AN INTERVIEW WITH DR ANDY HEALY
Dr Andrew Healy of Pall Mall Dental Clinic
talks to Wirral Life in an exclusive interview.
Dr Andrew Healy is the Principal Dentist at Pall Mall Advanced
Dentistry in Liverpool. He now concentrates his clinical time,
following his ethos of maximising patients’ natural smile, using
the minimum of dentistry. By combining clever techniques and
materials, Dr Healy aims to maximise natural aesthetics with
minimal damage to the natural teeth. Here he talks to us about
a life of dentistry!
What inspired you to get into dentistry?
My first memory of knowing that I wanted to be a dentist was
whilst watching Farrah Fawcett in The Six Million Dollar Man.
I was only 6 or so at the time and I couldn't take my eyes off her
amazing teeth! Growing up in 1970’s Liverpool, I'd never seen
teeth so perfect and beautiful and my parents said that she'd
probably "had them done." It took me quite a few years back then
without the internet to understand what that meant. From that
moment forward I became fascinated by the beauty of a smile and
its effect on a person's whole face.
How long did it take you to qualify as a Dentist?
I qualified from The University of Sheffield in 1998 and spent 4
years working in an NHS practice near Sheffield as well as working
in the Oral Surgery Department of the Charles Clifford Dental
Hospital teaching undergraduate dental students the dark arts of
exodontia and Minor Oral Surgery.
In 2002, I returned to my home city of Liverpool where I worked
in a mixed NHS and Private practice and underwent a year
long Implant course under the tutelage of Dr Hilt Tatum, a long
standing innovator in the field of implantology.
62 wirrallife.com
In early 2013, I began an arduous 3 year Masters Degree
in Restorative and Aesthetic Dentistry at the University of
Manchester, which was compressed into 2 years. I graduated in July
2015 with a Distinction. This was an incredible achievement given
it involved combining many hours of study every night after a 12
hour working day, with many weekends working on assignments
and clinical cases - and all the more tougher as I was working full
time and my daughter, Freya, was born 3 weeks after I started the
Masters!
What can you tell us about Pall Mall Dental and how it all
began?
I opened Pall Mall in 2006. I'd worked in mixed private/NHS
practices and hospitals since qualifying in 1998 and soon realised
that the treatment restrictions placed by the NHS upon a dentist
would mean that I wouldn’t be able to offer modern up-to-date
techniques that I wanted to use.
Working in other practices had showed me that my own ethos of
ethically provided aesthetic dentistry couldn't be provided whilst
working for anyone else. So I sold my house and put everything
I owned into creating a clinic that would offer the best dentistry
available.
What do you love most about your job?
Taking a patient on a journey during which we totally rebuild their
smile and self-confidence is the best thing I do by far. Watching a
patient's face light up when they look in a mirror at something they
thought was unachievable is an incredible moment.