Archive for April, 2007
April 6, 2007 at 10:52 pm by Ian Kerr
Filed under General
We have finished out first week as the new expanded team and I have seen a superb effort by every new member. Russell joined us as the new dentist and my new business partner and he has made an excellent transition in both roles. He has been helped immensely by his long standing nurse Phillappa who has tackled the many new demands put on her superbly. Our new hygienist Christine has worked two days with us and is adjusting incredibly well to the new protocols and systems that we have introduced. Vikki is now full time with us and is growing in to her new role of “Treatment Co-ordinator” with typical professionalism. Vanessa (senior receptionist) Julie (practice manager) and Amie (my nurse) have all worked incredibly hard to make the first week go so well and I would like to thank every member of the team for all of their endeavours.
Many new patients are coming to StoneRock, some of whom have seen Russell, Phillippa and Christine before and I would like to say that they are all very welcome and we are grateful for the opportunity to care for them.
On a personal level I am extremely proud of the StoneRock team and feel honoured to be working with them. Thank you once again for all of your work and for making me so proud!
April 6, 2007 at 10:38 pm by Ian Kerr
Filed under Clinical Cases
As promised I have taken some photos of my new, whiter smile. The whitening system that I used is one called “Enlighten” and is the one that I now use routinely for all of my patients, who want whiter teeth. The system involves a 2 week home whitening stage followed by a one hour in surgery stage that happens on the 15th day. (Tougher cases such as tetracycline staining and very heavy smoking stains can take 4 weeks of home whitening followed by the one hour surgery visit). I am delighted with smile, but now also clearly very alarmed at the size of my eyebrows!
The result that my teeth have shown is very typical of the results that we are seeing with our patients all of whom seem very happy with the treatment. In a recent entry I wrote about a reporter who was wondering whether she should take up an offer of free whitening that she had won in a raffle. She had been told that it was painful and could damage her teeth. The second part is definitely not true, there is no long term damage caused by whitening with carbemide peroxide gel. The first part, about it being painful relates to the sensitivity that most people experience. Speaking from my experiences I would say that the effects were very mild. If we took a 0-10 scale where 0 is no pain and 10 is the worst agony imaginable then I would say it was around a 1 or a 2 for a few days and then stopped.
This second photo is a close up of my smile with a shade tab in place to show the colour that they were 2 weeks ago. This shade is the commonest shade for adult teeth and represents the colour of teeth in 70% of the population. Clearly most people could expect to get this sort of result in 2 weeks if they chose to do so.
If you would like to know more about whitening then please call the surgery on 01580 752202 and one of the reception team will be happy to help you.
April 1, 2007 at 9:25 pm by Ian Kerr
Filed under General
One of the mantras that have been drilled into me for almost my entire life is “buy cheap;pay twice”. During the four years that I lived and worked in Trinidad they taught me another way of saying the same thing “cheap ‘ting no good; good ‘ting no cheap”. Of course the reality is that we can almost never live by our mantras and necessity means that we constantly accept compromises and buy the cheaper alternatives. This weekend, however, I was given an excellent lesson in how much we loose by accepting these compromises.
As a combined birthday and anniversary treat my wife and I spent Saturday night in the Savoy Hotel, London and ate at Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant there. Now clearly this was not cheap but the difference in every level of service, care and produce was so palpable that it left me in no doubt just how much compromise I have been accepting. The ability of ever front line member of the Savoy “team” to make you feel welcome and valued as a customer was exceptional. The personal touch was evident at every level; the use of first name introductions, the turning down of the room (complete with slippers by the bed and a weather forecast card on your pillow) to the welcome at the restaurant with a personal greeting and a “happy birthday” for my wife. All this went to show that a well organised and dedicated team were concentrating on making every persons stay special.
Of course the next time I need to stay in London it won’t be at the Savoy (although I wish it could be). But I will be judging the next hotel very harshly and I will know if I got great value for money or just got something cheap. Any company that can offer five star service not matter what business they are in and can do so at a competitive level will succeed and it is my hope that this is what we are doing at StoneRock. I guess that only our customers can tell us this and I welcome any input that we receive.
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