The hardest appointment to book is the first one. Not because of what happens in it, but because you don’t know what happens in it. So you imagine the worst version: bright light, reclined chair, someone counting your teeth out loud while you lie there unable to answer.
A calm consultation is not that. It is a conversation in a room with two armchairs. There is no dental chair in it.
You stay upright, and you stay dressed in your own dignity
You sit in a normal chair, at eye level with Dr Jennie, with your coat still on if you want it. Nobody looks in your mouth. Nobody asks you to lie back. If you have come in expecting to be examined, the first surprise is usually that you are not going to be.
That is deliberate. Most dental fear is not fear of pain. It is fear of being powerless — flat on your back, mouth open, unable to speak, someone working above you. Taking that away first is the whole point of the room.
We ask what happened, not what hurts
The conversation starts with your history, and we mean the real one. Not just which teeth are sore. What put you off. Whether something went wrong once. Whether it was a dentist who was sharp with you, or a parent who was frightened too, or an appointment at nineteen that you have never quite got past.
People often apologise at this point. There is nothing to apologise for. If you have not been in years, we have heard it before, and from people who were far more worried about telling us than they needed to be.
You set the terms before anything is agreed
We talk through what you want, in your words. Sometimes that is a full plan. Sometimes it is one tooth that has bothered you for years and nothing else. Sometimes it is simply finding out whether things are as bad as you have convinced yourself they are.
Then we agree what happens next, including the signals. A raised hand means stop, and it means stop immediately, not at a convenient moment. You can ask to be told everything, or to be told nothing at all until it is over. Both are normal requests.
What it does not include
No treatment. No examination. No X-rays. No pressure to book anything at the end, and no quote waved at you on the way out.
It is also not a full check-up, and we are clear about that, because the consultation does not take place in the dental chair. If you need an examination, that is a separate appointment that you choose afterwards, once you have met us and seen the place.
How long it takes
About half an hour. Some people use ten minutes of it and leave. Some use all of it. Both are fine.
If half an hour in the building is still too much to contemplate, start with a ten-minute video chat instead. You can do that from your own sofa, and quite a few people do.