Nicola Wood

My working week is spent practising in various Smile Together clinics across the county where my patients comprise children and young people requiring orthodontic work.

Apart from what I do clinically for Smile Together, in the dental world I am also the Secretary for the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Dental Committee and attend the Orthodontic Managed Clinical Network meetings.

I was the inaugural chair of our elected Staff Council (now our Shareholder Impact Board) back in 2016, with a seat on the Smile Together Board.

Following that, I became Clinical Director for three years with a range of leadership and management responsibilities within our employee-owned social enterprise. I relinquished the managerial role in 2021 and became full-time clinical once more in order to help maximise the number of orthodontic patients we can assess and treat.

So what attracted me to dentistry?

I loved studying sciences at school but knew I didn’t want to be a doctor, so I did my work experience in the local MaxFax department whereby I assisted the orthodontist and hygienist, and spent 2 weeks in the lab waxing up false teeth and other weird and wonderful facial prostheses. My passion for dentistry grew from there and after a taster weekend at Liverpool University in 6th Form entitled ‘So you want to be a dentist?’ where we got to restore plastic teeth and fissure seal them, I applied to Dental School and secured a place at Liverpool University School of Dentistry. I really loved orthodontics at Dental School yet was offered a MaxFax job as a Senior House Officer at the Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust. It was a fabulous year – on call, surgical extractions, apicectomies, working in theatres – my favourite clinic was the Soft Tissue Clinic where we did all the biopsies. I went on to do my year as a Vocational Trainee in Redruth and ended up staying in practice, then worked as a general NHS dentist for a number of years until at last being offered a hard to come by position at RCH as a Clinical Assistant in Orthodontics. Working in private practice had showed me ‘the other side’ and I will always thank the principal there for showing me how to do a perfect composite restoration.

I started in the Community Dental Service as a Dental Officer doing Access (urgent care) in 2008; I tried my hand at being a VT trainer and also a mentor to a dental student on placement. My Clinical Director knew I had orthodontic experience so when the Senior Dental Officer in Orthodontics retired, and they struggled to recruit a replacement, I was invited to do a couple of days each week orthodontics. As the need increased, I was able to do more until eventually I stopped doing Access and focused on orthodontics, eventually transitioning into what is now Smile Together.

I like to know what is going on and how I can help shape our company and keep the needs of clinical colleagues at the forefront of any decisions made, so being on SIB is important to me.

I love seeing the excellent work we do for our patients and the positive impact it has on their lives. I like to work with like-minded colleagues with a support network of peers.

Being a Mum takes up quite a bit of my time outside of work but when they are with their Dad, I make the most of it and I love going out for walks with my partner. He is a keen fisherman, and I don’t find it too much of a hardship to sit peacefully with him looking out over lakes with a nice latte and maybe a bit of cake now and again!