Southlakes Dental clinic in Dubbo putting finishing touches on new clinic, to open in May

Together with their Charles Sturt University classmate Melissa Lin, St John's College graduates Rory Greer and Grace Amey are putting the final touches on their new, locally-owned clinic, Southlakes Dental.

"Rory and I have always been involved with our local community so it was really important for both of us to give back and be able to provide something good for the people of Dubbo," Dr Amey told the Daily Liberal.

After graduating from St John's, Dr Amey moved to Orange to study dentistry and then moved right back to Dubbo to start practising.

"I was a dental nurse and a dental assistant through school. I got the job by chance - I was actually coaching a junior netball team and one of the mums said there was a job going," she said.

"I fainted on my first day during my first extraction, but after that I was hooked. I loved it.

"The thing I really enjoyed the most was the interactions with the patients and just meeting a variety of people from all over the central west."

Dr Greer moved back to Dubbo to work as a dentist and provide general and surgical procedures at the Dubbo Private Hospital after completing his studies at Charles Sturt University and the University of Sydney.

Now, he's looking forward to the opening day of his own practice.

"We can make quite drastic improvements to people's self image and their function quite easily and quite quickly - I think we all find it quite rewarding," Dr Greer said.

"And to do it in the place that we grew up is all the better."

The third face behind the clinic is Dr Lin. Originally from Sydney, she studied at Charles Sturt University with Dr Amey and Dr Greer, who is now her fiance.

Since moving to Dubbo and starting work as a dentist, Dr Lin says she has fallen in love with the community and seen a big need for more health services in town.

"I've been really lucky to be accepted and welcomed into the Dubbo community and so I can recognise why the community is so important to [Dr Greer and Dr Amey]," she said.

"Throughout uni I did placement everywhere, in communities further out like Bourke and Lightning Ridge which gave me a really good insight into the need around here. For a lot of these places, their closest referral base is Dubbo.

"Dubbo acts as a major health centre and that's something I really wanted to be part of."

Dr Amey echoed the need for better access to dental services in Dubbo. She said, at the moment, patients are sometimes left waiting months to get treatment for a toothache.

Seeing this made her keen to return home to Dubbo and use her skills to help not only for her immediate community, but also the people living further afield who travel into town for treatment.

"The reason I wanted to come home was because my family is here, my whole family," she said.

"But also as a dental nurse in Dubbo I had so many patients that were coming from so much further west and you just realise how inadequate the services are out here and how long people are waiting for appointments.

"That was what really got me passionate about providing healthcare to the central west because dentistry should be a right, everyone should be able to have access to it."

Dr Greer agreed.

"Just because we live five hours from Sydney doesn't mean the quality of healthcare should be any different. And because Dubbo services such a large area out west, that distance can become a barrier to access," he said.

"One of the things we enjoy is being able to provide complex treatments that may otherwise be isolated in some areas."

Getting Southlakes Dental ready to open has been a five-month journey for the trio of dentists, now they're "very excited" to get back to treating clients in a few weeks time. They say they have been "humbled" by the amount of support from the community so far.

"One of the things we all exceed in and want to focus on is communication. That is understanding what a patient expects, what their needs are and what they want out of a treatment," Dr Greer said.

"One way is by having up-to-date equipment - for example with cameras to show patients exactly what's going on so they can understand exactly what the issues are. Then we can present the different treatment options and the patient is better able to choose once they've been informed.

"It's been a challenge but seeing the space come together has made it all the more exciting."

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