Mastering the juggle of motherhood and dentistry

Dentistry‘s Next Top Digital Dentist winner, Sheena Tanna, shares how she balances motherhood and dentistry.

What was it like to return to dentistry after maternity leave?

Returning to dentistry after I had had a baby was, I think, perhaps different for me, because I am a principal dentist, so I had maintained contact with the practice the whole time, because I’ve got to run it, and I’ve got to oversee everything. However, coming back onto clinic was a new experience.

Prior to having a child, I’d been on six days a week clinical, and I came back for about a week and realised that that was not going to happen again. So I had to come back. I had to reduce my hours on clinic, which is a massive thing to do when you own a practice and you care so much about it, and I had to look at our systems and processes and think, how are we going to continue to deliver amazing patient experience with a reduced clinical presence for myself, and how will I continue to lead the team in the direction I want without being here six days a week.

And these were major challenges that I had to sit down and consider and implement.

What support networks did you draw on to help you transition back into the sector?

Having a support network is really important when you are juggling life as a mother and a career in dentistry. And I am really blessed with a really lovely support network from home. I have a lovely family, and I have lots of friends who are very supportive of what I do and are very encouraging of what I do.

But one of the things that I really believe in, and I did, is, I’ve got two children, and each time I had a child, I was very aware of this need to make sure I had a good support network within dentistry. And so each time I came back, I signed myself up to a major course. It was of a year each time, and the reason I did that is because it exposed me to mentors within the field that I was so passionate about, and it exposed me to peers within that field who I could bounce ideas off, and who would help elevate my dentistry and elevate the patient experience.

Dentistry, I think, can be quite a lonely profession, but when you make sure you’re surrounded by amazing people, you’re not alone anymore, and that’s when you thrive, and that’s when you grow, and that’s when you’re excellent.

How did you overcome the challenges that came with your journey back into the sector?

One of the biggest things I did was sit down and I created the vision for Billericay Dental Care, and it’s only a few lines, but it took me about a month to put it together. And the reason I created it is because I realised I need everyone to understand this. I need everyone to understand the path we’re on without me always being here. So I created the vision, and then I hired a manager, and I explained this vision to her, and I worked very closely with her, so she understood what we were trying to achieve.

And then we sat down as a team, and we created the mission, and the mission is 10 points on how we will achieve the vision. And that allowed me not to be here, but for the team to still be achieving our goals as one, and it was a massive thing as to why we grew, why I was comfortable stepping back, and how I am still reassured every single day that we work towards the same goal.

What we found over the years is we review it periodically, because dentistry changes, life changes. So alongside it, the vision and the mission slightly change. So we always review it and say, Is this relevant to us? We close every quarter, and we train everyone in it, and we all look at it and decide whether it’s relevant, and if not, slightly tweak it. And then off that, we created a system of core values. So the core values are how we all treat each other in the practice, but also they are the values that we’re going to use to help us to achieve the mission, which helps us achieve the vision.

Everything’s related to each other, but by making sure that I spent this time with the team, and I do spend that time with the team, I make sure I’m here every time we do that training, I then know they’re on this set path, and I can then trust that we’re going to grow in the right way without me needing to be here six days a week. It was a massive thing. We did a lot of work, but it was energy well spent.

Peers, mentors and learning

Professionally wise, it’s really important to be to be at top of my game. And dentistry moves 100 miles per hour. I mean, if you miss it for even three weeks, you’ll have missed something. And so I was very aware of that, and I love learning. So every time I came back, I always had planned a major course to do, and the reason I did that was to provide myself support.

I did the Aligner Dental Academy clear aligner diploma and it was for an entire year, and it was great. I met mentors who I still speak to now and they are still very much in touch with them. I’ve met peers, we have a Whatsapp group and we continue to message – we did this all years ago now. We continue to message almost daily about different cases, what we’re doing, what we’re learning.

When I bought my iTero Lumina scanner, I said, ‘Oh, guys, I’ve got a Lumina scanner’. And then people were saying, ‘Oh, she needs to do this. You need to do that’, and you bounce off each other, and when you bounce off each other, you become even better. So it was one of those things I did to make sure that I felt I was being supported, make sure I could support my team and to make sure we continue to grow, even with me having to reduce my clinical presence. And I think it’s worked well.

As a woman, how do you balance motherhood and your career?

I never understood why I had to choose between motherhood and a career. I wanted both.

I think balancing motherhood and your career is a constant juggle. I have managed to inspire my team and lead my team. One of the biggest things I did was create a really good management team, because I have a very strong practice manager who is here full time. I have my husband who is business manager, and I have myself, and then within the team, I have subsets of managers. So I have a clinical lead, I have a social media manager, I have a head of reception.

This allows everyone to feel supported without it always having to be me. So it allows me to take a step back and look after my children, but know that the practice is still on this one journey, and once again, that relates back to our vision, because all of these people, all of my team, are educated in the vision. So I know my management leads are educating and inspiring people through that vision. It all links together clinically.

Doing the dentistry I love

That was one of the major challenges: how do I deliver the best dentistry in less time, and how do I make sure patients still have a great experience, and how do I make sure that I’m still seeing all of them? And so that was one of the main drivers behind why I moved to Invisalign, because I found that it was a patient pleaser, because it didn’t show very much.

It also helped with me, because the appointments aren’t that long, so I was able to still do the dentistry I love. I was still able to do smile design, but I could spend less time with them in the chair and the patient’s happy because they’ve got their own life to lead. They don’t want to be here. So it allowed me to continue to do what I love doing.

And that was the same motivation as to why I was so inspired by digital, because digital is an amazing tool, and it’s great at diagnosing and it’s great at treating, but it also really improves your systems, and it makes it so much more efficient, and with that, you are then able to still do everything you love doing, but still have your children and be present as a mum.

Why did you decide to focus on Invisalign treatments as a way to achieve a healthy work/life balance?

I decided to focus on Invisalign treatments because I loved the product. Back when I first started Invisalign, I was doing mainly fixed braces, and my background was fixed braces, and I was very good at them. And when I first started, for every nine fixed braces I did, I think I was probably do doing one Invisalign. And what happened over time was I realised that it was such a patient pleaser. Whereas with fixed braces, they’re having to come in and see me every three or four weeks for adjustments. Even though I was doing tooth coloured braces, they still show, there’s still a change in diet, they’re still showing in photographs.

That’s not true with Invisalign. They might show subtly, but not really. So it was much more fitting into the lifestyle. I was then really lucky, because Invisalign offers a lot of support. So I had our territory manager come in, and he had a chat with me about everything, and I said to him, I said, ‘Oh, you know, I do a lot of complicated work with fixed braces’. And he said, ‘Well, we can do that with Invisalign. Let me bring someone in’. And he actually brought a mentor to the surgery. And this clinical mentor sat with me for an hour and said, ‘Look, we can do all these things.’

And so when I realised, well, the product can do the same thing that fixed braces can do, and it’s less clinical time, and that means I can still deliver an amazing experience, and I can still do this in less time and still be a mum, I was like, this is a no brainer. I need to go and learn this. And that’s what led me to going onto the aligner course, the diploma, because I was already good at Invisalign, but I wanted to be able to do complex cases, and that’s what the diploma let me do. And it led to pretty much the end of fixed braces of the surgery.

Tell us about the work dynamic you have with your staff and husband

If you want to run a practice, a practice isn’t just one person. A practice is everybody in that team and all the patients as well. You’re not a practice without your patients. So one of the things I learned really early on was I needed a really good support network within the practice. And so when you enter Billericay Dental Care, and when you become part of our team for however long you’re going to remain here, you’re part of our family, and that’s how we treat everyone.

When I took over the practice, one of the things I did was I got my husband involved, and so he has always been very supportive of what I do. He understands what I do, but I sat him down and I said, this is my vision. This is what I want to achieve, and this is what I need help to do, because I’m one person, and I’ve been very blessed that he understood it straight away. And he is very integral in helping me refine things. He helps with the patient journey, he helps with advertising, and that gives me the headspace to think about our next big growth. Because if I was doing all those things, I wouldn’t have the time to then keep growing us forward.

For the wider team, the vision and our mission really help them understand us and what we’re part of, but we do a lot of work with that. I also believe in investment, I always have. So every team member will have one or two courses from us every six to nine months, because we want to help them grow. We want them to be part of our journey, and we want to give them the resources and support they need to help them thrive as individuals and help them feel empowered in the workplace. And we’re very flexible. We have a lot of mums, so I’ll adjust their hours. I have nurses who work nine till three so they can still do school pick up.

I really do try and bring them in and bring out the best in them, in the hours that they have, so that they can have their career and still go home and be a mum.

What three key things would you recommend to your peers to inspire women in dentistry?

The three key things I would recommend to inspire women is, number one, create a timeline that you’re happy with. Take inspiration from other people’s timeline, but don’t feel forced into something. Understand that your life goes at different paces at different time. There may be a time where what you want to do is just invest time in being a mum, but there might be another time where you want to be more career driven. So create a timeline based on you and what you value, because at the end of it, you will then be happy and successful.

Number two is to create a support network. Make sure you have supportive friends and family, but make sure you invest in yourself, in finding peers and mentors you’re going to be able to bounce off and make your career thrive.

Number three is, invest in yourself unapologetically. Each time I came back onto clinic after having a child, I signed up to a year-long course, and the reason I did that is because I wanted to be the best I could be, and I wanted to achieve and make sure that I was providing an excellent patient experience. But I’m obviously a mother, and I carried some mum guilt around that.

But nowadays, things are very different to what they were 10 years ago when I had my first child, there are online courses and resources – really good ones. Align offers a world on their system, and you can do that from home. You don’t even need to leave. The baby can be napping, and you can do a course, and it keeps you forefront, and it keeps you engaged, and it means that when you come back, you’re on top form.

There’s really something in making the most of the resources around you, and when you do that, you become an inspiration to those people. And one of the things that I got was when I was feeling guilty about it, my little girl came to me, and she came with an arrow, and she put on it, ‘Welcome to Billericay Dental Care,’ where we make smiles last a lifetime, and you suddenly realise at the age of five that she understands what you do, and she’s proud of you, and there is no need to have mum guilt.

Dentistry’s Next Top Digital Dentist competition is run in collaboration with Align Technology, empowering the next generation of digital clinicians and supporting the advancement of digital workflows.