Bottoms up for Race for Life
Seven
members of the practice team donned their Cleveland
CDIC t-shirts and took part in the Race for Life in
Darlington on Sunday 13th June 2010 to raise money for
breast cancer. A grey day surely was brightened at the
sight of these energetic ladies in the pink “running”
for such a good cause. Midsummer madness, maybe, but
they managed to raise £454.00 for charity and
brought a smile to the faces of many of the onlookers.
Well done!
Bright and Beautiful
After
months of study, Karen, Janie, Kerry and Linzi, have
been successful in the incredibly difficult Radiography
exam, whilst Sarah has just passed her dental nurse
exam and, apart from a little more course work, will
soon be a fully qualified dental nurse.
We are all happy to recognise their extremely hard
work and also to thank all of our dentists who helped
them along the way with tutorials and problem solving
exercises. At times, even the dentists struggled with
the complexity and depth of the Radiography course and
they really had to pull on all of their reserves to
help. What a brilliant achievement for all five team
members.
Their
commitment and dedication has been over and above what
would normally be expected - four of them actually missed
an Awards ceremony in Leicester as their exam was the
very next day. Their desire for self improvement and
training is a great asset to the practice and our patients,
enabling us to continue to provide the very best service
and care.
Of course, like the rest of us, they are not perfect
and we all celebrated with Kerry’s chocolate cake
one day and cream cakes the next – we’re
only human, after all!
Ding Dong our practice is merrily on high!
After travelling to the Athena at Leicester on 4th
December for the Dentistry Awards 2009 where we were
shortlisted for 7 out of the 9 categories, the whole
team were delighted with the results. Christmas came
early and for the second year running, we were awarded
Best Practice for the North East Region, Mike Heads
was highly commended for the National Outstanding Achievement
Award and Kevin Caruana was highly commended for the
Best Young dentist for the North East Region. After
being shortlisted for 3 out of the 4 categories for
the National Dentistry.co.uk Website Awards 2009, we
were awarded the National Award for Best Website.
With
the exception of 4 team members who were taking their
Radiography exam that Saturday, we made the trip our
Christmas celebration and partied on the coach there
with games, competitions and prizes. The fancy hat competition
was fiercely contended with the Christmas tree hat taking
first prize. Celebrations continued at the splendid
black tie dinner and Awards ceremony till the early
hours of the morning.
We have had a fantastic year in terms of being honoured
with so many Awards and we would like to thank all of
our loyal patients who have supported us over the years.
We have entered these Awards to ensure we match up to
the very best practices in the UK and to confirm we
are giving our patients the very best service –
the whole team are proud to be acknowledged by fellow
professionals for the excellent care we provide and
we are committed to ensuring this continues.
Be happy with us.
Have a very merry Christmas and a happy, prosperous
New Year.
Mouth Cancer Action Month - November 2009– It is important to educate everyone with the signs and statistics of oral cancer…….
To make people more aware of mouth cancer and to support the above campaign, we are having an open day on Saturday 21st November 2009 where we will be offering free oral cancer screening with our state of the art Velscope machine – this is offered to non practice patients, as patients at this practice receive this screening free within their Denplan Care scheme (other practices normally charge privately for this service). Please telephone the practice to arrange an appointment (01642 570138).
25 years and still the sky is the limit!
25 years since the practice opened, the Dental
Healthcare Centre has celebrated in style by showing
it still has what it takes to provide their patients
with award winning facilities and care. What better
way to celebrate than to collect 5 of the 23 trophies
at the National Dental Awards held in London on Friday
of last week. 8 members of the team travelled to the
Royal Lancaster Hotel for a Black tie dinner on Friday
24th April 2009 which was hosted by former M.P. and
television star Giles Brandreth.
It was a stunning evening which started with the practice
collecting the Award for Practice Design and Interior
North and then following this up by collecting the Award
for the whole of the UK which was presented by the Chairman
of Denplan, David Phillips. “The practice wowed
the judges with its “breathtaking quality of design”
and they said, “the practice is a benchmark for
practices aiming to deliver the ultimate patient experience.”
The second half of the presentations came after dinner,
when our hygienist, Karen Hails was presented with the
National trophy for Hygienist of the year – no
mean feat as there are 4000 registered hygienists in
the country. The judges were impressed with her well
structured care routine which contributed to a high
level of patient motivation. Karen was very emotional
as she collected her trophy from Kathryn Norris, Products
Manager for Dentsply UK. It is one of the highest accolades
for our hygienist who works so hard and has a fantastic
relationship with each and every one of her patients.
Currently overseeing a hygienist referral service and
our fresh breath clinic, Karen still has her feet firmly
on the ground, but justly deserves this National recognition.
Just when we thought the evening could not get any
better, Practice principal, Mike Heads who had been
nominated for the Award of Dentist of the Year without
him knowing till after the nomination had been sent,
was announced as Dentist of the Year North. We were
all excited for him as he is not the sort of person
who would put himself forward for anything like that
and could not believe it when he went to collect his
trophy. It did not seem as though he was sat down for
5 minutes when he was up again receiving his Award for
Dentist of the Year for the UK which was presented to
him by the Marketing Director of Dentsply UK, Dean Hallows.
The judges were impressed by Mike’s outstanding
leadership and said that Mike had been referred to as
a perfectionist whose aim is to deliver the highest
standards in dental care for his patients. As Giles
Brandreth pointed out, there are approximately 25,000
registered dentists in the UK and for Mike to receive
this honour is a brilliant achievement.
We are all in shock, but are so pleased to be celebrating
25 years with a collection of National trophies –
in a period of 6 months we have been awarded 6 National
trophies, not including those we have won for the North
Region.
Mike Heads commented, “Holding six major awards
from four different awards ceremonies shows our success
is no fluke. We are over the moon with the achievements
of our own practice, but I also feel these National
honours should be celebrated by everyone in the North
East. They are an indication that the people and businesses
in this area can achieve at the highest level and compete
with the best in the rest of the country, and beat them.
We hope the next 25 years holds the same success and
happiness as we are experiencing now and that our patients
continue to benefit from the high standards of care
and service we are able to provide.”
Mike joins the stars at the Smile Awards
Mike
competed against many of the top cosmetic dentists in
the country at the National Smile Awards in London on
20th March 2009. He was shortlisted in two categories
– “Conservative Smile” and “Generosity
of a Smile” and was successful in the latter category.
His case presentation of the treatment he had done for Mandy Williams was praised for its excellent documented records and, though a very complex case, the excellent results which had been achieved.
Mike was delighted to have helped Mandy regain her confidence and her beautiful smile - her character and determination has inspired him to provide more of his time on a complimentary basis to help others in similar circumstances.
Mike commented, “to be shortlisted amongst some of the best cosmetic dentists in the country was an achievement in itself, but to actually win one of the categories was totally unexpected.”
The Practice Wow Factor
While
Mike attended the Smile Awards, Linda was also attending
an Award ceremony at the other side of London in Old
Windsor. Following their original entry and a visit
from the judges, The Dental Healthcare Centre and Cleveland
Cosmetic and Dental Implant Clinic were short listed
to the last two finalists in their category “Small
City/ Large town” in the Dental Practice Wow Awards.
“The purpose of the Wow Awards is to recognise and reward excellence in a dental practice. They are, deliberately, rather different from other dental awards in that their focus is not simply on impressing others in the profession, but rather the impact a practice is having on patients. In short we are looking for practices that evoke a spontaneous Wow! from their patients.”
Mike accompanied Linda to this venue where they both
had to give a power point presentation about the practice.
Mike then hurried off to Kensington to attend the Smile
Awards, leaving Linda to listen to the findings of the
judges and the results. The standard was exceptionally
high and the route to the final had involved a lot of
hard work – on this occasion, the practice was
runner up in their category, but, nonetheless, this
was a brilliant achievement.
Our
role in the community – we are always
trying to give something back to the community we live
in. It has been very rewarding to accommodate our latest
works experience student who is considering studying
dentistry at University. Michael tracked the dentists
in their steps and proved to be a charming, interested
young man who I’m sure could make a great career
in dentistry.
Mike Heads asked to sit on Nobel Biocare Corporate
Advisory board – one of 12 dentists selected
Nationally to discuss the way forward with products
and services to reach even higher standards in implantology.
He is honoured to have an input into the future technology
of dental implants and continues to use his knowledge
and skills to give his implant patients the very best
treatment available.
Ophir
Fromovich, the inventor of Nobel Biocare’s
Nobel Active implant system took time out of a flying
visit to the North East to meet with Mike Heads
and his team. Mike was able to pick Ophir’s
brains on the Nobel Active implant system and get
the answers straight from the “horse’s
mouth, so to speak.” Mike was invited to join
this very learned inventor in Israel at his Clinic
to host some courses for fellow dentists –
this, indeed would be an honour and would give Cleveland
Cosmetic and Dental Implant Clinic a truly International
string to its bow.
Mike
Heads is honoured to join the panel of judges for
the 2010 National Private Dentistry Awards in London
after accepting the invitation from Chairman, David
Houston. He is delighted to have the opportunity
to work alongside many eminent dentists and to be
attending the Private Dentistry Awards in London
once again. Mike commented, 
Dentistry
Awards which proved, once again, to be an extremely
competitive and glamorous event. Many top notch
private practices had been short listed for a variety
of categories and the judges commented that both
the quantity and quality of entries amazingly continued
to improve and excel from year to year. Sir Paul
Beresford, dentist and M.P., hosted the evening
with sponsors of the event presenting the Awards.
Practice
wins National Award – Attending a very
glamorous Award Ceremony at the Intercontinental Hotel
in London on 7th November 2008, the practice was absolutely
delighted and overwhelmed to be awarded "The
Private Dentistry Award for Most Improved Practice 2008."
The criteria for this National Award was.
