Transcript – Dentology Podcast with James Hunter
Episode Release Date – Monday 13 January 2025
Oliver Acton (00:00.856)
So it’s seven o’clock Monday morning, it can only mean one thing.
Chris (00:05.075)
It must mean it is a Dentology podcast. Woohoo!
Oliver Acton (00:11.104)
It’s another Dentology podcast. is, it is. And this week, I’m delighted. We’ve got Dr. James Hunter joining us, who’s a dentist. Welcome, James. How are doing?
Chris (00:21.011)
Yeah, hello.
James Hunter (00:21.657)
yeah, good thank you. Yeah, thanks so much for having me on.
Oliver Acton (00:24.303)
No, we’re very excited. It’s always nice when you find people who are kind of walking the path less trodden. And we’ll get to that when we get onto the conversation of what you’re going on to do. to start with, I’ve actually got to read this because there’s so many elements to it. I couldn’t memorize it. But you were born in Singapore, moved to Colorado. When you were three, you moved to Oxford. When you were, sorry, yeah, when you were three to Colorado. Then you moved to Oxford when you were seven and now you’re living in Cornwall.
Chris (00:51.443)
you
Oliver Acton (00:54.297)
So the globe trotter in you started quite young. I’m really interested in, yeah, in the early years, how did that as a start to life in terms of kind of quite a nomadic lifestyle? Yeah, how did that whole situation come about?
Chris (00:57.267)
yeah explain
James Hunter (00:58.491)
haha
Chris (01:08.371)
Maybe we could start with a why.
James Hunter (01:14.14)
Yeah, so I was born in Singapore. I think I lived there about three days and then moved to Jakarta. my mum was born in Singapore. My grandpa on my mum’s side was a doctor out there. And then my dad, when he was 16, he got a scholarship to a school out in Singapore. So he moved out there and then met my mum. They stayed all around that sort of area. I was, so they were living in Jakarta when…
Chris (01:19.165)
Excellent.
Chris (01:26.771)
Alright.
James Hunter (01:43.216)
when they were pregnant with me, moved to Singapore briefly to have me and then moved back to Jakarta. So I don’t remember any of that but my parents loved that part of the world. I think my grandpa working in Singapore was quite keen for them to come over there and have the baby.
Chris (01:47.805)
No.
Chris (01:52.115)
It doesn’t say much about maternity care in Jakarta maybe.
Chris (02:01.318)
yeah, yeah, but…
James Hunter (02:03.228)
Yeah, yeah, I back to the UK, I think when I was about one and a half and then when we were three, we moved out to Colorado. So those are kind of my first memories living out in, yeah, we lived in the most beautiful place. Yeah, I know. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So my dad’s a businessman. He kind of was CEO of a packaging company. And so, yeah.
Chris (02:14.727)
Yeehaw.
Oliver Acton (02:17.902)
And what took the family to Colorado?
Chris (02:19.923)
Cowboys.
Chris (02:27.569)
Is it a meat packaging firm? Please tell me it’s a meat packaging firm.
James Hunter (02:30.916)
It was kind of like little bits and pieces packaging. You still bring me back all these kind of funny pieces of metal. Yeah, I know. I’ve got a friend who was my childhood friend out there and occasionally my mum shares pictures of his life out there. I think I’ve definitely still got a bit of red, white and blue in me from those years. A beautiful part of the world.
Chris (02:33.555)
I’ve just seen Colorado cows.
Chris (02:51.036)
Yeah, I bet.
Oliver Acton (02:51.478)
Hahaha
Absolutely.
Chris (02:54.077)
think it’s vast, it? I don’t know if you remember the vastness. That’s what always makes me think about that. You sort of think we’ve got big, you know, when you go out in the countryside here, but when you go to like the States or South Africa, it’s just vast. It’s so big.
Oliver Acton (03:06.577)
I’ve been, I’m very fortunate. I got to go to the Grand Canyon several years ago. And I remember walking up to the edge, because obviously as you walk up to it, you can’t kind of see down into it till you’re right at the edge. And I’m getting there at edge and looking and going, it’s really big, really big. Yeah, yeah. And you sort of take it in and then over kind of five or 10 minutes, it just dawns on you just like the millions of years of water erosion to have created.
James Hunter (03:08.336)
Yeah.
Oliver Acton (03:35.023)
And it’s not just the depth of it, it’s the width of it as well. It’s absolutely incredible. It’s phenomenal. that, going back to your point, Chris, about scale and size, it shows you just how large it is in the open space they have out there, which is quite, remarkable.
Chris (03:51.207)
is fast.
James Hunter (03:52.964)
Yeah, we lived right on the edge of this big mountain, so our lounge could look down the valley. When the snow came, I got to learn to ski going down my drive. It was amazing. Yeah, I loved it.
Chris (03:57.843)
Nah.
Oliver Acton (04:02.933)
brilliant and then then you went to the exotic place of Oxford.
James Hunter (04:08.228)
Yeah, so came back with a thick American accent and then lost that private school in Oxford. yeah, yeah, more or less. Yeah, so yeah, grew up there. a really lovely childhood. We weren’t in Oxford City. We were kind of in the outskirts, in the countryside, which was really lovely. Went to a nice school.
Chris (04:15.428)
They beat that out of you.
Chris (04:30.451)
That’s part of
James Hunter (04:32.282)
Yeah, really pretty. So living in Cornwall now, whenever I go back I do feel very far away from the sea. I think a bit inland for me now.
Oliver Acton (04:33.552)
Hmm.
Chris (04:39.389)
So did you move to Cornwall or your family moved to Cornwall?
James Hunter (04:42.652)
I moved to Cornwall four years ago, so yeah, up in Oxfordshire and then…
Chris (04:44.325)
Right. okay.
Oliver Acton (04:47.014)
Mm.
How’s this kind of moving around a lot when you’re young? I mean, not moving from like the South of England to the Midlands. Yeah, we’re talking about global, global. Has that changed your outlook in terms of your willingness to move? You don’t feel particularly rooted anywhere, know, home, wherever you settle in that moment. How does that all look and feel for you?
Chris (04:59.517)
Hahaha
James Hunter (05:14.448)
I mean, guess like moving away from.
what was kind of my first, well, the first home I have memory of. I guess maybe it’s maybe a little bit, maybe less daunted by moving to different places. I was really fortunate. My parents took me to go see lots of different parts of the world. So they kind of took me around Asia on various holidays to show me where they had grown up. I guess give me real love of traveling and love of seeing different parts of the world.
Chris (05:27.474)
Hmm.
Chris (05:45.747)
Hmm.
James Hunter (05:47.15)
different cultures. think, although it’s kind of only briefly, having a slightly different background of just like a little bit of an American culture in me. feel like maybe had a feeling like a little bit, yeah, not,
Chris (05:53.715)
Hmm.
Chris (05:57.337)
Yeah.
Chris (06:03.891)
James, when you landed in your school at age seven with your Yee-Haw accent or whatever Colorado accent is, how was it received by your co-pupils? I’m intrigued as to did they see it as odd? Did they see it as normal? Did you get any bullying or was it like, yeah, okay, he’s got an American accent. Quite interesting.
James Hunter (06:26.084)
I think it was the latter, I think it was, this guy’s got an American accent and then give it a few months and it was petering off. I don’t remember any kind of connotations. Yeah, no, not at all. Yeah, which is lovely.
Chris (06:31.983)
Well, good. Anyone giving you a hard time or anything? That’s good. Yeah.
Oliver Acton (06:38.963)
Brilliant. And then you then went to another part of the world and studied at Cardiff Dental School over in Wales. But that wasn’t your first degree, was it?
James Hunter (06:47.228)
Yeah, no, yeah, so I went via Exeter. Yeah, at school I kind of, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer for a while. You know that movie, Liar Liar, with Jim Carrey? think when he’s, that scene where he’s the barrister, I thought that looks like a fun job. I actually did, I did humanities, did Latin maths and ancient history at school thinking that I’d want to go on to do classics.
Chris (07:02.859)
yeah yeah.
Oliver Acton (07:02.915)
yes. Yes.
James Hunter (07:17.244)
And then,
Yeah, I was due to do Classics at Exeter and then thought I’d be, I wanted to kind of split and maybe do a bit of Theology as well, because I’m a Christian and I thought it would interesting to study my faith academically. So they kindly let me split half and half on the course. But honestly, about two weeks into my Classics bits, I decided I never want to do Latin ever again. And they kindly let me swap straight over to Theology. I was a very pretty girl in the Theology class, who’s now my wife, so can probably hear that.
Chris (07:26.995)
right, flip.
Chris (07:33.352)
My
Chris (07:41.106)
Understandably.
Oliver Acton (07:42.003)
Yeah
Chris (07:48.573)
Ha ha.
Oliver Acton (07:48.82)
So that was the switch there, but you didn’t complete your theology degree, is that right?
James Hunter (07:49.182)
I’ve returned it a bit.
James Hunter (07:57.564)
No, so I did complete my theology degree. Yeah, so I finished the whole thing and I proposed to my wife in second year and then I think in third year it suddenly dawned on me that I needed to get a job afterwards and I had no idea really what I wanted to do. I think it’s the sort of degree that leads into applying for grad schemes, kind of just showing you’ve got the ability to think.
Oliver Acton (08:00.274)
Allah
Oliver Acton (08:11.4)
lot.
Chris (08:17.875)
That’s how you… All becoming a vicar.
James Hunter (08:21.98)
Or becoming a vicar. I did briefly think about that, but my wife very kindly reassured me that wouldn’t be my strength.
Chris (08:29.331)
I think you have to have a very special type of person to
James Hunter (08:37.116)
Absolutely. Yeah, my friends and family were kind of tossing around the word work shy. So I thought I’ll try and get some work experience somewhere. And I literally kind of had that kind of childhood, you know, I could be a dentist, a fireman, pilot, a butcher, and thought I’ll get some work experience with my family dentist, who was a lovely guy. Spent a week with him and thought, this is brilliant. This is what I want to do. This is amazing. So it kind of came a bit out of left field.
Oliver Acton (09:06.185)
Yeah. So in two, can you say about the work experience, the amount of people we’ve talked to? So we’ve done the 170, 180 episodes of this. And I would say probably 20 % of all dentists we talked to have had a work experience element that steered them very heavily towards becoming a dentist. And we were saying, yeah, and we were saying it’s amazing that that happens.
Chris (09:08.795)
So that work experience thing, yeah.
Chris (09:27.655)
sort of blew their socks off, it? It’s like amazing, it’s amazing.
James Hunter (09:28.614)
Okay.
Oliver Acton (09:34.431)
But we were also saying how in the current world, I don’t think work experience is as easy. I think people are fearful of work experience today with, you know, insurance and GDPR and the risks that go around having somebody in your business. I don’t think it’s as easy for young people to get work experience in kind of a clinical environment as it was perhaps back in your day. And it’s a shame because the amount of people we’ve that have cited work experience has been the single thing that turned their head towards dentistry.
James Hunter (09:44.081)
Yeah.
James Hunter (09:54.672)
Yeah.
Chris (10:02.885)
Mmm. Yeah, amazing.
Oliver Acton (10:03.985)
We could be losing that.
James Hunter (10:04.378)
Yeah, yeah, that would be a shame because I guess, you know, that was all pre-COVID when I got to do work experience, but I that’s going to change the feeling around it a little bit and getting people in.
Chris (10:13.938)
Hmm.
Oliver Acton (10:14.1)
Yeah, absolutely. You say about COVID, you did your foundation training year through COVID and through the lockdowns. What was that like? I guess one of the things that we hear, both Chris and I, we’re not clinical at all, so we have no clue about the clinical side of things, but we hear an awful lot about the dental school experience prepares you incredibly well in terms of the structure of dentistry, but there isn’t actually that much hands-on time with real patients. And very often it’s a foundation year.
James Hunter (10:22.353)
Yeah.
Chris (10:41.256)
Mm.
Oliver Acton (10:42.793)
that gives you the practical application of what you’ve learned in dental school. Was that something that was missing in your experience? Because obviously during lockdown you weren’t able to get that practical experience as perhaps others might have.
Chris (10:46.643)
Mm.
James Hunter (10:55.514)
Yeah, I mean, so I think my foundation training course handled it really well. I mean, in hindsight, you’re right, university is not really as hands on obviously as you
in any scale compared to going into general practice but we did have quite a lot of clinical time I think compared to some of the universities at Cardiff so I got to do a fair amount of practical work before graduating and then I had I think it was a good four or five months I’m trying to remember the timeline of foundation training I had a really really lovely supportive foundation trainers who kind of really let me
Chris (11:17.971)
Mm-hmm.
James Hunter (11:32.512)
explore lots of different aspects of dentistry under their supervision and then they put on a lot of kind of yeah like hands-on courses and phantom heads sort of stuff but it was funny I mean I really there was I’m not sure if you guys remember there’s so much free CPD during the lockdown that I just I absolutely loved it I almost feel like I graduated and then had like an extra condensed
Chris (11:36.562)
Mm-hmm.
Chris (11:49.555)
yeah
Oliver Acton (11:51.286)
Yeah.
Chris (11:59.293)
Hmm. Yeah.
James Hunter (11:59.366)
Blitz of dentistry and it was during that period that I like heard all first about bio-mimetic dentistry and you know, these kind of ultra conservative strong bonding sort of dentistry and that’s the sort of stuff I love now and it wasn’t really taught at all in our university course. you know, seeing people put on stuff on Instagram and then going on these Instagram lives with people talking through cases. I thought it probably gave me actually time to see elements of dentistry that I wouldn’t have
Oliver Acton (12:10.486)
Mm-hmm.
Oliver Acton (12:22.784)
Yeah.
James Hunter (12:29.312)
if that hadn’t happened. Just made sure I didn’t waste it basically.
Oliver Acton (12:30.943)
But yeah.
Chris (12:33.479)
Mm, brilliant.
Oliver Acton (12:33.802)
Yeah, yeah. So then you then you qualified and that’s what actually took you down to Cornwall. You’re working in a practice down in Cornwall.
James Hunter (12:42.49)
Yeah, so my wife and I were kind of at that point. So I had my son when I was in fourth year. So we had like a two year old in foundation training and then we had.
Chris (12:55.859)
Why are we?
James Hunter (12:55.96)
another one who was on the way. So we knew we were going to outgrow our house in Cardiff and we were just basically deciding do we stay in Cardiff and stay here for the long haul or do we do something different. We thought about maybe going abroad at that point but kind of locked down put a halt on that. So basically sent out my CV as a complete green dentist to lots of practices down in Cornwall and landed on my feet at a really really lovely practice in Perramporth.
Chris (13:25.42)
Okay.
James Hunter (13:25.95)
So yeah, we moved down after foundation training.
Oliver Acton (13:26.2)
And what’s what’s that practice like is it?
Chris (13:28.563)
There’s a commonality of, I was going say, there’s a commonality of sea, isn’t there? Exeter, Cardiff, and Cornwall. This man likes a body of water.
Oliver Acton (13:35.296)
Yeah.
And is it a mixed practice, a private practice? What does look like in terms of dentures you get to do?
James Hunter (13:38.586)
Absolutely.
James Hunter (13:46.522)
So it’s effectively a private practice, got a small NHS contract. So my practice principles got two sites. So there’s a, the site which I work at, which is kind of a more generalist practice. And then he’s got a practice in Truro, which is set up for kind of the more high-end cosmetic, full mouth rehab, implant sort of dentistry that he does. So I work, yeah, I’ve got my surgery and then the therapist. So when I first arrived, it was kind of just me, which was a bit of a,
baptism of fire but loved it, I’ve got an incredibly supportive principal.
mentored me and bailed me out on a couple of extractions which had gone wrong and helped to of mentor me maybe more on the more business side and patient interaction sort of side of dentistry. And then he’s kind of just let me work in that site. I really like kind endo. I’m very lucky to have an operating microscope in my surgery, which I was incredibly excited about. So yeah, I’ve kind of been able to delve into that sort of aspect of dentistry.
Chris (14:36.659)
interesting.
James Hunter (14:55.054)
I’ve absolutely loved it. Yeah, it’s a brilliant practice, really lovely patient base right next to the sea, lovely staff. Couldn’t have asked for a better place to end up.
Chris (15:01.519)
Yeah, that’s the set. Doesn’t that set the tone Andy that that that James likes endo so now we know It’s really funny as it figure you like endo
Oliver Acton (15:07.956)
Exactly, exactly.
But what I love is you can be passionate about anything, can’t you? You know, the stuff that floats your boat. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But things are about to change, aren’t they? Because with your wife and your two children, Max and Phoebe, next year you’re off on what sounds like the adventure of a lifetime. You’re off to the West African country of Liberia. But before we get to the reason you’re going out there and the work you’re going to be doing,
Chris (15:17.445)
Yeah, it’s brilliant. I love it because there’s all these specialisms. Yeah, it’s fantastic.
James Hunter (15:38.033)
Yeah.
Chris (15:41.22)
Yeah, why?
Oliver Acton (15:44.556)
How does that conversation start at home? What does that look like? Was it something that came from your wife to you, from you to your wife? Was it something you’ve always had an ambition? I was interested. How does that conversation start around the dinner table?
Chris (15:49.939)
Yeah, brilliant
Chris (15:56.701)
Would you like a cup of tea and any chance we could move? Liberia.
Oliver Acton (16:00.339)
to Liberia.
James Hunter (16:01.916)
I mean I think it’s probably been a really really really long time in making. My wife and I are both Christians, the churches which we kind of went to as kids had kind of a little you know…
charities, elements to her, aid work elements to her. My wife’s got family members who kind of do stuff in Nepal. And so when we started dating, I think we were both thought, you at some point maybe we want to go do something abroad. And, you know, at that point I really didn’t have anything particularly practical that I could offer.
Chris (16:18.759)
always outreach.
Chris (16:29.149)
Mm-hmm.
James Hunter (16:35.676)
In my gap year I went and did kind of a, you know, aid thing in Africa briefly. I’ve heard somebody, it’s a bit negative, but I’ve heard sometimes people describe these kind of gap year things as the…
the most expensive way of getting the least qualified people to do the poorest work in the shortest time frame. Which was kind of a reflection, think we dug a latrine which hopefully hasn’t fallen down. before I went to Cardiff I did a, I visited some friends who were working out in Sierra Leone and I took the opportunity to go and see the dentist who was working in the hospital there. it was amazing, he, I could have started the day, he honestly had about 50 people in, they came in one hour.
Chris (16:56.147)
yeah, I’ll still cut that in.
Chris (17:13.555)
Power.
James Hunter (17:18.584)
after another, numbed them up in a bit, sent them to the back of the queue and then brought them back in and treated them. I think suddenly I was like, wow, dentistry is going to give me something really practical that I can go and take somewhere to help. So that kind of stayed with us through my dental degree. then I say at the foundation training period, it was suddenly like, is this a good transition point to maybe go do something like that? But then the world shut down and that kind of stopped. I’d say almost just
Chris (17:24.39)
Hmm.
Chris (17:29.17)
Mmm.
Chris (17:42.451)
Hmm.
James Hunter (17:48.48)
went to the back of our minds for a while and then last, that was kind of March time, we both kind of independently felt maybe we felt that kind of itch to go to go do that again. I’d say just at the point where our life was feeling very settled and nice and stable and we both kind of came to each other and spoke about it and yeah sent off an application to the organization who we’re going to be going with at that point.
Oliver Acton (17:50.615)
Mm.
Chris (17:51.123)
Right.
Oliver Acton (18:14.938)
I wonder whether there’s something…
Chris (18:15.707)
Wow, it’s amazing. so I was going to say, do remember we did some work with, I think it was Dentaid.
And I think they did something to Tanzania. I might be getting completely wrong place. And I can remember talking to someone who had been there and they were saying, you you forget that, you know, people moan about access to dentistry in the UK, but you know, that he was saying, you know, that there’s like one dentist for like 20,000 people or, you know, a hundred thousand people. And when you put that into context, it’s like,
It’s just mad, isn’t it? mean, that was that one that charity we sponsored, Mobile Smiles, you know, they go around and do dentistry for people who don’t access it. So it’s amazing.
Oliver Acton (18:53.465)
Hmm.
Oliver Acton (19:01.596)
What was quite useful James is, I know where Liberia is, it’s on the western horn that sticks out in Africa and we give a presentation about leadership. So I’m familiar with Ellen Searleaf who was the president from 2006 to 2018, something like that. And the thing that made her special was she was the first democratically elected head of state in Africa. So she mobilised lots of females within Africa, which is amazing.
James Hunter (19:17.105)
Yeah.
Chris (19:28.499)
Mmm.
Oliver Acton (19:30.715)
For most of our listeners that have heard of the country who won’t know much about it, can you just describe what the landscape of that country looks like, but also the state of all healthcare? Because as Chris was just saying, I think you said in the information you sent over to us that there’s a population of five million people and there’s seven dentists in Liberia.
Chris (19:35.623)
Yeah.
James Hunter (19:49.308)
Yeah, as of the most recent WHSURF save survey, seven dentists, so yeah, one for just under a million.
Chris (19:52.472)
Seven Dentists.
That is mad, is it not?
Oliver Acton (19:57.456)
I think I said, we’re looking at about 800,000 patients you all get through. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, so what does the country look like in terms of its makeup? It’s on the coast, isn’t it?
Chris (20:00.701)
for that.
James Hunter (20:00.74)
Yeah, we’re working hard.
James Hunter (20:08.668)
Yeah, so it’s on the on the West Coast of Africa. It’s bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, Sierra Leone, Guinea and the Ivory Coast. And it’s yeah, it’s about half the size of the UK. But you have the population of five million, like you say. mean, I think it’s it’s the history of it that really gives the context. I’m happy to go over a little bit of that if that would be interesting. Yes, I basically kind of would describe it as being a
Chris (20:08.873)
See you again.
Oliver Acton (20:26.863)
Yeah, love to, love to.
James Hunter (20:31.258)
country with a really, really tough recent history. It was founded in the 19th century basically as an outpost in Africa for freed slaves who were leaving the United States after the Civil War. My understanding there was quite mixed sentiments about whether or not that was a positive idea or a negative idea or whether there were good motivations or bad motivations behind it, but ultimately about four and a half thousand freed slaves travelled to Liberia over the course of a couple of decades. And of those only about
1800s survived. The country then achieved independence in 1847 but sadly basically the descendants of those freed slaves who were known as the Ameri-co-Liberians, kind of consolidated power and basically held total social and political control of the country and they almost treated the indigenous Liberians in the same way as they’ve been treated in the United States under slavery. This then caused
escalating tensions and it eventually came to a head in 1980 when there was a violent military coup. The American Liberian, the Ameri-Liberian president and his cabinet were executed and the first indigenous Liberian president called Samuel Doe, he took control of the country. Sadly again his time in power was characterized by corruption, nepotism and persecution of all the rival tribes and eventually he was killed in 1989 which triggered the start of the
Oliver Acton (21:32.508)
.
James Hunter (22:00.586)
first Liberian Civil War and that lasted seven years until 1997. That conflict led to the death of about 200,000 people and hundreds of thousands of people fled as refugees and at the end of that period of time there’s a man you might have heard of called Charles Taylor who was president. He’s currently in prison up in Durham for war crimes but
Chris (22:18.535)
yeah.
Oliver Acton (22:18.736)
Mm. Yeah.
Chris (22:23.665)
Naomi was it something to do with Naomi whatever name is what was the model? Maybe not now now more Campbell wasn’t there something about diamonds? He’s a dead diamonds and Naomi Campbell I Might be careful about that just in case I’ve made some allegedly something about there were some diamonds or something. I remember now Yeah
Oliver Acton (22:29.298)
Naomi Campbell.
James Hunter (22:35.162)
maybe because it’s that.
Oliver Acton (22:37.789)
You
James Hunter (22:39.441)
Let’s.
that blood diamond movie that’s the kind of the Sierra Leonean side of that Liberian civil war. under his rule there was kind of tentative peace for a couple of years but then there was a second civil war which broke out in 1999. That lasted until 2003 and led to the death of another quarter of a million people and an estimated million people were displaced as refugees into the nearby countries. As you said you know since then there has been peace and some several fair and democratic
Oliver Acton (22:45.597)
Hmm.
Chris (22:46.47)
Eh.
James Hunter (23:11.342)
elections but basically the aftermath of that civil war has been felt everywhere and it’s destroyed a lot of the the country’s infrastructure and then to top it all off in 2014 they had the West Africa Ebola virus outbreak started there and they don’t have a kind of two-year fight against Ebola but it’s kind of a whistle-stop tour of the of recent history of the country
Oliver Acton (23:16.413)
Hmm.
Oliver Acton (23:24.701)
Yeah.
Chris (23:30.515)
Wow.
Oliver Acton (23:30.674)
Wow, it’s a troubled country, isn’t it? But I suppose I’ll just think about it in terms of how long it’s taken the Irish situation to kind of calm down between Northern Ireland and the Republic and how that flows through generations in terms of how people feel about what their forefathers went through. And I imagine that in Liberia, you’ve got a similar situation where you’ll have lots of the, you know, the
Chris (23:33.329)
When you think about percentages of population, that’s huge, isn’t it?
James Hunter (23:37.372)
Yeah.
Oliver Acton (24:00.931)
not the indigenous Liberians but people who came over from America. There will still be descendants of those people living in Liberia. So bet there’s probably lots of kind of grumblings and under tensions happening and with the potential for them to flare up.
James Hunter (24:07.324)
Yeah.
James Hunter (24:16.422)
Yeah, I mean, it seems like a really complicated political structure, but I gather that some of the people who are kind of maybe involved in the civil war in a negative way are, you know, in still positions of government and, you know, that’s got, yeah, causing a variety of thoughts and tensions.
Chris (24:33.348)
Yeah.
Oliver Acton (24:35.646)
Mm.
Chris (24:35.869)
So you’ve got that, I mean that underlying potential instabilities there, isn’t it? It’s an even bolder move.
Oliver Acton (24:43.708)
Yeah.
James Hunter (24:45.692)
I mean, I’ve been reassured that I gather it’s a nice stable country now. And like I say, they’ve been fair and free elections. So hopefully that kind of tension is, yeah.
Chris (24:57.299)
Hmm. What?
Oliver Acton (24:58.44)
Hmm. And have you been out there on some recce? Have you done some trips out there already to kind of get a sense of the place?
Chris (25:02.674)
Hmm.
James Hunter (25:05.348)
Yeah, so my wife and I went out for a week last October, just as kind of a trip to see is this where we are going to move our family. Yeah, and so she’s…
Chris (25:08.306)
Well.
Oliver Acton (25:15.089)
it dealt with.
Chris (25:17.511)
What does your wife do, James?
James Hunter (25:21.436)
Been a stay at home mum since we’ve had our kids. So we’ve got a six year old and four year old. She went on and did a masters in theology and then some counselling training. yeah, she’s kind of in it. She keeps saying every time she just starts getting off, kind of take, we go somewhere new and I leave her a bit in limbo. So she feels a bit limbo at the moment in terms of kind of going for the next step in what she wants to do because we know we’re going to be leaving in six months. So she’s exploring counselling.
Chris (25:25.81)
Mm-hmm.
Chris (25:30.309)
Ok.
Chris (25:42.867)
You
Chris (25:48.883)
Hmm. I’ll tell you what though. I mean if the bit of counseling my son-in-law so sort of on a bit of a side my We have a faith as well and they work in a in a gangland place in South Africa and he Is studying to get his on a sports psychology degree? But part of it says you can do pro bono work to help with the trauma So I sort of think your wife’s gonna have a place there
James Hunter (25:51.39)
jobs out there.
James Hunter (26:17.498)
Yeah, no it sounds similar actually, she’s exploring kind of trauma counselling out there.
Chris (26:21.051)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s a lot of trauma.
Oliver Acton (26:23.456)
Hmm.
And based on the trip you had back in October and then going out next year, what do you think are going to be your early challenges when you arrive? From a family point of view and also from a dental point of view. Do you know where you’re going to be living yet? Do you know what the set up is going to be?
Chris (26:37.831)
Hmm
James Hunter (26:44.356)
Yeah, so the whole operation is on this compound called Elwar compound, basically prior to the Civil War starting, the organisation who we’re going with, set up a radio station on this compound and then that then evolved into a hospital and then school. so there’s this kind of compound outside of Monrovia, which is where we’ll be based.
Chris (26:44.723)
you
James Hunter (27:12.124)
I’m probably going to be moving into the house of the dentist who we’re kind of loosely taking over from so it was nice to be able to see that. I think in terms of, I don’t know, heat is going to be the immediate acclimatisation. I’m a cold, cold loving guy so it’s 27 degrees and 100 % humidity all year round, day and night there so that’ll be an adjustment. But yeah, I mean it’s going to be a really big adjustment as a family. It’s been, I think, even these last 18 months.
Chris (27:17.939)
Mm-hmm.
Chris (27:35.539)
Hmm.
James Hunter (27:40.526)
There’s been lots of ups and downs, there’s been bits where we’ve been incredibly excited, there’s been bits where we’ve thought what on are we doing? How do we need to get out of this? But I’d say that over the last few months we’re feeling like a really big sense of confidence and really excited. So there’s gonna be lots of challenges, know, clinically it’s gonna be kind of a completely different sort of dentistry to what I do now. I remember when I initially sent out the email to the guy who’s taking over I said, you know, I’m James, I work in this practice.
Chris (27:57.533)
Good.
Oliver Acton (28:03.199)
Hmm.
Chris (28:03.431)
Yeah.
James Hunter (28:10.43)
I like endodontics and working the microscope and he was like, not a lot of need for that here.
Chris (28:16.925)
Can you take teeth out and fill them?
Oliver Acton (28:20.033)
Will it be as simple as kind of extractions and taking people out of pain? Is that the majority of what you’ll be doing?
James Hunter (28:20.091)
Yeah.
James Hunter (28:27.91)
So I’ll be doing a mix, I’ll be doing some work on the clinic. I think it’s gonna be the case of arriving and seeing a little bit of what…
niche I can fit into. They get a lot of really big pathologies and so they work alongside a clinic in Guinea to do these big kind max-fac surgeries. But the other part of it is, so I’m going out to work in a clinic called Trinity Dental Clinic but the guy who moved there to start
Chris (28:38.877)
Mm-hmm.
Oliver Acton (28:40.011)
Hmm.
James Hunter (29:04.41)
running that back in 2017. He was a bit of a visionary and was, you know, just really struck him that actually it’s a well and good people kind of coming and helping, but actually it’s the Liberian workforce that needs to be built up. And so the exciting project he’s done is he’s started something called the Liberia Dental Therapy School. And the aim is that over the next, over the 10 years, this first 10 years, it’s going to train up 70 therapists. And so he’s worked alongside Plymouth University
Chris (29:32.2)
Well.
James Hunter (29:34.374)
come up with a degree course. It’s being accredited by a university in Liberia. They’ve just had their first seven, I think it is, therapists graduate.
and the aim is that they are going to be able to go back to their home counties with actually dent aid field kits and be able to provide dental care in their local areas. And so I’m going to be doing some of the teaching for that. And I think that is probably the most exciting element of it. It’s going to be really cool seeing different clinical things. I say, gave an example. There was when we went out in October, there was a young boy who I met on the clinic who
Chris (29:43.837)
for you.
Oliver Acton (29:44.256)
brilliant.
Chris (29:50.832)
Okay
Chris (30:00.561)
Yeah, so that’s good, isn’t it?
James Hunter (30:11.388)
poor guy, loss of decay, terrible toothache on his upper right molar and his mother had taken him to go see a traditional healer and they think that basically he mixed up a bunch of different herbs up with battery acid and then put that into the tooth and it just destroyed his whole of his maxilla on that right hand side so he attended the clinic with
Chris (30:28.988)
No, doesn’t.
James Hunter (30:39.514)
just loads of necrosis and Simon had to take out all of his teeth from that side and most of the bone. And yeah, what I think is cool is that, you know, obviously him receiving that treatment there probably saved his life, but you know.
Chris (30:42.195)
Thank you.
Oliver Acton (30:51.555)
Mmm.
James Hunter (30:52.624)
within hopefully 10 years, that mum will have somewhere to take her son and it won’t be the case that she has to go take him to somewhere where they’re inadvertently going to cause more harm than good. They’ll be able to take him to go see the local therapist who’s been trained up properly.
Chris (30:57.467)
Yeah.
Chris (31:04.019)
Mmm.
Oliver Acton (31:09.921)
think training the people, given that you’ve got a staff of five million population and seven dentists, it’s the only way for the country to be genuinely supported from an oral health standpoint. Because seven dentists, you can’t do it. And I guess all you’re going to be dealing with dealing with the most extreme cases you can. there’s so many people, you just get another raft of extreme cases coming in. Whereas, like you say, if you can get
James Hunter (31:15.504)
Yeah.
James Hunter (31:23.685)
Yeah.
Chris (31:31.603)
Yeah, the vast bulk of people aren’t they?
James Hunter (31:34.299)
Yeah.
Oliver Acton (31:35.695)
therapists and hygienists and more dental care professionals, particularly out in the regions. It’s going to take time, but it will deal with it. And I can see why for you that is an exciting part of it. Doing the day-to-day dentistry will be great, but supporting other people to deliver that service themselves will be very cool.
James Hunter (31:43.962)
Yeah, absolutely.
Chris (31:53.235)
Well, you become part of a legacy, don’t you? That’s the hope is that you create something that’s self perpetuating that will eventually go from 800,000 patients per dentist to 400,000 to 200,000. It’s a long old journey, isn’t it? Brilliant. Hats off to you, James. Hats off to him.
James Hunter (32:04.582)
Ha.
Oliver Acton (32:08.322)
Yeah, absolutely. What will family life look like for you out there in terms of, I mean the kids are still reasonably young but schooling and where you live and that side of things. You’re saying you’re probably going to move into the dentist’s house. What does that look like?
James Hunter (32:25.69)
So, I mean, it’s a lovely place in some respects. It’s right on the Atlantic coast, so just next to the beach, sticking near the sea, which is good.
Chris (32:34.867)
Water again.
James Hunter (32:36.06)
Then, yes, there’s a little co-op school just on the compound as well. So we visited that when we were out there. I there was about 30, 40 kids split over two classes. so, yeah, Max and Phoebe will be attending that. I think the only issue is that the teachers seem to come and go a little bit. So the teachers we met when we went out there, they’ve moved on. And so I think just the capacity for how much school in there we’re able to provide probably changes year on year.
Chris (32:49.043)
Alright.
Chris (33:04.008)
Mm.
James Hunter (33:05.976)
I think my wife’s definitely praying that they’ve got lots of teachers because our son’s very busy and I think homeschooling would be an intense endeavour. I think they’ve got schooling at that in theory, all morning and the early afternoon. think my wife, the dentist we’re going to swap with is called Simon and his wife Grace does lots of work within the hospital. It’s kind of like a paediatric malnutrition unit.
And so think my wife’s hoping to kind of get involved with basically whatever jobs that are available where they need an extra pair of hands while she’s out there. yeah, it’s interesting to think what family life will be like. I mean, it will be, I think, simpler and slower in loads of respects. You know, with the recent history, Liberia, even compared to kind of nearby Sierra Leone, is not really set up for any kind of tourism or anything like that. So I think it’s going to be a lot of, you know, hopefully precious family time with our kids.
Chris (33:47.826)
Mmm.
James Hunter (34:05.79)
at this young age, lots time in the water.
Chris (34:06.055)
Yeah.
Oliver Acton (34:07.214)
Mm.
Hmm.
Chris (34:10.575)
No phones. No Xbox.
Oliver Acton (34:13.189)
I’ll just say, truly, truly amazing experience. And have you given a commitment to be out there for a certain period of time?
Chris (34:16.701)
Yeah, that’d be brilliant.
Hmm.
James Hunter (34:21.5)
So we’re aiming for four years and then reassess.
Oliver Acton (34:23.354)
Go on.
James Hunter (34:25.052)
The organisation who we’re going with, they like people to commit for two years and then come back, have a bit of a debrief and then decide more. the guy, Simon, he kind of said, look, it’ll take you a year to feel even remotely kind of comfortable there and by year two you’ll start to feel like you know what you’re doing. And then if you leave at that point, you’re kind of leaving maybe a bit prematurely. So he said, why don’t you mentally commit to four years? And yeah, we’re happy with that. So that’s kind of what we’re aiming for.
Chris (34:45.107)
Mmm.
Chris (34:51.837)
probably fits in with the education of your oldest child as well doesn’t it that sort of gets in coming into secondary school.
James Hunter (34:55.29)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Exactly.
Oliver Acton (34:57.773)
Yeah. Are you going to be, are you going to be charting this experience somehow for people to follow? I suppose it’s such a, mean, outside of dentistry, I think just a British based family going out to Liberia is a very unusual thing to do anyway. And then when you layer over that, dentistry element, I’m sure there’ll be people that will be interested in on a number of different levels. Can they keep in touch with you somehow?
Chris (35:04.082)
Great idea.
Chris (35:19.795)
Hmm.
James Hunter (35:22.266)
I’m glad you said that actually because I used to do a bit of wedding photography and I thought of the idea of maybe doing some kind of video blog thing. My wife really doesn’t like the idea of being on camera so I have to tell her that you said it was a good idea. But yeah, that’s what I said. Just perpetually blurred out with a different audio voiceover.
Oliver Acton (35:37.008)
Hahaha!
Chris (35:38.193)
think it is you can just blur her out she’ll be fine yeah yeah
James Hunter (35:45.884)
I mean we’ve got a website if you type in thehuntersinliberia.co.uk that comes up with our website that then links to we’ve got an Instagram with the same. We’ve kind of set it up but obviously we haven’t gone yet so I haven’t got anything too much to put on but yeah we’d love to get a you know…
Oliver Acton (36:01.05)
Yeah, sure.
James Hunter (36:07.452)
I this is why I’m so grateful for you guys having me on this podcast. I’d love to have like, you know, the dental community behind us as well, because I do think that, you know, we’ve got our friends and family and, you know, other networks behind us, but I think it’s, there’s going to be a really interesting dental element of this for me to be able to share. And I’m also aware that, you know, I’m not even remotely gonna.
Chris (36:13.138)
Yeah.
Oliver Acton (36:13.326)
Yeah.
Chris (36:24.179)
Mm.
James Hunter (36:30.97)
be able to just deal with everything that comes along and I’m going to need some advice and it would be lovely to have the dental hive mind behind for some of the more difficult things that we come across.
Chris (36:33.255)
Yeah.
Oliver Acton (36:40.712)
Well, we can definitely drop that link in the guest notes. And you say that outside of dentists, you’re pretty obsessed about spearfishing. Although I only know one person that does this and he says the same thing as you, which is there seems to be a disproportionate amount of time not hitting things and then hitting things. I guess because you’re in Monrovia, which is on the coast, are there going to be some experts out in Liberia that are going to help you with that, honing that skill?
Chris (36:42.737)
Yeah, definitely.
Chris (37:01.384)
You
James Hunter (37:08.38)
I haven’t been able to find any Spiros, that’s what they’re called, any Spiros out in Liberia. There’s a Spiro in Sierra Leone, so I’m going have to visit him. I’ve just got to persuade my wife that it’s safe enough for to let me just paddle out into the ocean and have a little look. When we were out there, there were a bunch of boys who were just splashing the water. I just saw them, they must have scared this fish into the corner of the beach and just pulled out this giant fish. So there’s clearly stuff to be caught.
Chris (37:12.721)
I’m a spear rise.
Oliver Acton (37:13.464)
Chris (37:23.515)
Yeah
Chris (37:36.667)
Yeah, wow. Excellent. I think it sounds amazing. think, you know, amazing is the whole thing, really.
Oliver Acton (37:38.023)
for awhile.
James Hunter (37:38.188)
So yeah, do, I’ll do that.
Oliver Acton (37:43.399)
Yeah, it is. is. And hats off to you because as you said, you you go through moments where you go, what the heck are we doing? Is this really a good idea? But it will be life changing. And I think for you and your family, but also for the people of Liberia. And I think the fact there is a program in place to introduce more, you know, clinicians across the country and you’re going to be right at the forefront of that. You know, you can imagine in, you know, 20, 30, 40 years time.
Chris (38:12.263)
Yeah, definitely.
Oliver Acton (38:13.435)
They could have this program that spans the whole country and you were there at the beginning or quite early on which is pretty cool.
Chris (38:19.151)
oak trees out of acorns grow.
James Hunter (38:19.836)
It’s an honor.
Oliver Acton (38:21.433)
Yeah, well, yeah, we’ll definitely drop that link in in the guest notes so people can stay in touch with it. And my take has always been that the UK dental profession is incredibly supportive and helpful. And I don’t doubt for a moment that if you reach back when you’re out there, there’ll be endless people looking to give you help and support and guidance on things. it would be like that. I’ll definitely follow you Instagram. I’d love to keep in touch in terms of how it goes and what it looks like.
Chris (38:26.3)
Now print.
James Hunter (38:26.512)
Thank you.
Chris (38:39.709)
help and tips. Yeah, definitely.
James Hunter (38:48.55)
Thank you.
Oliver Acton (38:48.616)
Before we leave, if you’re going to treat more patients this afternoon, we do have to ask you two questions before you’re allowed to go. If you could be a fly on a wall, where would you be and who’d be there?
James Hunter (39:02.488)
thought about this one i feel like i need to caveat or qualify my answer a little bit i yeah i mentioned i did my field
Chris (39:05.778)
That means it’s going to be a good one. It’s going to be interesting. Go on then.
James Hunter (39:11.748)
I measured it to the theology degree and there’s a type of biblical study called or biblical interpretation called typology and it’s basically where you look at kind of earlier parts of the Bible mostly in the Old Testament and look at how they foreshadow later events in the Bible most commonly about how they foreshadow Christ and like sort of example would be kind of that you know during the Passover when you’ve got the final plague of Egypt which is death of all the firstborn sons the Israelites are told to sacrifice a spotless lamb, apply a
Chris (39:38.376)
Mm-hmm.
James Hunter (39:41.742)
blood to the doorpost and then when the angel of death comes it will see the blood of the lamb pass over them so they avoid death so they you’d say okay this foreshadows Christ as the lamb of God whose blood is shed across on the cross and then ultimately meaning that those who accept his sacrifice are covered by his blood and death passes over them and so some of them are quite straightforward some of them are really you know
Oliver Acton (40:13.833)
I think your audio is gone, James. If you can still hear us, I think we’ve lost your audio. I don’t know if a connection has come out on your side.
Oliver Acton (40:29.497)
No, we can still see you but we can’t hear you.
James Hunter (40:36.49)
Hello, can hear me?
Oliver Acton (40:38.707)
Can you hear him Chris or is it just me?
Chris (40:40.307)
No, I heard a little rumble, it’s come up here. It says James Hunter’s recording will continue on a new track.
James Hunter (40:44.213)
you
Oliver Acton (40:50.152)
Yeah.
Chris (40:52.073)
that’s interesting it says started a new recording for James Hunter due to a change in their device.
James Hunter (40:53.174)
Hello.
Oliver Acton (41:01.016)
that sounds like it’s changed. It sounds like it’s dropped the microphone and switched to another microphone, possibly.
Chris (41:02.899)
I wonder if his battery ran out or something. Yeah, possibly.
Chris (41:11.539)
I can see on my screen, for him, it says we’re not able to display this camera and mic.
Oliver Acton (41:20.809)
So,
Chris (41:21.807)
I’ve got a little green light on, not green, orange light at the corner. So it’s obviously on but not maybe the right on.
Oliver Acton (41:29.95)
Yeah, sounds like something’s happened on, perhaps, James’s side where it’s switched from one microphone to another, or it’s just stopped working.
Chris (41:33.117)
Yeah. Something, yeah.
because I’m looking down on his.
Oliver Acton (41:41.642)
I don’t know if you can hear us James, it might be worth if you can perhaps leaving and then using the same link to click back in and join again and see whether that fixes it. Yeah.
Chris (41:54.148)
he’s gone. So that would make me think he could hear us.
Oliver Acton (41:55.056)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think he could. So hopefully he’s gonna come back in and it will. But it just stopped as it just clicked.
Chris (42:03.111)
Where we got up Yeah, and then he stopped talking when he kept talking and then he said Get on the lamb of god lamb of god
Oliver Acton (42:12.202)
Yeah, I was going to say we were just getting to the
Chris (42:15.411)
us to get him what he was on about.
Oliver Acton (42:17.322)
There’s also going be something coming in there about, about, he’s going to…
Chris (42:22.257)
Some of them are more a bit random, is where we sort of finished up with.
Oliver Acton (42:24.924)
Yeah, yeah, I’m fascinated to see how this links back to what war he’s going to be a fly on.
Chris (42:29.288)
Yeah, no, no, I’m done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. here we go. So are you letting him in? yeah. Yeah. Here we go. Yeah, that’s better. Yeah, we can hear you. Suddenly we got to the point where you said you said some of them are a bit more random and then we couldn’t hear you anymore.
Oliver Acton (42:32.439)
Here we go. Let’s let him back in. Yeah. Hello. perfect. Perfect.
James Hunter (42:36.502)
Hey, is that working? Hello? sorry about that.
Oliver Acton (42:42.502)
That’s right. Yeah, yeah. We heard your full description of the lion, then you got to the point where you said that some of them were a bit more obscure than others, and then we lost the audio.
James Hunter (42:54.102)
Okay, yes that’s the preamble, so yeah some of them are bit more obscure but basically there’s a bit in Luke’s Gospel where after Jesus’ resurrection he’s walking on the road with a couple of his followers and it says he says to them, at Moses and all the prophets he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. So he basically gave the best lecture on typology so I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that making notes.
Oliver Acton (43:19.563)
Fabulous. No.
Chris (43:19.781)
Okay, interesting now I can tell you we’ve never had that one
Oliver Acton (43:26.249)
No. And our follow-up is you could meet somebody. So I’m fascinated in what we’re going to get for the answer for this one. You can meet somebody, you can sit down with them, you know, a cup of coffee, glass of wine. Yeah. Who would you like to your opportunity to sit down with?
Chris (43:37.211)
Living or dead, fact or fiction.
James Hunter (43:42.494)
bit of random one as well. there’s a a man called Klaus Dieter John who basically when we were looking at locations of where we could go in the world one of the places we were offered was Peru and that’s how I heard of this guy and so he basically felt that he had a desire to build a hospital in Peru for the Quechua people and so he’s managed to do it it’s called Diospi Siana and he basically went around the world with the motto shy dogs don’t get fed and he’s basically
Chris (43:55.409)
Okay.
James Hunter (44:12.35)
managed to build this incredible state-of-the-art hospital just through donations and gifts. So all the building supplies, the land, the labour, all of the medical equipment and the shipping is
Chris (44:17.843)
Bye.
James Hunter (44:22.486)
he’s managed to get hold of it through donations. They’ve got a CT scan from Siemens and dental surgeries from Henry Schein. But anyway, I’d love to meet him because I would absolutely love to be given a Zeiss Xtaro microscope to take to Liberia. so if Carl Zeiss is kind enough to donate one to me, maybe he’s the man to ask.
Chris (44:27.89)
Bye.
Chris (44:37.014)
HAHAHAHA
Oliver Acton (44:41.09)
Yeah.
Chris (44:41.331)
Yeah, anyone listening who’s got one, that’s in a cupboard somewhere.
Oliver Acton (44:44.653)
Wow that’s quite remarkable the whole thing was from these food donations
James Hunter (44:51.372)
Yeah, and he’s written a whole book about it, just people giving him freebies, letting him, just giving lots of donations, incredible.
Oliver Acton (44:58.711)
Wow, wow, fair play to you. James, we know you’ve got patients this afternoon and you’ve got a lot to sort out between now and when you go off to Liberia. Honestly, all the very best with it. I think what you’re doing is remarkable. I think it really is. And what I love is how diverse and the rich tapestry of UK dentistry is that we have people who have outlandish hobbies, we have people who have multiple practices, and we have people like you who are going to take your clinical skill.
Chris (44:58.79)
Amen.
Chris (45:06.823)
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely.
Oliver Acton (45:28.301)
and go and help a much needed country and it’s going to be the adventure of a lifetime.
Chris (45:33.619)
It’s gonna be amazing, truly amazing.
James Hunter (45:35.32)
Thank you so much for having me on. It’s been really lovely chatting to you guys.
Oliver Acton (45:38.187)
Yeah, no, it has. Look after yourself, Best wishes to you and your family for the adventures ahead of you.
Chris (45:38.429)
Brilliant.
Chris (45:43.163)
Yeah, definitely and we’ll keep posted on the hunter whatever it was family.co.uk link, whatever it is. No, brilliant
James Hunter (45:49.538)
Great. Thanks very much. See you guys.
Oliver Acton (45:50.187)
Yeah, brilliant. Love you. guys. Cheers. Ta-ra. Cheers.
Chris (45:52.211)
Cheers.
