Madeleine, husband Craig and children Sally and Anna spent five year in China, enjoying a different culture and working experience
you, it would be very disre- spectful, and especially in my case as an ex-pat, for them to ever challenge me.” And, while she managed to
get them to open up a bit, it was clear that they were uncom- fortable with a less structured teaching method. “ I found that on the whole, they are great at straight thinking and doing the tasks, but ask them to think outside the box and it is hard for them.” While Madeleine admits it
did take them a few months – and in the case of one daughter, a couple of years – to really settle in to life in Shanghai, there are plenty of things that she now misses. She said: “There was a huge buzz living in such a big city (24 million people) and a city on the edge of change. It was like living through a huge revolution when we were there. “You would get in the car
one day to go somewhere and then drive that same road two weeks later and it had changed because a building had been pulled down, or a new one had gone up.” She reveals that the experi-
ence of living in a country that is so far removed from the UK and our culture here has had a positive effect on her personally. “I think the whole experi-
ence changes you,” she said. “You learn a lot about yourself and people around you just by going into a situation where you are completely at sea. I
think there is an element, when you go somewhere that is so different, you feel like you just don’t know how to do anything anymore. I learned a huge amount from that.” Madeleine returned in late summer last year with the children, as her eldest was just about to start secondary school. They were keen to minimise disruption at this key time as she was about to start on an exam curriculum. “We also wanted them both to feel Scottish,” she said. And, in terms of her own
work, Madeleine reckons she has landed on her feet after being taken on by specialist referral clinic Vermilion, so soon after returning to the UK. After chatting to prin- cipal dentist David Offord at a meeting in Scotland while she was still in China, they kept in touch and met up again on her return. Madeleine said: “It was just great timing. For me, I like the adventure of being somewhere new. I like working with David and Grant and it is a great practice.” Madeleine revealed that,
while they did consider staying out in China for longer, it wasn’t just their children’s education that was the key factor. She said: “I did seri- ously think about what else I could do if we had stayed and if I didn’t want to be a dentist. “But it turned out that
actually, I really like being a dentist and this is exactly what I want to do.”
Scottish Dental magazine 29
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