Indra’s blog; About a Vision and a new Challenge
I unlock the door, turn off the alarm system and walk into the practice. It’s my second home really. It is the place where I spent as much time, probably more if you count my hours behind my laptop, as at home being a mother to my growing family.
But something does not feel right. It feels empty. Even though it is a Tuesday afternoon I am the only one in. There is no buzz, it’s a bit dark, but mainly very, very quiet.
It is 11.5 years ago that my husband and I walked into this building for the first time. It was almost derelict with a very cringy smell of secretes of beloved pets. The building had been empty for quite some time and the previous owners had moved to the Ramparts business park as this was way too small for the size their veterinary practice had become. I had seen these premises advertised online and thought this could be it. However, I had not even been in for ten minutes and I just could not see it happening, I could only smell a nasty smell of animals in their time of most distress. This is not a place for a dental practice, I told Hendrik, how can I ever turn this into the hygienic 21st Century practice that I have in mind? I said this while walking outside to catch my breath. Hendrik let me ramble on, told me to take 10 minutes and took me back inside. He then showed me what I was not able to see the first time. Take this wall down, dig this floor up, bring these windows down, clear all this…. Your rooms will be the size that you want. The size that you need. Really? Ok…. Yes, that would work…. And slowly but overwhelmingly I could see it happen.
It took 1.5 year from that point to win the bid, to create the vision, to plan and go back to the drawing board several times and do it better and finally to see it become reality. We hit a big wall of bureaucracy mixed with some unwillingness for the ideas that this newbie brought, which we fought with innovation, being smart and creative and above all some helping hands from the right places at the right time.
And then the practice opened. We built…. from scratch…. The two ‘girls’ I started with are still with me today…. Now ladies with kids …. We have all grown our own families, but also our practice family with some beautiful people…. our colleagues and our patients ….
March 2020 came and we were ordered to close due to the pandemic, not allowed to do any more what we love doing, what we are good at and why we do what we do.
It’s three months later now…. May 2020 and this is the 10-year anniversary for Berwick Smile Dental Care. Even though we are proud that we came this far… there is no place now for celebrations, no buzz, no party, no well-deserved surprise trip away for my team and me… instead telephone triage and online consultations, social distancing and the country in lockdown.
But we are still here with the same vision we started with 10 years ago; To build this amazing place to work, where we can help patients be pain free, be dentally healthy, become strong and confident and smile. But we are not only that, we are Smile Makers too. We do transformational dentistry to help our patients create their most confident smile as if it has been there forever. We have always liked a challenge and taken it straight on. We are known for solving patient dental problems that they have been told could not be solved. We got this.
So, you know what? We will be back; there will be light and music and buzz. We will open when we safely can and build up our practice again. Differently, slowly, with a lot more PPE (personal protective equipment), but we will do another 10 years and celebrate again… a new challenge in a new changed world, but nothing we can’t handle. Because we got this, we are a team! A fabulous team of Smile Makers with a Vision.
Be Strong, Be Safe and Smile
Indra xx