My journey from associate to principal dentist

Creating an oasis of calm: Smita Mehra charts her journey from associate to running a successful group of practices.

Moving from associate to principal dentist

I first qualified as a dentist from the University of Birmingham back in 1997 and started my career at the university as an associate, working predominantly as an NHS dentist as well as in mixed practices. I then moved to London and carried on my associate work before taking the plunge to venture out and start up my first squat, The Neem Tree Dental Practice, in 2004.

At the time, I decided that I wanted to work within and own a practice that was predominantly focused on patient care. I wanted one that had a spa-like quality to it, offered holistic treatments and which allowed patients to see dentists at times such as evenings and weekends – something that wasn’t offered by other dentists at the time we founded the Neem Tree.

When we opened the first Neem Tree back in 2004, I was pregnant with my first child, meaning that I needed help running the practice as I’d be going off on maternity leave just weeks after starting up.

I immediately hired two associates to help me out while I was on maternity leave. Within the first month of having our baby, I was back in work one day a week to help run the
practice as principal dentist.

However, over time, as we grew as a business, I took a step back, and the practice became, and still very much is, associate led, with me getting involved in wet-handed surgery as and when I’m needed.

Setting up the Neem Tree dental practices

At the time, holistic and spa dentistry weren’t really common practices, and so that’s what we wanted to do by opening up The Neem Tree – to give people a very pleasant and luxurious experience.

As we expanded, I really invested in the practice to make it as patient centred as I could – working with designers to make the clinic feel more of a lifestyle-based surgery as opposed to having a white and blue clinical feel. We even offered shiny green apples every day, so patients and staff had a healthy snack to take with them following their appointments.

This was essentially the inspiration behind it – to offer something unique and luxurious that a lot of people did not have access to.

Many of our patients living in Wandsworth, London, worked in the City and Canary Wharf, and they started to say that they could really do with something like our clinic closer to work. So, we opened a second practice in Canary Wharf, in the basement of the world HQ tower of Barclays Bank, and a third one in Esher, Surrey.

Following on from that, we also had a partnership arrangement in two other locations: Fleet Street and Notting Hill. All squat practices, all The Neem Tree.

Along the way, we decided we wanted to grow our two main sites, Esher and Wandsworth, and dissolved this partnership and sold our Canary Wharf site. This ended up being the best decision we made, and Esher and Wandsworth have gone from strength to strength in the past 20 years, with a total of eight chairs between the two.

In the future, we hope to grow these sites even more and eventually open up new locations.

The last 20 years

The past 20 years have certainly been a rollercoaster for us, and there have been certain ways we’ve had to adapt to keep the business the best it can be. Dealing with that has been tricky at times but also extremely rewarding.

For example, in 2010, during our growth, personal circumstances meant that I had to take a step back from wet-handed surgery myself and take my eye off the ball slightly.

As The Neem Tree was an associate-led model, I was extremely grateful that the business wasn’t affected too much, despite me not being around much.

It meant that I was able to take time off from the practice and leave it in the capable hands of my fantastic team and dentists to look after and offer the same luxury patient-focused care we had been offering since we started.

Now, 20 years later, we can really take advantage of this success and treat the team to say thank you for all its hard work. From time to time, we have taken the team away for trips abroad as a thank you.

Most recently, a few months ago, we took the Wandsworth team to Palma, Majorca, to celebrate our 20th anniversary. Being able to do that and look back on all that we’ve achieved as a business is so lovely to see, and I am very grateful to have the team I do.

I’m really excited to see how the next 20 years will look for us as a team.

Dental bootcamps

The dental bootcamps are something that we’ve always offered since we began 20 years ago, because we have a sister business run by my husband, Arun, called Samera.
Samera is made up of chartered accountants and dental business growth experts who are professionals at offering advice and will help you to grow your business while you focus on the important clinical aspects.

So when The Neem Tree first started, we also wanted to help others with starting their clinics and sharing our mistakes. Twenty years ago, it wasn’t that common for people to open squat clinics. Instead, they preferred the security of a going concern by buying an existing clinic. The bootcamps allowed us to solidify our unique offering that lots of other dentists didn’t have at the time but many wanted.

As a result, each year we have offered one to three day boot camps for dentists looking to start out on their own, where we talk about the step-by-step approach to creating their own dream dental clinics. We introduced them to lawyers, builders, dental engineers and more.

We essentially run through everything that they need to know: how you get planning permission, how you create a vision, putting together a thorough business plan, how to get the finance in place, how to recruit staff, how to market a business and more.

Since we’ve offered this, we’ve had lots of clients and dentists who have worked with Samera go ahead and set up successful practices, and we’re very happy to experience and celebrate that success with them.

Overall, the past 20 years have been the most rewarding journey, and I’m proud to see how far we’ve come since 2004 and what the next 20 years will bring.