Practice profile


Straight talker


When his involvement with the hugely successful Smiles chain of dental practices ended, orthodontist Hugh Bradley embarked on another challenge in Donnybrook


A


s the son of a general dental practitioner in Strabane, it is no surprise that Hugh Bradley followed his father’s footsteps into dentistry


when he qualified from Trinity in ı978. However, rather than go into general


practice like his father, Hugh completed his orthodontic training in Belfast in ı982 and set up a specialist practice in Newry at the tender age of just 26. It was his father who directed him


towards orthodontics, as Hugh explained: “It was my personal feeling that I would never fill his shoes in general practice that prompted me to seek to perfect different skills. My father is a man of many words but one adage of his that made it through was: ‘You inform before you perform’. This concept of informed consent was well ahead of its time and it formed the basis of much of the success in my own professional life.” As the Newry practice was so close to


the border, Hugh decided to open a branch practice in Dundalk in ı983. And, while the northern practice was NHS, the southern


practice was entirely private. Hugh explained that over the years, the Newry practice developed an unmanageable waiting list of some 5,000 patients in just ı0 years. In ı993, Hugh sold the Northern Irish practice and Dundalk became his main point of operations. In 2000, Hugh served as president of


the Orthodontic Society of Ireland and he cut back his working week to four days to fulfil his obligations. Then, in 2005 a now-famous conversation over breakfast with his stepson led to the next chapter in his life. The stepson was Emmet O’Neill and the


conversation was on tooth whitening. The two men took a trip over to the United States to see how it was being done over there and made the decision to bring it back to Ireland and the first Smiles tooth whitening clinic was born. Hugh was aware that the reputation of whitening at the time was questionable and he made sure that the model they were to base their business on had to be an “ethical centre of excellence”. Hugh said: “We approached the issue by taking on the best technology on the


market. Teeth were shade tested before and after the procedure and photographs taken. Informed consent was rigorous and aftercare was provided. “We had no difficulty in getting the dentists that we needed to work with us. Most were there on a part-time basis and they welcomed the opportunity to gain experience in the nebulous work of tooth whitening.” The first practice was a former retail


unit just off Grafton Street in Dublin with a floorspace of just 70sqm. Hugh was convinced that location was key. “I felt strongly that dentistry be taken out of the converted suburban house and into the retail environment,” he said. “In ı993 I purchased a high street bank building and acquired a street-side pres- ence in Dundalk which has always stood me well.” With Emmet’s entrepreneurial spark


and Hugh’s dental knowledge, the practice thrived. Clever branding and graphics were designed, multimedia presentations were produced to inform patients of the treatments on offer as well as multilingual leaflets (including Polish). An open plan dental chair layout was adopted. Hugh explained: “My experience in orthodon- tics was that patients often got comfort from semi-private or even open style bays – seeing that the patient next door was happy was reassuring. No one was putting


Continued » Ireland’s Dental magazine 41


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