Happy publication day to Dr Bill with You Know The Drill! I’m pleased to be joining  the promotion day. My review is written with thanks to Rachel Gilbey at Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me on the publication push and to the publisher for my copy of the book.

Blurb:

Welcome to my life. The life of a reluctant dentist. This book charts the course of a nervous student dealing with people from all walks of life, from exploding angry abscesses to exploding angry people, both in and out of the chair.
When I was a wet-behind-the-ears school sixth former, it seemed like a really good idea to go to university and study the teeth, gums and mouth. I’m still trying to work out why I thought that was a good idea.

The definition of a dentist mentions competencies in biomedical knowledge, surgical dexterity, and critical thinking. What it fails to include is being an unpaid therapist, getting splattered in pus, coaxing nutters out from under the dental chair, having the police storm your surgery, and dealing with patients who think a crown is something you put on your head, then try and sue you when you say otherwise.

Written as a form of therapy – to offload on paper – this book gives a frank account of life both in and out of the surgery. So, take a seat in the waiting room and I’ll see you shortly in Chapter One…

Review:

There are several books available now which let us into the lives of people who have written down their experiences of working in a particular profession, and I’ve enjoyed most of them, so I was looking forward to my peek into the life of a dentist. I found You Know The Drill fascinating and loved learning more about not only the craft of dentistry, but the way the service works for both dentists and patients, both in NHS and private practice. Dr Bill is an entertaining writer, who makes this book both informative and humorous for the reader. His tone is colloquial and this makes it feel as though he is addressing the reader when he is recounting his stories.

Dr Bill has clearly worked with some colourful characters, both colleagues and patients, and he does a wonderful job of painting a vivid picture of them all. There are the angry ones, whose behaviour shocked me; the eccentric ones, whose antics made me laugh; and the lovely ones, whose stories are incredibly heartwarming. I often felt as though I was stepping into the surgery with them and sharing their experiences.

A large part of the book covers incidents which happened during the Covid-19 pandemic. I had almost forgotten how strict the rules were at the very beginning, but the anxiety and uncertainty really comes through the pages.

I finish You Know The Drill with a new appreciation for what dentists do, and for the things they handle on a daily basis.

You Know The Drill is available from Amazon.

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