This week, Payman sits down with Zain Remy, a Newcastle-based practice owner whose path to dentistry was anything but straightforward. After missing out on dental school the first time round, Zain took the pharmacology route, grafted his way through eight years of study, and eventually qualified from King's College London in 2016. 

What followed was a decade of pivotal decisions — a golden handshake from a corporate, a restorative diploma that nearly cost him his job, and a mental health crisis serious enough to land him in hospital for two months.

Rather than shy away from any of it, Zain unpacks each chapter with an honesty that's genuinely refreshing. By October 2023, he'd bought his own private practice in Newcastle — and the lessons he's drawn from every stumble along the way are, frankly, worth the listen alone.

In This Episode

00:00:50 - Introduction

00:01:35 - Growing up in London

00:02:00 - Dad the dental technician

00:04:40 - Dental school reflections

00:14:45 - The pharmacology detour

00:20:30 - Heading northeast

00:22:40 - Foundation year

00:24:20 - The corporate golden handshake

00:30:05 - Restorative diploma and CPD

00:40:05 - Burnout

00:43:05 - Mental health crisis

00:50:35 - Recovery and talking therapy

00:57:25 - Buying the practice

01:00:30 - Practice ownership: the hard reality

01:05:10 - The associate–principal relationship

01:10:25 - Social media as a clinical tool

01:16:05 - Diary of Dental Practice Owners

01:20:15 - The awards debate

01:29:35 - Hiring and firing

01:33:05 - Blackbox thinking

01:40:05 - Fantasy dinner party

01:44:30 - Favourite and least favourite treatments

01:46:10 - Future vision

About Zain Remy

Zain Remy is a dental practice owner based in Newcastle, who qualified from King's College London in 2016 after first completing a pharmacology degree. Having worked across NHS and mixed practices in the northeast, he acquired his own fully private practice in October 2023. He holds a postgraduate diploma in restorative dentistry and runs the Diary of Dental Practice Owners community on Facebook, offering an unfiltered look at life as an independent practice principal.