I am semi-retired as an NHS hospital dental consultant in orthodontics, and work part-time running the hospital orthodontic service on the Isle of Man.

My Fellowship in 1996 looked at the early surgical and dental care of patients born with cleft lip and palate. I visited a number of hospital units in Hong Kong, Singapore, China and Japan to learn what treatment regimes were offered to these patients and to see what we could potentially learn from them. UK services were under review at the time and have since undergone radical reorganisation. I was particularly interested to see what early interventions were offered to children with cleft lip and palate, and the longer-term benefits of these interventions.

At the time I had been working with the Cleft Team at Birmingham Children's Hospital. I continue working now to treat cleft patients in partnership with the North West Cleft teams based in Liverpool and Manchester. This enables my patients to have their orthodontic treatment carried out by me locally, instead of having to travel for their regular orthodontic visits every six weeks.

The opportunity provided by my Fellowship for me to visit units in countries otherwise inaccessible to me at that time was invaluable.