In many navies around the world, the seventh toast of the week is to “Absent Friends”.

This is usually the first toast my own family observes on Christmas Day. We’re not big drinkers, it’s usually the only toast.

It’s an important one. Given the career paths of an orthodontist (there was a bit about this in the previous few toasts) you often end up being immersed in work and if you get on well with the people you work with, it’s likely you’ll become good friends as there is a lot of selection involved in you being in those positions in various hospitals or universities and it’s likely you’ll have a ...

The traditional sixth toast of the week in many navies was “To Wives and Sweethearts”.

Classically, although unofficially, this is met with a reply of “May they never meet”. When Russell Crowe makes the toast in “Master and Commander” he adds that himself after the toast. The officers laugh at the joke, so I’m not certain if this is the first time he’s make the toast or it’s been given every week they’ve been on a ship since they joined the navy and they are very, very polite. Like the toast to “Our Men” this has been modified a bit over the years and - though I presume the original ...

In various navies, the fifth toast of the week is to The Nation.

Classically, this toast was “to a willing foe and plenty of sea room”. I’m still not sure exactly what that means, but I presume it means that your adversary is taking responsibility for the consequences of the engagement and it’s not on your conscience if you win. Sea room is the space required to move a vessel about, either due to sufficient depth of water or an absence of obstacles around it. In other words, the means to have a fair fight.

What happens when neither of these is the case? ...

In various navies, the fourth toast of the week is “Our Navy” specifically the service they are in.

As in yesterday’s blog I talked about “ourselves” as the profession we’re in: dentistry. I will consider today’s theme as the specialties we choose to work in.

And off the bat, I say specialty which is an area of special expertise within a profession, not speciality which is something a restaurant is good at.

This naval toast has been modified a bit over the years –it was classically “a bloody war or a sickly season”. This made absolutely no sense to me until I found an explanation: It was only the officers making these toasts ...

The Third Orthodontic Toast: Ourselves

In various navies, the classic third toast of the week is “Ourselves”.

This is traditionally met with the response “for no one else will concern themselves with our well-being” in the Royal Navy in the UK. Two centuries on from when the movie “Master and Commander” is set, Russell Crowe’s toasts to his officers still have some clout to teach us. For this toast, I think of "ourselves" as the profession of dentistry in general. Dentistry is a strange profession, a unique vocation or calling. I always reckoned you could have made a surreal comedy show like Father Ted using dentists instead of priests. It’s a ...

The Second Orthodontic Toast: Our Teams

In various navies, the classic second toast of the week is “Our Men”.

Over the years this has modified to “Our Sailors”. In the dental world this is the team members that make our practices perform the way they do. This is a work force that is predominantly female. Given that from now on, 50% or more of new dentists are female (I don’t have a reference for that, sorry), it means that the present and future of dentistry should be much more female than its normal representation in media or fiction.

Including student years, I’ve been in dentistry ...

In 2003, Russell Crowe starred in a movie called Master and Commander which I’ve always enjoyed. He’s Jack Aubrey, the captain of a ship (HMS Surprise) during a war between the UK and France about 200 years ago. What I didn’t realise when I saw it first time was the amount of leadership lessons in it that would come back to me when I operated my own practice, Swords Orthodontics, years later – I’ll probably blog on those another time "Leadership Lessons From Lucky Jack" sounds about right, but it looks like a million people have thought of that before me.

When I saw it in the cinema one thing that ...