Behind a Smile with Dr. Shauntel Ambrose

Embracing Opportunities and Building a Brand in a New Country

• Shauntel Ambrose

Share episode

Send us a text

Ever wondered what it takes to transition from one country to another while building a successful dental practice? Join us as Misha Smiet and Dr. Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo share their inspiring journey from South Africa to the Netherlands, delving into their motivations, preparations, and the unexpected hurdles they faced. From navigating new entry requirements to adjusting to a different cost of living, their story provides invaluable lessons for anyone contemplating a similar move. Discover how they meticulously planned and adapted, ensuring their dream of running a dental clinic abroad became a reality.

Running a family dental practice comes with its unique set of challenges and rewards. Misha and Dr. Vanitha open up about balancing their clinical and administrative roles while raising young children. Learn how their workweek has evolved to accommodate both professional demands and family life, and the crucial role of part-time staff in maintaining this balance. They also offer a comparative look at dental practices and patient expectations between South Africa and the Netherlands, shedding light on cultural differences and the growing emphasis on preventive care in their new home.

The episode wouldn't be complete without addressing the impact of COVID-19 on their practice and the healthcare system in the Netherlands. Misha and Dr. Vanitha discuss the financial support mechanisms that kept their business afloat during lockdowns and the rigorous precautions implemented upon reopening. They candidly share the emotional and professional challenges of emigrating, from learning the local language to adapting to new workplace cultures. As a bonus, get a glimpse into their personal lives with some fun rapid-fire questions, and pick up practical strategies for building your brand and advancing your career in dentistry. Let's embark on this insightful and heartwarming journey together!

Shauntel Ambrose:

Hello and welcome to Behind a Smile. I am Dr S hauntal Ambrose and I am a dentist. I host a healthcare business podcast where I interview healthcare practitioners around the world, sharing tips on how to improve your healthcare practice, innovate and grow, while living your best life. We share products and information from healthcare partners that can help you in your practice journey, be it a startup, a family-based business or a multidisciplinary healthcare team. Most of the information provided here is based on personal experience and opinions. Of the information provided here is based on personal experience and opinions, so please supplement what you learn here with approved research, studies and professional advice.

Shauntel Ambrose:

Thank you to everyone who has subscribed and I invite you to join our community. If you haven't, we would love to hear from you. If you would like to be on the show, drop me a mail at behindasmile2 at gmailcom. Let's make it happen together. We're welcoming today Misha Smeet, as well as Dr Vanitha Smeet, naidoo and you know they have had a little bit of an experience while being in the Netherlands and they're sharing their perspective of running their practice in the Netherlands and they're sharing their perspective of running their practice in the Netherlands. So welcome guys.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

Welcome.

Misha Smiet:

Thank you, thanks for having us.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

Thanks for having us.

Shauntel Ambrose:

Yeah, we know that you have been a dentist and qualified from South Africa. Tell us a little bit about when you've worked here. What really was the ideas that you had when you were leaving South Africa? What brought you to that decision?

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

Well, firstly, it was never my idea or intention to permanently leave South Africa. I had signed a contract for one year just after community service. It was just the intention to come and live in Europe for a little while. I could work in the Netherlands as a dentist, earn a good salary, and I wanted to travel a little bit. I never, ever thought that I would be here 20 years later, but I am. That's just how sometimes life works. I chose the Netherlands purely because I could get a job here.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

My initial destination was going to be London, but just before we were done with community service, london stopped accepting healthcare professionals without the exams and the Netherlands? They were asking for dentists. There was a shortage of dentists, so I could very easily get a job. It was actually a very easy process, but I'm talking about 2003, 2004. It's a very different ballgame now. Back then I actually didn't have to write any entrance exams, no language exams. I only had to work in the practice of someone else, so that I was technically under supervision for six months and then I was fully qualified as a, or fully recognized as a Dutch dentist.

Shauntel Ambrose:

So really, the entrance was quite different to what we now know we'll be needing in order to get there, but there must have been a mental preparation. You know just this idea even of being a few years abroad. Did you go through any of these mental steps, or what was the physical preparation now to move over?

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

I had to learn how to ride a bike. That was my physical preparation that I did the mental preparation, I have to say, because of the mindset I had at the time. And obviously it's a very different mindset if you're giving something up to leave and when you're done with CommServe or when you're in the middle of CommServe, there's very little that you own. I owned a car and a couch that you own. I owned a car and a couch. That was all my possessions, because in Komsom I lived in an apartment at the hospital, so the mental preparation wasn't so intense. Also because at the time my brother was living in London as a medical doctor and so I'd seen firsthand how his experiences were. But it was also at that time there was no social media, the world wasn't as connected as it is now, and sometimes I think the more you know, the more you can be aware of risks. And when I see people who want to come over now and the questions that they ask and the preparations that they're doing, and I think to myself these are really good questions that I simply did not address at the time.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

But it was for me an adventure. Like I said, it was never a relocation. Perhaps if it was going to be a relocation, I would have looked at it more seriously. But it was just an adventure. I was going and if it didn't work out I was going to come back. It was done through an agency who took over all of the entire process actually the visa application, the work application, my apartment. So it was a very well. At the time I thought a good deal. The agency when I got here wasn't the best agency. It didn't last very long, that partnership that took a lot of stress off because I didn't have to do any of the paperwork myself. The paperwork is always intense when you're trying to get into another country.

Shauntel Ambrose:

Tell us why. Why did you change when you got there? What does it look like to not have now a good agent? What were you looking for and what didn't they come through with?

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

One of the things that I probably should have paid more attention to was, for example, the cost of living. But I'm 23 years old. I'm relatively naive. I'd never been to Europe before, so everything I knew was South Africa and I had severely underestimated the cost of living here and also underestimated the cost of dentistry here. So what I would be making for the company in comparison to what I would be earning as my salary was very out of proportion.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

But, like I said, I just did not do my homework on that and that is something if someone's looking at coming over now like the cost of living compared to what you'd be earning. I mean, that's something that now it makes so much sense that you do it, but I just didn't do it then. So when I got here, I realized my daily, what I earned as a dentist compared to my salary, was really not fair. But that was just a way of getting the South African dentists over, so they did give me an apartment. But the one great thing was a lot of South Africans came to the same agency. So, even though I came alone, I made a lot of friends within a very short time. However, the agency's business plan was very flawed and I think I arrived in July and in November the agency went bankrupt.

Shauntel Ambrose:

Oh, dear, okay.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

Yeah, so that was very interesting. Oh, dear, okay, yeah, so that was very interesting. But bankruptcy here happens more often than you think, but it simply means that there's debts that cannot be paid, and they're bought over Okay.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

So my contract was taken over by another company the next day, but what it had meant is my initial contract dissolves. And now I'm here. Now I know what I'm worth as a dentist and a whole bunch. Yeah, I could now renegotiate, which so for me, actually the company going bankrupt, even though the moment I heard it I was panicked. But when it actually happened it was actually such a godsend. But I didn't continue with that agency because I got offered a job by an independent dentist who had heard about me from the technical lab that we both used, and so he came to see me one day and he said you know, if you're looking, I need a second dentist. You know, after having a bad experience with the one agency, I thought, okay, I'm not too keen to try another agency, even though I'm getting a lot of promises, and that's what made me move over to the other dentist, the independent practice.

Shauntel Ambrose:

Well, thank you for sharing that, because I think that many of us would go over and there's not everything that you can get perfectly right with any move. I think you come close if you're very well researched and, like you say, there's a tremendous amount of research available and necessary now for dentists who are thinking about the move. But I want to hear from you as well, nisha, so you joined the practice at a later stage I know when we were talking, but can you share your journey before you were in dentistry and then when you joined your wife now in both of your practices? Now tell me a little bit about working with dentists and what you've learned so far being on the administration side. So is it easy to work with dentists Because you don't have a dental background? You have a marketing background and I think that it's quite a unique thing when you're working with dentistry. Just tell us a little bit about your role in the practice currently.

Misha Smiet:

Well, when I wanted to start my own dental practice, the idea was that I would help out for a few months to start up. And I came from a business background I did marketing and I have done IT and the idea was that I could help her set up and start a practice, but we realized that these days in the Netherlands, in a dental practice, you need someone to deal with a lot of things that are not clinical, so it's all the business things that need to be arranged.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

That is something that I I started doing yeah, it just became easier if he did the business side and I did the dentist side, because any time that I would have to deal with the business side meant that I wasn't on, I wasn't being a dentist. That was what I did, what I, what I was opening the practice for.

Shauntel Ambrose:

So so thanks for that. And you know, listen, I think that it's always a great team. I always call it the brains and the brawn. I think when you're the dentist it's a little bit of both, because it's quite a physical job. I always say that it is quite a. It's an interesting thing working with family, and I've had quite a few people where they're family businesses and or they're power couples and you have a family that you go home to and you carry on a different role, but then you go to the practice and you also have a different role. So how do you manage that now? Do you guys see a lot of each other in the practice, or is your clinical side just far removed from your admin side and then you just get to see each other in office during a meeting somewhere along the line?

Misha Smiet:

Yeah, we see each other whenever Vanita is in between patients and comes in for a snack, or she wants to sit behind a computer and do some admin and otherwise we don't. We have.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

Yeah, actually actually, and we're only, uh, physically in the practice for half a day a week together. It's very different now than when we started. When we started, I think, we were in the practice for four days a week together long days, because there were many days we had dinner at the practice, but that was also because there was so, so much of paperwork and bureaucracy to deal with when we started up the practice. And now there's that's less, and now we have our family at home. You know, we have the, the two kids, so generally we sort of when I'm at work he's at home, except for the one morning, and next year, when the youngest also goes to school, maybe that'll change, because we deal with different aspects of the practice. We work together, but also not together, which is, I think, what makes it work. Yeah, we have very clear, differentiated tasks.

Shauntel Ambrose:

Yeah.

Misha Smiet:

Okay.

Shauntel Ambrose:

So that works really well for you, and the regimens are quite different. So I was quite surprised when you gave me an idea of how many hours is your maximum that you work, so can you share with us what are your hours that you're currently working and how does it work there in terms of your staff complement?

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

now, South Africa is. It's a rat race the hours you know they're long. Saturdays you have to be open. I see patients Monday mornings, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, from eight to five. Fridays I don't see patients. Of course it's my extra time that I do, for admin and other administrative tasks are not included here, and we have another dentist, a locum, who comes in on the Monday afternoon and the Friday so that we have a dentist in the practice at all times. We also have hygienists and junior hygienists in the practice and assistants of course, but it's very much an eight to five job Monday to Friday.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

It's very common that a dentist works what you would probably call part-time, like a 40-hour dental week. I actually don't think I know anyone who does it. Saturdays are very unusual that you have to work. We always have an emergency. You have like a group of dentists, like in our area, and there's a roaster. Everyone just takes turns and last year we were, it was our turn for two weeks. So in those two weeks if a patient of any of the practices in the area has a problem after five or on the weekend, then they contact us.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

But it goes first through a call center and the call center is also heavily filtered. If someone just has a chipped tooth, they won't come through to us. That waits till the next day. If someone has had a trauma, you know they've fallen, you need to check it, they will come through to us. So even when you're doing, when you're on emergency call, it's not really like you're working longer hours. You're just there for actual emergencies and people here accept that. They accept that if the truth is broken, they can wait till the next day, and I think that's very different than then back home and if you look at the staff, the hours they're working, we have a team of ten individuals and no one is working full time.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

Yeah.

Misha Smiet:

Everybody's working what you would call part time. Some people work two days a week.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

Yeah, yeah, it gives everyone a lot of flexibility, especially for parents, male and female.

Shauntel Ambrose:

Okay, so that really is quite it's quite different to what South African dentists are quite used to. I wanted to know what is the typical emergency in your practice and what sort of procedures are you seeing daily?

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

Every day. A typical day you'd have checkups and fillings, extractions, crowns maybe once a week or once every two weeks. I think that's my typical day is that Emergencies. I have a place open, a spot open every day for emergencies. Sometimes it gets filled, sometimes it doesn't. Today my emergency was someone whose crown I had to re-cement and that was it. We do do root canals in the treatment in the practice, but the whole purpose is to not let it get that far To say that our root canals we don't do root canals every day. Sometimes there's weeks that I don't do root canals, but that's what I'm aiming for. You know we are very focused on prevention. I'm not sure how it is now in South Africa, but I know growing up as a child I didn't go to the dentist every six months. Here it's very much in the culture. Every six months you go for your checkup, so if there's a problem we can fix it before it gets out of hand.

Shauntel Ambrose:

Okay, and then can I ask because I'm sure that you still have family still in SA and that medical aids in South Africa has become quite a challenging part of practice management and I'd like to know now how does it work in terms of the Netherlands? So are there medical aids or are these private accounts, are there insurers, or how does it all work?

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

This is very different between the two countries because obviously the Netherlands is a social government, so, like in South Africa, you speak about medical aids and private rates. One of the biggest differences I would say between dentistry here and dentistry in South Africa is that everything is standardized here. So a checkup at Dentist Day costs the same as Dentist B. There's an organization that controls our rates. So an extraction or a filling, it's all standardized. You have a max amount that you can charge.

Misha Smiet:

It is determined by the government.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

It's determined by the government, by the health association, by the Dutchess Health Association, and then we do not have a national health system like the UK does. It's all, as you would call it in South African terms, private health care, but it's organized in a way that still makes it a bit equal. For example, if you have a low income, then your health care rates, or what you pay every month, is subsidized, so everybody can afford it. However and this is very different from 15 years ago when you'd be very your cover for dental be very good it's getting much and much less, and we're seeing that in the practice. We're seeing a lot of patients who are choosing not to get cover.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

There's no such thing like in South Africa. You'd get really good medical aids that would cover everything. Here there's very little difference between the medical aids regarding how much is covered or even the costs that you're paying every month. But within the medical aids, regarding how much is covered or even the costs that you're paying every month, but within the medical aid, you have like a tier one, a tier two and a tier three. So your basic would be 250 euros, which would 250 euros here would cover two cleanings and two checkups. The moment you want a filling, you're gone above it and we used to I think even like five years ago get 100% cover. Now there's very few medical aides that are doing 100% cover, which means if you have a cleaning done, you still have to pay 25% out of pocket.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

So we are seeing a trend that more patients patients have good teeth, you know who just basically need the cleanings and the checkups that are choosing not to take medical aids. But it's not. I remember when South Africa you know you had we only work with certain medical aids because the other ones don't cover this. We don't have that here here. Yeah, like a lot of South Africans when they move up, one of the questions I see often on social media is like which medical aid should I choose? It's all much for muchness? It's not like that. That's different and there's no such thing as different rates like private rates, cash rates, medical aid rates. It's all the same. However, you want to pay us.

Shauntel Ambrose:

I appreciate that, because it may be a very silly question to ask both of you, because I'm sure that, being now this well, what I would call a power team there's this idea that when you're in South Africa, you do really become very focused on what's immediately available to you, and it's only when you really look wider that you see the differences.

Shauntel Ambrose:

So I'm asking specifically about the differences, just so that we can have a little bit of a wider reach in terms of the information that we get to share from you today. So how did you guys cope with COVID? Because I had just a conversation very recently with one of our guests about how people are still recovering financially here. We've had a tough economic climate since COVID and arguably before that, and we find that, even though no one is talking much about it, there seems to have been such a lag that has been created. Some practices have been lost, others are still just trying to get a little bit of diversification to just get back on their feet again. Where did you stand when COVID happened and, as a country, how did you guys cope in terms of health care?

Misha Smiet:

After COVID hit, the country shut down fairly quickly. We as dentists were forced to close for about six to seven weeks. It was a difficult time for obvious reasons, but luckily we have a social system in this country that helped a lot. We could apply for financial support, so the government would basically pay a percentage of the wages of each business, including ours. They probably did that to make sure that people would not get fired and then apply for social benefits later, which would be a bigger impact on the government and also the health insurance companies. They supported the health practices, so we would get a percentage of our estimated growth from them. All those things were very difficult to apply for and sort out and two years later I was still dealing with the financial repercussions of the COVID support regulations.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

There's a lot of paperwork, a lot of paperwork.

Misha Smiet:

Luckily, vanitha was on a maternity leave when that happened, so her insurance made sure that she got paid.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

When you're on maternity leave, you're insured, so I get a salary. I got a salary for four months.

Shauntel Ambrose:

So what is your maternity leave? Is it standardized and how long do you get? It's a long term.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

Well, it depends on. I mean, I'm not employed, right, it's our business so, but we're insured. What is it called Disability insurance? It falls under disability insurance.

Shauntel Ambrose:

Okay.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

And then they pay me for 16 weeks.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

Okay how much of time I actually take off. I will get paid for 16 weeks, whether it's four weeks before and 12 after, or the full 16 after. That's completely up to me. I can also just choose to take less, but I get paid 16 weeks. And those 16 weeks because my son was born in February 2020, came very useful because for me, I mean, obviously we had got locums, we had arranged for locums to be taking over my patients in the practice, but it wasn't. I didn't feel at that moment like my personal income was being lost, because I had already sort of budgeted for it, because I knew what money I was going to get and my insurance just paid completely out in that time.

Shauntel Ambrose:

I just wanted to know when you went back to work, did you go vaccinated? Did your patients have to come in with precautions? Because what did it look like when you were working with your patients during COVID, when you did start eventually?

Misha Smiet:

Yeah, after we started again.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

We weren't vaccinated yet we weren't vaccinated yet.

Misha Smiet:

No, but it took a long time for the normal agenda to be filled again, obviously. So in the beginning we started with only emergency treatments and later the agenda became fuller and fuller. Yeah, but also because I know in South Africa dentists were considered first line and later the agenda became fuller and fuller.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

Yeah, but also because I know in South Africa dentists were considered first line. Here we weren't, because if you were anything less than healthy you weren't coming to see us. There were other practices being set up for patients who had any COVID-related problems to be seen. So anyone who was coming to see us had to be 100% healthy, which is why we weren't at the top of the list of people getting vaccinated, the people who are getting vaccinated, the healthcare people are getting vaccinated, the doctors, people working in hospitals, people working in old age homes or care facilities and the elderly. That's where the focus was.

Misha Smiet:

So we were actually fairly low down uh, fairly much later than the south african dentists but we asked our patients if they came, if they were, if they had any flu symptoms yeah, you know, you did a triage, yeah yeah, so so in the, in the appointment, we already made a triage and when people weren't feeling well, they would call us to cancel the appointment.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

Yeah, or if they'd be next to someone who wasn't feeling well, we were pretty strict about it, but the patients were also pretty strict about it. So I had a feeling like most of the country took it seriously, took it seriously and we had to have bigger breaks between the patients just to make sure that you could get your room as ventilated as possible, and we were allowed to charge a surcharge for about a year, I think.

Misha Smiet:

Yeah.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

Per patient to cover the cost.

Misha Smiet:

Yeah, the cost of extra things we had to do because we made some precautions that we didn't do before.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

Yeah, and the prices shot up. I don't know what it was like in South Africa, but a box of masks costing €2.50 to, at its max, something like €25. That still not got no effect at all.

Misha Smiet:

No, no, no that it was bizarre.

Shauntel Ambrose:

I I think that all of us have had that experience where the south african practices, we, we went into, I think, quite a few months where we were not able to practice and then we just saw the emergencies. And then thereafter you had foggers and you had masks but you had to have a really good quality sort of filter on your mask and then it just went on where you had to use a disposable. So we had a lot of add-ons in our protocols that if it did make much of a difference, because I do know that many people were still COVID positive without knowing when they entered into many surgeries. So have you ever had any of those experiences? Where now did you have to do a pre-check for whether they were COVID positive or it was just accepted that In?

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

the Netherlands, netherlands you could get a PCR test free. They were free of charge. It was very accessible. So everybody not I mean not everybody, but I think most people when they had any doubt got tested and that was that was what the government was encouraging like. If you're gonna're going to see people go get tested, Okay. And the testing rate here was very high.

Misha Smiet:

They all started with the home tests.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

Yeah, and self-tests.

Misha Smiet:

Self-tests. So when you weren't feeling that well or in doubt if you are completely healthy, you would do a self-test. And if the result was that you're negative, that there was nothing wrong, then you would do a self-test, yeah, and if the result was that you're negative, that there was nothing wrong, then you would accept that you just can't okay.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

Yeah, and these self-tests were readily available in most drugstores here yeah, we even had some of the practice any doubts, any staff members they test, and then we'd uh you, then we take a decision from that.

Shauntel Ambrose:

So, misha, have you been born in the Netherlands, then You're the perfect guy to answer the question that, in terms of a socialist system, what are the benefits? Because I think that, from what I hear from both of you, you do get a chance to still be mom and dad, even though you're owning and you're running a practice, and you're working hard. Even though your maximum number of hours are kept, it's still hard work to get everything done, so it does appear that you're getting a little bit more of a work-life balance. What other aspects are there? What are the benefits of being in a socialist system?

Misha Smiet:

You see almost no poverty. There's a basic income and a basic insurance for everybody in this country. So what you see in South Africa is something that you would not see here People that don't have a job, or people that can't work or people that don't want to work, or when they get fired, they can apply for benefits and the government will provide them with money. It makes the society also a very balanced society.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

Yeah.

Shauntel Ambrose:

And then I want to know from you now, Vanita, what do you miss about South Africa?

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

My family, that's a very easy answer right.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

Yeah, you know we still try to see each other at least once a year. The COVID years were tough in that sense, but you know I'm getting closer to having lived the same amount of years out of South Africa than in South Africa. Yeah, the food, south African food, is very underestimated. I think the food and the people it's different. Here it's very much. You know, and you have your nuclear family and you know everyone's busy with yourself and it is potentially also getting that way in South Africa.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

I don't know, but like a lot of, like I said, a lot of my comparisons might be dated, but like with my family, you know we have, you know, my cousins and my aunts and you know, have, uh, you know, my cousins and my aunts and you know it's my, my support system there was always always much bigger than than it is here and I think that's also why here you find, even though I'm 20 years in, almost 20 years in now, expats still draw to each other because you're still lacking something like I mean I have a a lot of South African friends for that reason, just to get that feeling of home, of Ubuntu, of whatever you want to call it, that you do miss here.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

You do miss here. But, to be honest, the Dutch have been good to me.

Shauntel Ambrose:

So I appreciate that because I think that many people they're pros and cons and you know, perspectives change when you have a family, because I think then you do look towards time that is less career orientated, ideally, and just to be able to get a little bit of a work-life balance. So, yeah, I appreciate that perspective. For anyone that's wanting to move abroad as a dentist, what do you both have in terms of advice for them that may help them to make that shift?

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

I would say don't. The Dutch are extremely good at speaking English, right, almost everybody can speak English as a second language. Don't underestimate the value of learning Dutch. I really think that me learning the language at a very early stage really helped my career here, because when you want to keep speaking English, you're going to limit yourself to the expat-centric areas, and the expat-centric areas they're flooded with dentists. You know there's not enough patients to go around and once you're comfortable with the language you can put yourself into more. I mean, we're not far, we're like 20 kilometers out of Amsterdam, but it's a family practice and I know for sure that if I was not fluent in Dutch, that I would not have been as successful as the practice would not have been successful with me as the head dentist. So don't underestimate that. And also I think, from my limited experience in South Africa, that South African dentists are very used to a hierarchy within the practice that's not here. So on the one hand you work less hours, but you might have to do something that you wouldn't have done in South Africa. You know here your assistant, your receptionist, we're all part of a team, you know. So you're going to have to accept. In fact, the doctor title isn't even used here. The only the only patients who refer to me as a doctor are patients who are new to the Netherlands. Most of them just call me by my first name. So yeah, you know. So don't underestimate that.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

And also, uh, what? What was shocking for me when I came over, I assumed but this is also probably different now that the netherlands be so much more advanced than south africa is. But south africa is so is, medically speaking, always cutting edge, it's all. I think it's always been that way. And in the netherlands you might have you might think that this is a bit backwards. It's not necessarily backwards, but you have to remember we're still working very much within the budgets and the medical system, medical aid systems, which doesn't allow us to always be as cutting edge. So I think that's something that South Africans might be shocked at when they come over here. But, um, it's, it's I. I think I would definitely recommend it.

Misha Smiet:

But emigrating is, um, it's also tough emotionally, but that's for anybody and if you, if you visit dutch people, be prepared to get coffee and a cookie. We don't welcome you with food. You know, it's like a little South Africa.

Shauntel Ambrose:

I usually end my show with what's called one minute wonders. So I mean one word wonders. So what I recommend that you know, I'll just ask a series of really quick questions and we're just wanting your immediate sort of idea that pops into your head with the question, not too much of thinking behind it or anything like that. So I think, then, start with our one word wonders. So how do you, um, relax on a daily basis?

Shauntel Ambrose:

your go-to relaxation is what reading I have so many hobbies okay, the name one, name one, your favorite music music. Okay. So the next one is I'm most proud of.

Misha Smiet:

My kids, my children.

Shauntel Ambrose:

Where do I see myself in five years?

Misha Smiet:

Yeah.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing. I'm thinking the oh yeah.

Shauntel Ambrose:

You see the synchronicity, yeah, and I know that, misha, you are a Star Wars fan, so I think, to end our show very aptly, we're going to have to say a salute to you as a Star Wars fan, and may the force be with you and, I think, with Balita as well. I'm wishing you both all the best, and I really appreciate the amount of time that you've put into being able to give us a little bit of an idea of what it's like. I think you guys are doing a great job, and just to get an idea of a little taste of what that could be like it's really quite a privilege. I really appreciate that. So thank you very much.

Vanitha Smiet-Naidoo:

Yeah, thanks for having us. I hope we've helped in some way.

Shauntel Ambrose:

Have you ever wished you could be rubbing shoulders with the best just to get through your worst? Never get the promotion and exceed the requirements. Join us to hear about strategies to build your brand. Diversify your business, pursue your career passions with job crafting and self-care for healthcare practitioners. Hear about great products that can help you to get to where you always wanted to be. So remember you are heard and you are seen, and on this platform you are absolutely invited. Let's make it happen together.