically pleasing. He's aesthetically pleasing. Maybe that's where it comes from. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but I see it and I wonder why. Why do you call yourself a cosmetic dentist?

SPEAKER_02 2:00:55

Like it's I also wonder that. Like, is that a is that a um a legislative term? Because a lot of people say cosmetic dentist.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:01

You know you're gonna get a lot of heat from from the cosmetic dentist.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:04

I probably would. And but then again, you're uh because look, I'm I'm talking fax, yeah. There's no such thing as cosmetic dentists. There's no such thing as aesthetic dentist. You're a dentist. In the same way that the same took heat.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:16

Unless you're good-looking.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:17

Yeah, go on. Oh, you'll take heat for it, then it's fine.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:19

Yeah. No, no, no, no. I'm saying we took heat recently over some something that's what someone called themselves and then.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:25

Oh, yes, yes, yes. It was uh the way I titled a YouTube video, and I used I I referenced a specialty which I think. That's not a specialty. I saw that as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:39

Uh which is also I I was surprised that you had done it.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:42

But that's the funny thing. Wait, uh interesting story. Remember when we were chatting off-camera, I said to you that I use AI to do a lot of my stuff.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:49

So AI gave it to you.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:50

Um so what happens is insight into how we work at why did I become a doctor, South Africa? Well, when I upload the whole video, because it's like hours worth of content, right? I upload it, I'll get the caption because YouTube makes an automatic caption of everything that we say. Oh, so it's and I plug that in. So it's like a transcript, an automated transcript. And I plug it into the AI and say, based on this whole conversation, do me a YouTube title and a subscription.

SPEAKER_03 2:02:15

So it gave you that title that wasn't the register specialty in the country.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:18

Yeah. And I didn't think you know, I should have thought twice about it, but there's so much work that goes into publishing, uploading, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_03 2:02:25

Aaron Powell But that's where your responsibility comes in as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:27

Aaron Powell Exactly. And when that comment was made, I immediately changed the the subject. And I didn't just change it and le uh leave it. I made a comment on the video. And I said, thank you for the feedback. We always strive for a strive for accuracy and we've changed.

SPEAKER_03 2:02:43

Because these are important things as well. That uh yes, it's titles or we don't do it for the titles, but it's also patients looking at the profession responsibly and respectfully. Uh and in the same light, the same guys that will call themselves aesthetic dentists, cosmetic dentists will then look back and say, biological dentist. What's a biological dentist? If you feel like you're in a practice dentistry in a way or in a theme or in a genre that you feel is different to the rest of us, that's cool. But you're still a dentist. Your degree says BCHD or DDS or whatever it may be, but it says you're a dentist. Uh and I think these titles need to go. Uh own the profession and have respect for the profession and have respect for what we've studied for, and the profession can grow together. But if we're doing it in this disjointed, egocentric manner and peer bashing, we're not going to go anywhere.

unknown 2:03:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:37

So all the cosmetic dentists watching, uh, the comments should be directed at Dr. Affid, you not me, not us, eh, please. Uh you're right. We did skip a lot because we didn't speak about reg time, but I'm assuming that that was just a nice walk in the past. No, it wasn't, eh? Okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:51

It was difficult. Um I had my challenges, both um in my personal life, which I don't want to talk about on camera, but it was a difficult time. Uh I actually had to defer my exam uh by six months. And Dr. Patel also retired in that time as well. So now I had lost my consultant in that time. And then I saw firsthand the challenges that happened within a university when succession planning hasn't been done or hasn't been executed in the way that it was planned. Because now we've got someone that had retired and then had left the floor. The other prostodontists that were from the department were in the dean's office, and on the floor was a bit of a thin space, and and then from the outside in, the private guys are happily throwing stones at the varsity, but not realizing the varsity themselves internally, by no choice of their own, have a lot of their own challenge that they're working around. Um so that was a difficult time, and then Sandile Mpongosi, he's a prostitu up here, he came in. Um again, he helped me a lot. He shared a lot of wisdom at that time, but because also I was going through so much with everything else and this overwhelming sense of trying to finish up, um, that was also a difficult time for me. Um but I also saw the importance of a network and camaraderie. So, you know, the buckets we spoke about. Um Avish Jagarpa was a very good friend for me in that time as well, Ashen as well. Uh, because now you need to lean on guys that have walked this process and the path. How do you prepare for an exam? What do you do? Like, what do I look at? Uh and I'm I'm really grateful for the guys, and they still play a role in my career, but that network is important. And I think something else for younger dentists, not even if you specialize, build your network outside of your class. Um, unfortunately, most dentists will talk to their friends on their WhatsApp groups with people within the same same experience. Attend events where there's networking that you can meet people above. So you learn quicker by other people, because our profession also happily shares. And then eventually you can also share that downwards as well. So that's probably also where the passion for teaching and learning comes in because I've been a beneficiary of having mentors who've happily and openly shared with me their experiences.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:10

But on the flip side, it's also very easy to operate in a silo and never have to. Correct. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:14

But we can't. Yeah. Especially in a profession that grows as fast and quickly as our does. Um and in this time in Raj time, that's where I met for him, for him Bamji.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:24

Uh for him, very, very low-key, uh, easy-going, soft-spoken individual. But I think he was also, I look back now, I was actually chatting to Imran about this, one of the other partners at my practice. Iran's a general dentist, for him is a periodontist and myself. Um and for him, by his nature of humility and also being content with what he has, also kept me grounded as well. Uh for him, he's not a very boastful individual like me. I I can't think of anyone that's ever said anything bad about Fahim, because he's just a proper stand-up oak as well. Um and he was two years ahead of me in Reg time. So when I started in first year, again, I looked for an older period because we worked together. Don't work with the period that's also in first year because you're learning with him. Learn with someone above so he'll teach you and you can learn quicker.

SPEAKER_02 2:07:11

And for him, that's a kinshu principle, by the way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:14

But let's teach you guys.

SPEAKER_02 2:07:15

Okay, sorry. Who you learned from other people mistakes.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:18

Well, just move to Japan. Do we just move to Japan, please?

SPEAKER_02 2:07:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:22

And um anyway, it's so went through regime. I finished up. By that time, for him, I had already finished. And now we start looking at opening our practices. We didn't choose on, we didn't decide on opening together. Um, we looked at rental in Cape Town for him and his family at that time, uh, Cape Town was a better place for them to be. And we looked around and realized that for us to want to offer patients the level of care that is representative of the modern age, and without having a trust fund behind our name, how do you afford that? And also, not just for us setting up, how do you keep treatment relatively affordable for patients? Because you've got a CBCT worth a million rand. That has to be paid up. You know what it's like. And you have to now scan every patient and charge every patient because it's a piece of equipment for their benefit, but it's it's a liability on the books. And then we decide, let's open up together. It's the only way we can give patients the level of care that we want at a certain price point that's affordable for us to set up is together. And we we saw this work really well. I've traveled, I've been fortunate to travel for dentistry abroad, and we saw this at a practice in Portugal, uh, Pedro Rodriguez, uh Oral Plus Clinic. Uh Pedro's a really good oak, also become a friend over the years as well, uh, and a mentor. Um, so shout out to Pedro. And we saw his practice. Multidisciplinary, multi-specialist type of practice. He has a lab attached to it and saw how the whole thing operated and said, look, let's try and do something similar here. Not to say it wasn't done here before, but we hadn't experienced it firsthand. It's not common, is it? Not common. Again. It's a DSO, right? No, no, no. A DSO is a different thing. This is basically the multidisciplinary practice. Multi disciplinary practice, yeah. Uh and then we look at the numbers and we're like, man, we still can't afford it. Like sitting on practice is expensive money. And you also want to be in a location. So another thing. How do you sell first world care to patients if your practice is sitting in a corner of a lower income area? It doesn't work. Your practice also has to be representative of the profession that you want it to be and those balances to come. And then Imran Mayat was also a varsity friend of mine, a general dentist, and we asked him, like, you will complete this team in the most ideal way, because now we've got two specialists, we've got a general dentist, we're obviously going to get hygienists. No, not at all.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:49

No.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:49

We weren't even looking at him as being a referral pathway. We were looking at it as giving patients what is best for them in the sense of where C for him for the period care, but you need a one-surface filling CMRA. Ultimately, we wanted our practice to be patient-facing. We didn't want to have that model of a specialist practice where we wait for them to come through referrals. Obviously, we are extremely grateful for the referrals, it's what keeps the business moving. Um, but we also wanted to work in this way here. Where our challenge came in is that for him and I have our referrals, and we never want our referrals to think that refer to us, and they're gonna go to Imran. Which is the the sad thing is we actually had one dentist, quite a senior dentist. It was sad that he said it because he's made some good money over the years. He lives in a much bigger house than most of us do. And he walked to our practice and he looked around and he was like, This is a cool practice. I like this practice, but I'll never refer patients to you guys. And we're like, why? He's like, because you got a dentist here. You're gonna steal my patients.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:50

We're like, that's cool.

SPEAKER_03 2:10:51

It's okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:52

I've heard that that's a common concern.

SPEAKER_03 2:10:53

I've also heard that. Look, it does happen. I'm not saying it's but it's not something that I'm not saying it has never happened, but it's not something we want to happen. We still want our patients to go back to where they came from. Uh fortunately, I think most of the time we've got it right. And I think the patients that have got lost or have seen Imran by an error, those referral dentists have been competent to say, look, guys, I think something happened, which I really appreciate, that they can be that they can trust us to know that we don't intentionally do that. Um and I think ultimately we want patients to go back where they feel safer, where they felt comfortable, and keeping that pathway for them as a point of contact is important as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:32

We don't want them to now come to Matrix and suddenly we're stealing them into our little ecosystem and move along and then You know what you've reminded me of because I was speaking to a specialist about this about a couple of months ago, and I said to them, why do we not see more multidisciplinary practices? Because she said to me, Because the GP dentists are afraid that if we have set this up, you know, we're gonna take away their work.

SPEAKER_03 2:11:57

Trevor Burrus, Jr. But once again, if you believe in the concept of Your bread is put out for you. If the GP doesn't refer to me, he doesn't he was he was never going to refer to me anyway. He was going to just find another excuse not to refer to me. Exactly. Yeah. And yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:12:09

Not to sound like super humble about this, but I had one like once I had a patient get upset with me because she was referred to me and then she wanted to stay on to do other work. And I said, You're going to please have to go back to the practice you came from. And even if you want to, I'm going to need, because the the referral um person was also a friend of mine. I said, I'm going to need this in writing that they're okay with you coming to the practice. And she was upset. She's like, oh no, Dr. Yak thinks it's too good for you to accept the business.

SPEAKER_03 2:12:37

I was like, I think fortunately for me as a specialist, I can tell the patients the work that you need now is no longer general dental related. I think you need to go back because there's no need for you to be seeing me going forward. It's overkill. When the the bigger responsibility for me comes in is that I work with surgeons outside the practice, mainly maxillofacials outside the practice. And this is where I'm also very grateful for for him. For him also works across those outside the practice. But we've never needed to question each other's integrity about did you refer that patient out? Why do you refer the patient out? What did the patient get referred to you from that practice? It again, for him has that same approach of what's meant to be will be, or what's meant to come your way will be. And I think in the same way with the patients that come from other max facts to me, they don't know that the implant work can also get done in the practice. It's not necessary for them. The max fact that sent them to me is the one at that time that is better skilled to manage it. And that's the honest truth, that's why the patient came from there. Look, again, it there have been one or two outlier cases where something like what you said happened, uh, or maybe inadvertently Fahim may have consulted on a patient, or I have inadvertently consulted a patient who have apologized to that referral and then moved along with life afterwards. There have been times where some of them will stop working with us uh because they find that the massive breach in trust. Perhaps it is. You can't take it away from them, but it wasn't intentional. Um but I think ultimately, all in all, looking back six years, I wouldn't change a thing with how the model is. Uh also working together just emotionally and mentally, sharing a space with others to bounce ideas off makes life so much more rewarding. And for patient care as well. Um it got us through COVID. I think if I was in my man-alone practice in a corner of Cape Town through COVID, I would have been a depressed person.

SPEAKER_01 2:14:38

Yeah, but I like it. And and I'm speaking from a patient's perspective now. Personally, I would want to go to a place where I can, you know, get everything holistically done in one place, you know, not have to go travel here and there and everywhere. Correct. Within obviously within reason. You're not keeping the work for yourself.

SPEAKER_02 2:14:53

Yeah. No, I agree. And but also just to summarize that whole point, like I, from a practitioner perspective, I think I appreciate professional courtesy more than I would want to get new business. Correct. I think it's important for our colleagues to even like understand that and realize that. Because the patients will come and go. Your colleagues are going to be there with you all the time. It's important to establish those relationships.

SPEAKER_03 2:15:16

The other thing that also happened was when I actually forgot to mention this, or I should have mentioned if I followed the sequence of my career. When we started the practice, so Dr. Patel had already retired and gone into his private practice full-time. Uh and I knew that Dr. Patel was missing. He was in the varsity for over 30 years. And I knew that he was missing that engagement and that banter as well through the days. Um when we opened up the practice, I told Dr. Patel to come here. We had a room set up there. We had a room allocated for him. I said, all you do is you bring your practice and you come and work here. Uh no commitments or no promises that you need to refer to for him or you need to work with me. No strings attached. No strings attached. You come here and you do your thing, and it'll be a privilege to have you and your experience here. Um it was a risk because obviously you've got someone so much more respected, highly experienced individual who's been around the block a hundred times over. And I'm still new. I haven't seen my first patient as yet in private practice, and I'm having him here. But if you look at those buckets again, having him there fills more buckets that I need to fill right now, uh for me personally as well, than any bit of money could ever attach to. Um and added to that analogy of those buckets, they said if everything else falls apart, only two buckets will stay with you. Your skills and your knowledge. So invest in those because your reputation can come and go, that's fleeting. Um, your resources can burn down, it's all gone. Your network, that can change, you move to a different city, different town. Um so having Dr. Patel there for us as three young guys, I was in my early 30s, myself in Imran, early 30s, for him was mid to late 30s, Dr. Patel was 60 odd, um, was invaluable. You you you can't attach a value to having someone of that stature in our practice at that time.

SPEAKER_01 2:17:15

Um But it's also been a common theme. From first year, lean on the experience of seniors. 100%. Because they they will willingly give if you're just willing to take it. Stand on the shoulders of giants.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:27

There we go. As opposed to Centauri. So tell us more about the practice. It's called Matrix.

SPEAKER_03 2:17:32

Matrix Dental Specialist. There's no Where is it? There's no eloquent or good story to why it's called Matrix. It's just called Matrix because the building is called Matrix. No, we don't own the building. We just didn't have any imagination of we just wanted a name that was not location-centered. We didn't want Century Dental Clinic. We didn't want Cape Town Specialist Clinic. It's in Century City clinic. It's in Century City. Century City in Cape. Nice area. Very nice area. Um but a very nice ground. Canal walk is there. Just outside Canal Walk, yes. Yeah. It's at the bottom of the Century City Hotel, so near the convention center. Solana's in Antilou to go there.

SPEAKER_02 2:18:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:18:07

And um yeah, so it's we got the practice as a white box. And for him and I and Abu Imran looked at this place and said, now how do we fill it up?

SPEAKER_02 2:18:17

Um Weren't you scared at the time when you first well, you told us a story about it.

SPEAKER_03 2:18:21

If I know what I know now, I'll be very scared. I think at that time we were just like stupid ignorance, thinking this is gonna be fun. And now you're thinking of plumbing and electrical and all of that, and you're like, what did we do to ourselves back then? But ignorance is bliss. Setting up the practice, something else. Now you got this white box, and what do you do? Um This was when? How many years ago? This was 2019, end of 2019, beginning of 2020. Just before that's just before COVID. Well, we didn't know COVID was gonna exist. I was still writing my final exam. So finishing final exams, and Fahim tells me he saw a place and he and Imran are gonna check it out. And now I'm trying to like balance all this out and figure out what I want to do. Um where do you live in Cape Town? I l at that time I lived in Tiger Valley. Now I live in Panorama. Um and at this time also I would have liked to have gone back to Durban, but I had no known network in Durban. So open a practice in Durban, and how does the referral system work? I already have a network in Cape Town. Uh so it's not that I didn't want to move back home. It just felt easier that things would move but more efficiently. And then we got a couple of guys to come and look at the place and give estimates or designs, and it had a very dental feel to what the practice was going to look like. Like I love your practice because you've got there's character, there's there's emotion and feel here. We try and figure out how do we figure this out. So we contacted one of my old patients, um, Zaynul. Zaynul is a master craftsman. So his specialty is fine individual wood pieces. Good work. And he does like many solid woods. And I called him, I was like, Zaynul, can you use your skills that you do to make individual pieces to build a practice for us? And he was probably the biggest blessing for us at that time because proper type A personality, under the guise of being type B, uh sticker for detail. And because he's so design and detail-centric, he kind of took everything over from us. Yes, we got the dental contractors to come in and the chair and the piping and the plumbing, but he was like, no, you want your pipe here? I will lay that pipe. You don't touch it, which made life so much easier for us. Uh and then the benefit was that we didn't have that clinical white drywall type of practice. Um, so I'd love to take credit that we spent all that design ourselves. I had a cousin of mine who was an architect, and I gave him the plans. I was like, can you help do something for us? Man, we didn't have box for interior designers and decorators and all of that nonsense there. Like, it would be cool.

SPEAKER_01 2:20:47

Who's an architect? No, Tosif Khan by any chance. No.

SPEAKER_03 2:20:49

No, Tosif, he's a DHS boy. No, my cousin's name is Safir. Uh Safir Khan, though. Um, he's an architect also. And so I called Safir, I was like, Safir, can you do something for us? And he did it and showed Zainel, and obviously Zainal did his own flair through that entire design. Uh I'd love to say we had interior designers to come and find the air and the flow and the sunlight, none of that stuff. And things came to be. Um it moved along. And February or Jan 2020, we saw our first patients, and then March was shut down. But in hindsight, as tragic as what COVID was for the population, it was probably the best time to happen for us. Uh your business plan is to make no money in the first year. You're thinking that you're gonna be killing flies all day anyway. So having that type of year was good. The staff were obviously still covered in that time, so we looked after our staff. And um the big thing there was that we learnt our systems ourselves because we we still saw emergencies. Uh and so we'd assist one another for emergencies. And the best thing, even better for us that came out of it was that patients that we saw, we'd ask him who's your dentist. Then we call the dentist or send the dentist a message and say, Look, I saw your patient today. This is what he came for. When the lockdown ends, please call your patient. So it also became a really good networking tool for us when our guys get to feel that, hold on, these are very courteous. These are specialists, they've got a dentist here, but they're calling us. And most dentists, look, the patients that we saw were not money spinners. You're not paying the bills with that type of patients. But at least the guy who's sitting at home wondering what's going to happen to his practice when he comes back, because most guys thought that they're going to come back to nothing. At least they felt that there was some feedback where the patients were coming back somewhere. Uh, and we had the facilities and the space to to do all of the protocols that they wanted at that time to see patients. So we weren't seeing them on appointment basically on the emergency. You saw patients at 11 o'clock at night, saw patients at like seven in the morning. Someone calls it the problem. And now you're gonna go out because even in the even if that patient doesn't come back to you, hopefully they'll tell someone else, hey, these guys help me out. Um which is something else that I also learned from Shannaz at KDC. That if you see a patient in an emergency and you make them comfortable as soon as possible, they will never forget you. They may go back to their own dentist, but the most important thing is that they'll remember you and they'll always say something good to you when someone else looks for dentist as well. So and then that from there we kind of just moved along. And I think now as COVID ended, the company started becoming more active and more present and came to the forefront, and that's where the teaching came to be. It happened more organically. And the way the teaching really happened was, and I think specifically the the two companies that I work quite a bit with would be Strauman, uh Access Dental, FKG, um, Iverdent, um, and then and now recently with a little bit of GC as well, is that as a registrar or as a prostodontist, they'll give us samples. And I'll take the sample, the registrar, and use it, and I'll always give them feedback. Whether it was a phone call or an email, but say, you know what, I did this and this is what happened, and this is how it worked out. And I think the companies did take a liking to that because they're not just giving products to nothing. Um and then with this, also, I'm I'm really a big supporter, I said, of building a network, and ITI played a big role at that, at that stage in my career. I joined ITI in 2013, uh before edge time actually. Uh, and now you're meeting Paul von Sales, Ian Cunlings, Blackie Swartz, Jean van Lirops, Mark Bowes, Howard Glackman, giants of Cape Town, and if not the world in certain areas, and I'm a little 24-year-old dentist. Um and to tell you the truth, my first ITI meeting, and I say this quite proudly for myself and for what ITI stands for. Um my first ITI meeting, I understood not a single word. Ask me why. It was in Italian. It was in Afrikaans. Oh, okay, yeah. I'm a Durban boy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But with respect to them, they asked, like, and this is and because I I was at Tigerberg and I stayed out that side, um, I joined the Northern Suburbs Club. I had no clue that northern suburbs meant that it's on the other side of the Borovos Strength. Oh, yeah, oh, I thought it was an offensive term there.

SPEAKER_01 2:25:16

I think that's what they call it. That's what they call it.

SPEAKER_03 2:25:19

And uh look, in defense of them, they still asked, like, is everyone okay with Africans? You think I was gonna be the one boy to say, like, English, please? Now I sat here, so I waited for the photos to come up and I got a feel of it. And then up until I think it was either Peter Wolfart or Paul Fansel came and they chatted with me. And again, like it's extremely humbling and inspirational that these older guys come up to you and ask me, like, what's your name? Haven't seen you before. And ever since then, there's a table of halal food, they extremely accommodating. It's just a matter of putting yourself out there. Our country is the most beautiful country to live in, and as diverse as we are, we are a lot more inclusive than what we give ourselves credit for. It's just a more matter of go there, and then people will be able to give you what you need.

SPEAKER_02 2:26:06

Exactly. And familiarizing yourself with the unknown.

SPEAKER_01 2:26:09

Well, hold on. And also your attitude, because look, you could have taken that the whole wrong way. You could have said, look at these guys, they only spoke Africaans, they knew uh, they couldn't see me.

SPEAKER_03 2:26:18

There's no child for me here. Now I must go back to KFC and get my thing. Yeah. But I was there to learn. Like the other stuff was just pluses. But the fact that you put yourself out there and then and now that stays, and this is also why over the years I've been such a big supporter of the organization because it played such a big role in my formative years. Um Then how do you start lecturing and all these things again? And then with this now through the ITI, um they you do a local study club lecture. It's daunting. You again, this the youngest guy in in the audience, 24, 25, 26 years old, and there's guys who are. I think I was looking at one of my first photos. I'll tell you the story now. But you got a case, and I need to know what to do with the case. Where do you learn? So I was like, okay, part of my rich time is also to put cases together. So let's go ask an audience on how to manage this case. It also felt safer that I wasn't telling them what I'm doing, I was asking them. So it felt like an easier way to get into that space. Um and another reason why it's such a good space to start, or why it was at that time for me to start, was that the one table, I I look back, I counted 200 years worth of dental experience. Like let that sink in. 200 years is longer than three people's lifetime. Sitting at one dental table and you're asking them, how do I manage this case? And that doesn't have to be a complicated rehab. It's just that do I extract this tooth or do I do a root canal and put a crown on there? Um and then from there, it obviously started. You speak at a local study club and then you speak at your journal clubs at at faculty, which you should uh as part of your edge program. And then again, same thing with Access Dental and FKG. Uh, I thought I love endodontics. Um, don't get to do as much of it these days, but give Gavin feedback and then Gavin asked me, like, you're gonna have a little workshop on it. Like, I'd I'd love to talk to dentists about endo and um whatever it may be around it. And then from there it kind of just just grows. I I don't think it's an intentional thing that at the beginning of the year I see how many gigs I'm gonna get for the year. Uh what comes, comes. Ultimately, my primary thing or my main thing is treating patients. Uh the other stuff I really enjoy and comes along. And then uh now recently last year I uh I spoke with Howard at the Academy. That was a big moment for me because Howard was from day one. Day one guy. Yeah. Um he was the one that called me at that time and to stand next to Howard and made you sweat. Yeah. Yeah. Uh but to stand next to him and talk with him at the academy and see the levels of how dentistry is done in that space, there was a different world as well, and also very exciting. Um where the challenge comes in, and we're gonna talk a little bit more about the education thing, is that I have lectured in Sudan about four times. Khartoum. Uh I did this through my reg time. I I made friends with the master's students that come around, and then they ask me, like, the stuff that you spoke about at the seminar on Friday, do you want to come and shade back home with us? I'm like, I'd love to. Like it's it's a travel experience as well.

SPEAKER_02 2:29:20

And no one chooses to go there. You don't you don't see people coming out and asking you to come give a lecture in the northern African countries and the Eastern African countries.

SPEAKER_03 2:29:29

And I I've been fortunate to have done Nigeria, Sudan, um, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Namibia, obviously. And Sudan was mind-blowing. The people are beautiful, like the most amazingly positive individuals, even though the country is in basic abject poverty right now because of the war that's going on and that that genocide, it's very sad. Uh but I've got a lot of friends and family of these friends out there as well, and therefore I had to flee and leave. And that's why that skills and knowledge, regardless of what happens, you keep with you. And when I was in Sudan, you start realizing also how fortunate we are to practice dentistry in this country. Um but it's all of these experiences together that come, and you start realizing, you know what, there's more to dentistry than just treating that patient on a Monday morning. It's it's a community, it's a country, it's it's a generation that's going to eventually learn from this. But what I picked up in Sudan walk driving down the streets of Khartoum, I think on that one street I saw about six training academies. For dentistry. For dentistry. Wow. The dental classes there are huge. The one dental class is 900 students. It's like it's like an accounting class. But there's these private organizations lining the streets there. And the problem there comes in is that it's unregulated. And fortunately in our country at the moment, dentistry, the education is not regulated, but there's still responsible individuals that are that are currently looking after it. But once these individuals leave from the private side.

SPEAKER_01 2:31:11

Oh, you mean like private uh courses and things like that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:31:14

Let's call ITI or When you're saying education, you mean uh ITI, IA, Bridge Program, PRA, um Access Dental will have their private things, Henry Schein will have their private things. And all of these things happen, but we must remember that it's not regulated. So if it's not regulated, uh currently someone like Howard is an extremely responsible individual. Uh he's gonna do his level best to run his organization in a certain way uh and to impart knowledge in a certain way that's to the benefit of the community. But what happens with education afterwards when when the next guys come along? Or if other people are doing it purely for financial gain. Uh currently the guys that are doing it are doing it because of education and passion. Uh and to be fair, you look at someone like Mark Bowes, he's brought international dentistry to s to s to SA. Um he's connected South African dentists to guys like Coachman and Stanley. And uh it's incredible because if you look at what happened-like if you look at what's happened elsewhere in Africa where they don't always have the contacts that we have or the networks that we have, uh they can become very isolated. But what happens in 10 years' time or 20 years' time uh when that passion goes away? It's like most things when then the the founders have the passion for it and then it becomes unregulated afterwards. And I think that's where somehow we have to find a com like a succession plan. Also, a succession plan, but also controlling it so it stays responsible.

SPEAKER_02 2:32:54

It's like that's what I was gonna say. I mean, I don't know what's the word you use, but I was gonna actually say legislated more than anything else.

SPEAKER_01 2:33:01

Well you said regulated. Regulated, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:33:04

Because you you're 100% right. Anyone in the private sector, private sector is unregulated. If I decide, hey, I want to make this thing a dental product, I'll come and sell it to you and I'll start running a course or whatever it is, you're gonna come to me. But who's regulating that, what I'm doing? Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 2:33:20

Yeah, so it's what you're saying is it's susceptible to abuse. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 2:33:23

It is susceptible to abuse.

SPEAKER_01 2:33:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:33:24

And I don't think it's there yet, but I think in future, if it's in the wrong hands, which anyone can do, because what's stopping the three of us from deciding tomorrow, man, this is good money, let's do education. To be fair, we can't have all responsibility on the university. Our universities are state funded. And dentistry is fast evolving and expensive.

SPEAKER_01 2:33:44

And they've got to train undergrads also. I have to train undergrads as well.

SPEAKER_03 2:33:48

Like they've got kids like you running around and need to control them. Uh and and and how does that work? Maybe I don't have the answers. Maybe there's something of some collaboration. I know some organizations are talking and looking at collaboration. Collaborating. Uh I think the collaborative space is a good space because it protects patients, protects the industries, protect the universities, it protects everyone if there's collaboration because it's no longer one central kingpin that's that's gonna gain I don't know. Um I agree.

SPEAKER_01 2:34:15

The the profession needs to figure it out.

SPEAKER_03 2:34:17

Yeah. Yeah. But someone needs to or s somehow someone needs to take charge of it. Um so it's a tricky thing, but I think the conversations have to be started. It's like the same thing with uh dental therapists. I would I'm not gonna ask the question, is it needed or is it relevant right now, because we still have training for it going on. So obviously the powers to be believed is relevant, but that's not regulated. Uh dental therapists in I think we're the only country that still offers dental therapy. Uh and we've got dental therapists that are also working out of scope. And we've got dentists that are that are accomplice to dental therapists working out of scope as well. I'm not saying all therapists work out of scope, so let's not blow up the comments and get defensive here, but we do know that that it is something that is prevalent and it's happening. And um we're talking about regulation, and this is when we spoke about materials, we know that there's dentists out there that get their assistance to take impressions for them when they aren't around. Um and to what level of accountability are we looking after our profession? And we can't say that patients don't respect us because we're not respecting our profession. Not all of us.

SPEAKER_01 2:35:24

We need a strong regulator. Yeah. And that's the profession needs to make sure that we keep keep that going. I think But maybe you maybe that's that's your role in 10 years' time. Who knows? What's what's the plans next? How's Matrix doing?

SPEAKER_03 2:35:37

Matrix is moving along, we're grateful. It's just moving along, we're very happy with how things are going on. See you guys on social media. There's obviously things that we would want to change, and we drop the ball every so often. I don't think we expect to be perfect at it. Uh what's the plan for the next 10 years?

SPEAKER_01 2:35:51

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 2:35:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:35:54

Full-time trainer, teacher, lecturer?

SPEAKER_03 2:35:58

I like the balance. I regulator. I like the I like the bit between the two. I like being part of the university. So I do two days a week at the varsity. Um I I do sessions at the Maxwell Clinic, treating patients with uh maxillofacial defects, oncology, trauma patients. At Tiger Berg. At Tigerberg. So I like that balance of being in both space. I enjoy private practice, I enjoy the running of the practice, the business, the treating of the patients, meeting people. Um I can't see myself being in one place. I wish that I could be more involved in research. Uh I'd love to be more involved in research, but I don't think I have the capacity of doing more in that space there. Um I think where the next 10 years of our profession is going to be one on how well one we respect our profession, how well the profession can either self-regulate or need a big brother to regulate us. And that comes from everything, whether it's scope of practices, our education, how education is managed, um, and everything below that. I think the other part that we need to be very careful about is clinical practice. Historically, if you did something in your practice and it worked on your patient base, before Yak knew about it, would probably take him about six months to a year. He'd need to meet you a couple of times. I've got to make some time, and then before I would find out about it in Cape Town, it would probably be like three years later.

SPEAKER_00 2:37:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:37:20

Social media, you do something in your practice today. Oh. I know about it before Yak knows about it, he's next door to you.

SPEAKER_02 2:37:26

Someone can do something in New York and it's on TikTok this instantaneously. Now where are we going with this now? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:37:32

Where we're going with this is that because it's worked in your practice and it's worked once, and it works twice, then it's worked three times, it doesn't mean that it's actually a treatment modality. It means that it's something that you've used based on your experience to work on your patient base. Because I'm gonna do it, it doesn't mean it's gonna work for me, and I could have completely opposite results to you. And I saw uh there's a periodontist from Eastern Europe, uh, his name is Algeraz, and I saw an interview where he spoke recently, and he says that clinical practice needs research, and research needs clinical practice, and we need both to work together. And when we say research, I'm not saying research that you and I do on YouTube because your research and my research on YouTube means it's bullshit. It means nothing. Uh I'm talking research about level one, high quality, randomized control trials that's then backed up with systematic reviews, clinical trials and those things at very low level. It has its place, but we need both to work together. And I think in the next 10 years, the the business, the finances, the marketing, the ego, all of those things will come to play. And then suddenly you've got someone selling you a specialist dental glass of water, and it means nothing. And I think that's the tricky part with our profession. Uh, and how do we control this as well? Because there's there's gonna be more of this coming along, whether it's intraoral scanners, whether it's C B C Ts, AI, or just treatment philosophies. Um and we have to be responsible. And I think sometimes when guys come along with with new things, um they feel they feel get they get get they get a bit of emotional about it, that they're being shut down, uh, and that people are trying to bully them into not doing it. But also with good reason. Like you you someone's advocating a certain type of coronary bypass surgery. And it's risk. And it's risk, and there's very low level evidence to just it to to prove that it's a treatment process that can work and it's gonna affect someone's life. Like, um, and especially if I'm financially benefiting from that, it's it's something that's that that does make it a bit of a tricky thing to to work around. So, and and and I know the universities, our. I know the guys at UP, I know the guys at fact, yeah, I know the guys at all universities, no one's gonna stop you from coming to do good quality research. And I think anyone, and my advice to any young dentist, if you if you have something that you think can work and you want to employ it and you think that it can be of benefit to patients, approach the universities. Someone will listen to you and then do the research. And if it comes back positive, validate that research, and then you can roll it out. It's it's only the responsible thing to do. Whether it's for your children or your parents or your family members, you want them to have level one evidence that's being done for them.

SPEAKER_01 2:40:36

So Yeah, Google, that's food for thought. We we need to wrap up. So I need to ask you a light-hearted question now before we end. Something lighthearted. Like so if Elon Musk is right, okay. So Elon Musk thinks that in 10 to 15 years' time, AI and robots are going to be doing every single thing and we are going to actually we'll only do work if we want to do work. Like you know how people sometimes grow vegetables in their back garden because they like to, not because they have to. That will be work. So if if AI and robot robots take over and you've got not- and if you've got nothing else to do, what would you do with your time? Like, what do you do for fun, man?

SPEAKER_03 2:41:12

We will always need a prostodontist.

SPEAKER_01 2:41:14

See, I didn't even say that. Look at you getting all defensive.

SPEAKER_03 2:41:18

No, no, but like uh I think to be true, service-based industries will always be protected. Robots will do a lot, but service-based industries will are always gonna be protected and even more healthcare. It might be a nice phase to say that I'm going to a robot that's gonna do my dental care, but patients are gonna be like, no, I actually want the caring hand and the nurturing touch of a healthcare practitioner to look after me. Yes, we will use AI to improve the efficiencies and the predictabilities of our treatment processes, but I think we will always be necessary. And I think this is where the responsibility from our side comes in is that not to lean on AI as being our primary source of execution. These are still the primary source of execution. AI just makes it all. Technology just makes it more efficient.

SPEAKER_02 2:42:04

The way you asked the question, I can see how you missed the point of it. Because I didn't you because what would I do outside of this? Yes, let me refresh.

SPEAKER_03 2:42:11

What would I do outside of this?

SPEAKER_02 2:42:12

I would what what do you like to do? What do you do outside identity? What do we do?

SPEAKER_03 2:42:16

I would love to pack a camper van and just drive and travel. I'd I'd I love camping, I love being outside, I love nature, I love I love anything that's away from the busyness of technology and society and I love people, uh, but I love nature. And I think if I was able to, the ultimate goal would be is that to work as a hobby and be able to have the Google four-day or five-day weekends and and enjoy being out there, being out there in in nature.

SPEAKER_02 2:42:49

Uh and to what degree do you think you you're starting to achieve that? You said this morning you ran 15Ks.

SPEAKER_03 2:42:56

Um I think I'm still at that phase in life where as much as I think that I I can I can I think I could definitely do that, but I'm still very excited about doing what I do. So I will continue working as excitedly as what I do, purely because it's just it's it's fun. I I I love what I do. So maybe it's maybe to do the other stuff as well. I think that's probably why I can't do research because there's only so much time that you have to climb a mountain and to um uh treat patients in between, you're not gonna get all of that done.

SPEAKER_01 2:43:28

When are we playing cricket and who are we playing with? Who's gonna be on the who do you play with? Anybody do you play with dentists and clinicians?

SPEAKER_03 2:43:33

No, no, it's but with non-dentists. Yeah. But the last cricket game that we had, the names that you'll know from there was Sean. John was pretty good, Fanliero.

SPEAKER_00 2:43:42

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:43:42

Um Howard was there, Ibrahim Faker, the Max Fac was there, Naeem Mohammed, the Max Fac was there. Um a whole host of these guys can play. Well, we had a good game. Um Ali Mohammed was there as well. Well answered, well answered. Uh lots of fun. I I think this can be the inspiration to put it. Was it a CPD event or what? No, we didn't, but maybe if Yash comes, we can get some CPD players.

SPEAKER_01 2:44:05

But you know Yak has done a CPD event at uh the Sada branch. It was fun. That was fun.

SPEAKER_02 2:44:12

Genders are competitive, yeah. That's why I'm surprised you didn't uh mention it.

SPEAKER_01 2:44:15

It was a good way to pull a crowd for the CPD event. So they had like a paddle tournament. How did it like a round robin thing?

SPEAKER_02 2:44:23

Yeah, it was just like uh it was like a round robin thing. They call it an Americano in um in paddle terminology, but it's just you play random people. But it was more so for uh it was a CPD event because we had a chirocrated giving us a lecture as well with stretching and you know all our kyforces' backs. Impressive. But yeah, we're doing another one coming up soon. So um so that's an idea for you.

SPEAKER_01 2:44:45

That's an idea. Tell Iberdent or whoever that you you to organize something like that. Let's play cricket. And then what?

SPEAKER_02 2:44:52

We're gonna fly down to Cape Town to play cricket. Well, whatever. Whatever it is.

SPEAKER_03 2:44:55

He's not gonna come, you come for the chow, but you can't.

SPEAKER_02 2:44:58

I'll come for the chow. You know, on on the closing note, I just wanted to mention the only presto that I've ever had done, I think, my opinion, is because of Yash. I don't get it. And because of cricket. So a long time ago, we used to play like cricket in his backyard, right? And there was one day I had a hectic toothache, and I'm so sure he bowled a ball and it hit me in the in the smooth yeah. But I didn't I didn't re even realize it at the time. But there was some internal root resorption that happened, and the tooth turned non-vital like many, many years later. And in a twist of fate, ironically, his wife had to treat the tooth, and then I had to have a crown on it. He doesn't work.

SPEAKER_03 2:45:42

Well done, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:45:42

So I'm claiming from the podcast for this prostil that I had to have done. But uh yeah, do you want to ask our final our finale question?

SPEAKER_01 2:45:51

Yeah, look. Oh, I don't like that. We always ask this question. Oh, boy. But it's an easy one, I think, for you. I I think you can answer this very easy. We we say, like, if somebody comes to you and says, Dr. Effigy, I'm thinking of doing dentistry. I'm I'm I'm torn between medicine or something or engineering. My parents are expecting me to do this and I want to do it. Oh, truck driving. Can you give me some advice? What would you advise an aspiring dentist to think about?

SPEAKER_03 2:46:16

My advice would be personally, I love it, I enjoy it, and these are the reasons why I do enjoy it. These are I I I I get that question very often. But these are the things that look out for. Look out for the fact that if you have a corporate job, you're gonna earn a salary every month, you're not gonna stress about your income. Was we basically commissioned workers. Your month to month, and someone told me this at one point, as a dentist, you'll never know that you made it at life. Because what happens next month? And you can't guarantee that. Your hand, a perfect example. We love our lifestyles, we love doing what we do, but we've got to be aware that at any given moment, a slight slight lapse of concentration. You were a 30-day lapse of concentration climbing up a mountain, but a lapse of concentration climbing up lion's head, and your finger gets caught in a rock while trying to go up the chains. Something as silly as that. People do it every day. Uh be aware of all of those limitations around that. Um but I I wouldn't change it for the world. Uh my my ideal thing, and he's gonna listen to this, I'm sure he's happy I won't mention his name. Uh, Uce Adam. He's a dental student that qualified now last year.

SPEAKER_01 2:47:22

We know him. You know his. We know him because I said uh in my last, in the last episode called Reflections, we were we expressed gratitude to various people, our guests, etc., etc. And I gave him a shout out and um Johan de Klerk because they had a podcast called Cusp of Coffee. And they were one of the inspirations.

SPEAKER_02 2:47:37

Yeah, he's got such a calming voice. Johan. Oh, I thought it was Oasis's voice that was calm. Oasis' voice is not calming.

SPEAKER_03 2:47:45

Don't say good things about Ues's.

SPEAKER_01 2:47:46

Johan's got a deep, calming voice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:47:48

Okay. So yeah. So Oes actually came to my practice in his matricha. He is his mom's a dentist and he had no interest in doing dentistry. Uh simply probably because the symptom of what, don't do dentistry, or he saw dentistry as his mom's practice. And he came to me as a patient and he saw the practice and he started asking questions. And the next thing, after between taking impressions for a bite plate and delivering a bite plate, he tells me I'm gonna apply for dentistry. Uh and then he applied for dentistry and the rest is history. Uh so I think get the right information and when you got the right mindset and you know what you're getting yourself into, um, the decision becomes easier to make. And the challenges, choose your hard. The accountant's gonna have his hard. Financial year end, he's gonna have his stress. He's working in a corporate entity, he's at the bottom of food chain for a long time. Choose your hard. Nothing's gonna be easy. Uh, but if you know what's hard you're choosing, or for a greater degree, anything can become manageable for you.

SPEAKER_01 2:48:46

Thank you so much, man. It's been fun. Thanks for having me. What did you think? Is there anything that we left out you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_02 2:48:51

Or no, no, I think we covered a lot somehow.

SPEAKER_01 2:48:53

It was Thank you so much for giving us the time, man, and being so open and honest with that.

SPEAKER_02 2:48:56

And coming all the way from Cape Town. No, it doesn't have to be your first like guest that we imported, and it's been a lasting impression. No pun intended. Absolute impressute privileged.

SPEAKER_03 2:49:09

Yeah, yeah. The generous one wasn't enough earlier for him. He waited for his finale. Shot, dude, thanks so much for that. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah. Shot, man. Thanks a lot.