A kind of magic

Many dental nurses reading this may have already heard of the fast growing ‘The Magic Dentist’ campaign on social media or even on BBC news recently. I was lucky enough to speak to Nicki Rowland who is the innovator and driving force behind the success of the campaign. Here she takes a little time to tell us just what it is all about.

Where did your inspiration for The Magic Dentist come from?

It came from my observations of the problems of limited access to dental provision, the poverty crisis and the fact the teachers have been handed the responsibility to teach oral health education as part of the national curriculum have all compounded the dire state of children’s oral health across the UK. That is truly what influenced my decision to write The Magic Dentist book. Every child (and adult) loves a bit of magic and The Magic Dentist brings the tricks of a magician into his surgery. We even have a white rabbit and a magic spell in the book which children are loving! One evening, I read that last year 42,000 children were admitted to hospital for a general anaesthetic to have teeth removed and that children as young as five years old are having full clearances costing the NHS around £50.9 million each year. On top of these shocking numbers, we now know four out of five teachers report needing to hand out toothbrushes for pupils after finding out that some young children in places such as Norfolk have never seen a toothbrush. It’s a crazy situation considering we live in a civilised society and as an industry we need to take action and spread as much awareness of these issues as possible. I think we all have a duty of care to use our skills to deal with problems such as this so I decided to play my part, and The Magic Dentist campaign was born!