Friday 30 August 2019

New job, new challenge, 1st blog!

This months blog is brought to you by Jill Reid, our new practice manager and Patient Care Coordinator.  You should have seen her face when I asked her to write it!  But she's done a grand job!  Here she shares her thoughts on becoming a new practice manager.

Becoming practice manager. Wow where do I even begin! It has been an absolute whirlwind of an experience ever since announcing to all the staff at the beginning of this year. I have learned so much about myself and how far I can be pushed before (the ice woman as some would call me) is broken and crushed, or in my case ended up with shingles!  
Seriously though I am extremely grateful to work for such a forward thinking, highly motivated and ambitious couple! I am honoured that Gillian and Keith see the potential in my abilities to not only run the practice but to help drive it forward to be the best possible Trust me that is always my goal in life to be the best...at everything... which becomes a problem for Keith and Gillian, as you can imagine I want to do it all, and most of the time right now. 
I started my career in dentistry as a Dental Nurse in 2013 which came as a shock to most as I have always been extremely nervous about my own dental treatment. I absolutely love Dental Nursing and find everything dentistry so exciting! Soon after I completed my dental nursing, I did an Oral Health Education course to further my career to become an OHE. This wasn’t the career path I ended up on however has given me endless information on how best I can advise patients on caring for their smiles.  
Moving to Coatbridge Family Dental Care has been my best career move so far, allowing me to assist Keith with even cooler dental treatment such as implants and not only learning about Invisalign but having this done for my wedding last year. This was also the best move ever, cI an't recommend Invisalign enough for straightening teeth, but I'm sure I can write another blog on that!  

So back to practice management, I'm not going to lie, I am winging it! I start my course the middle of September which will help with all the regulation etc and Gillian has been a huge help teaching me everything I know so far. I have to say a huge thank you to our team for their patience and understanding but I am learning as I go along, I won't always get it right first time but that’s ok, I am a quick learner. Our staff have done extremely well over the past few months a lot of changes have happened with new computer systems, practice inspections, new staff members and performing CPR on a team member which I'm glad to say all ended well.  
This has been a completely new experience for me in management but one I look forward to, and I have a newfound respect for Gillian having done this role for the last 10 years, it's definitely not as easy as I first thought. As well as Practice Manager I will take on the role of Patient Care Coordinator at the practice. This will allow me to be there every step of the way for our patients' dental journeys and only a phone call away to answer all your dental queries.   
So here I am 500 words later, and another learning curve, I am rubbish at short and sweet blogs, I do apologise I obviously like to blab a lot. But I suppose the short and sweet version is I love a challenge, and this certainly ticks all the boxes to keep me on my toes!