Dr Ben Harris is one busy man. He is the Lead Dentist at Lumino North Avon, Shirley, Christchurch City and Rangiora, and is also a member of the Lumino Clinical Advisory Board. Busy enough? He also has two kids to run around in his spare time!
When and why did you decide dentistry was right for you?
I remember going to spend some time with my local dentist Dr William Wootton in Rangiora once I was accepted into dental school and talking to him and his partners about dentistry as a career and it all lead from there.
What do you MOST love about your job?
I have four great teams I work with at different practices so helping them grow and be successful is what I love and take a lot of pride in.
Tell us a bit more about the further training you have undertaken in recent years.
Recently the majority of the training I’ve been doing is around Implant and digital dentistry. We are in the middle of a huge shift in the way we deliver dentistry to our patients because of digital innovation and I think it’s really important to keep up date with these changes.
You’ve been practicing dentistry for over 20 years – what do you think have been the biggest changes in the field over this time?
There was no google when I did my degree, we had paper patient records and still manually processed X-rays. So, there been huge changes since I started but the current digitisation of dentistry has totally changing the way we practice dentistry.
Where would you find you, when not in the practice?
Either at the gym or spending time with my young family. Sonia and I have a 3-year-old Victor and a 14 month old baby girl called Sloane, so it’s pretty busy at times.
You form part of the Lumino Clinical Advisory Board, can you explain to us what this role means to you?
The clinical board provides an important link between the management team at Lumino and our clinical network. The clinical board acts as sounding board to discuss the direction and challenges of the company as it grows. It’s also an opportunity for a range of clinicians to give management feedback on the exciting new initiatives the teams been working on. Over the past 6 or 7 years it’s been great getting to know some of the talented people we have at HQ as well as some of the brilliant clinicians we have in the group.
Finally, what makes you smile?
Liverpool winning the champions league – YNWA!