I feel very fortunate to have been given the opportunity to attend such a well organised event by the ADI. This was the first ADI event I have been to, and I am sure it won’t be the last. The trip was kicked off with a 4am drive to the Gatwick on a Thursday morning where myself, George and special guest, our ex-dental nurse Rhiannon, fuelled our bellies with a lovely eggs royale before making our way to departures for our flight to Edinburgh. Touch down in the glorious Edinburgh was a chilly one; they don’t lie when they say Edinburgh is cold!

Once checked in to our Haymarket hotel we made our way down to the Edinburgh International Conference Centre to register for the 3-day event and receive our welcome packs. Everyone working at the event was so helpful and were more than happy to direct us to where we needed to be. The EICC is a huge building with numerous rooms arranged over 3 floors. The ADI had taken over the building with seminars for dentists, hygiene therapists, dental nurses and managers covering a wide range of topics about replacing missing teeth with dental implants, as well as dental photography, teamworking, business development and marketing.

 

The first evening, George attended a special dinner at Edinburgh Castle as he is part of the ADI committee, helping to shape the organisation’s future to bring dental implants to more dentists and dental patients around the UK. Rhiannon and I headed into Saint Andrew Square on the hunt for an Italian restaurant, settling with a little place called “Amarone”. A few glasses of champagne helped to wash down the nicest prawn linguine I’ve ever eaten, in a charming surrounding! After this, we thought it only right to find a bar to sample some cocktails made with “Edinburgh Gin”. We found a cool underground gin bar called “Bramble”, and managed to get George out with us to try out the local specialties.

Friday held a full day of seminars for us all, meeting for a quick coffee in-between to debrief and chat about the great lecturers who had come from all around the world to speak at the event.  The Exhibition Hall had a myriad of stands with all the latest products in the implant field. The future of dentistry and implants within dentistry is very bright indeed, and it was great to talk to the company reps and see demonstrations of products coming to the market soon. At Bridgeways Dental we like to be at the forefront of technology so attending these kinds of events and building relationships is fantastic to do.

The morning lectures were so informative, mainly business development focussed, and gave me insights on how to build and develop a great team. I learnt about different characters and personality types within a working team which was quite interesting, definitely giving me some pointers I can take back the practice. The afternoon sessions had more of a clinical basis, we learnt about ‘what could go wrong with dental implants’ and also had a fun session on dental photography, how to get the best out of our DSLR cameras for accurate photos. Dental photography is really important, at Bridgeways Dental we take photos throughout treatment to aid in diagnosis, planning, and executing your treatment with the most information available. We also love the before and after pictures showcasing the results of our treatments!

The speakers and topics at the ADI were brilliant, it was a highly organised event and I met some lovely people who I look forward to seeing at other events! Attending the event has encouraged me to evolve personally in my career in dental implant nursing and to help shape our team to be the best at what we do at Bridgeways Dental.

On the Friday evening, Casey joined us after finishing work at the practice in Southampton with an afternoon flight from Southampton Airport. George had organised us all to attend the ADI Congress Gala Dinner at the National Museum of Scotland where we all got dressed up in our black-tie attire…a little different to our scrubs and crocs at our Bridgeways clinic! The evening theme was ‘The Greatest Showman’ so we had a sing along to the songs from the musical and watched ladies perform on aerial silks whilst eating our dinner. The Queen Tribute band really got the party going after our yummy food! From start to finish the evening was fantastic- who knew dentists could be such fun and dance the night away!?

Overall, I had a brilliant trip to Edinburgh and have learnt new skills and theories which I look forward to putting into practice at Bridgeways.  We are here to help you with replacing your missing teeth, we want you to be able to eat, smile, and laugh as you always have, or if not better! We can place single tooth implants, and even replace loose removable dentures with dental implants, so get in touch to book an appointment to visit us and benefit from our continuously evolving team.