Life on the other side of the chair

I started my journey in dentistry when I left school to become a 'lab girl’ in a specialist orthodontic practice, casting study models and making vacuum-formed retainers. My sister was an orthodontic therapist within the practice, so in between making retainers, she was teaching me how to nurse. I was then enrolled on the National Certificate for Dental Nursing. Working in a sole orthodontic practice, I was not seeing any general dental nursing and struggled with understanding the terminology and treatments I needed to know. Every week, I went to a general dental practice to gain my dental nursing knowledge.

During my training, I moved practices and qualified as a dental nurse in 2012. The practice where I worked offered many opportunities for me and allowed me to continue my learning. I went on to study radiography as an online course in 2015 and qualified as an orthodontic nurse in 2016. These qualifications and years of experience got me thinking about my future. Unfortunately, there was no availability of becoming an orthodontic therapist at this practice, so I approached my previous boss to see if she would possibly train me with help from my sister.