Knowing You Are Ready

People often talk about the moment they knew they had met “the one”. I am still waiting for mine. But I did experience that certainty when it came to practice ownership. At some point, the idea stopped being a “maybe” or a “someday” and became almost a need. I was ready.

Feeling ready for ownership and feeling comfortable with everything it entails are, I have since learned, very different things. Everyone’s path is different, and for some clinicians ownership may never be the right choice. It takes up an enormous part of my life, but I enjoy it because I see the practice as a passion project. I love the clinical work, I love what I have built, and I love that it is still evolving.

The Wild West

People often look slightly confused when I tell them I am dually qualified as a medical doctor and dentist, so most of the time I simply say I am a dentist and leave it there. The journey, however, was anything but simple.

I grew up in Perth, Western Australia - often described as the Wild West, where anything can happen. Getting into undergraduate dentistry straight from high school probably belongs in that category, given that in primary school I struggled to read an analogue clock. What changed my trajectory was people: mentors and teachers throughout high school and beyond who saw something in me and gradually changed my life.

After the late nights, interviews and more examinations than I care to count, I graduated in dentistry and began working at one of Perth’s busiest dental clinics. My boss was an awe-inspiring clinician; to me as a fresh graduate, there seemed to be nothing he could not do. Twenty years ago, we were still developing X-ray film by hand in boxes of fluid - not a digital X-ray or patient record in sight.

My advice to young graduates remains the same: keep challenging yourself clinically, within your scope of competence and with appropriate supervision. Seek out the procedures that stretch you, because growth often begins at the edge of comfort. You will learn from difficult experiences as well as successful ones.

Most importantly, have a mentor at your back - someone experienced who is genuinely invested in your development, your wellbeing and your patients’ welfare.

I had that support, more through blind luck than planning. In the two years I spent at that practice, I gained what I would now consider four or five years of experience. That is what happens when you work almost seven days a week, twelve hours a day.

The Long Way Round

Wanting to keep challenging myself, I sat the GAMSAT and applied for postgraduate medicine. I moved to Sydney and worked part-time as a dentist while studying medicine full-time. After graduating, I completed my internship and residency at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, followed by surgical Senior Resident Medical Officer training at Westmead Hospital. I have since worked across a variety of hospitals and trained in maxillofacial surgery.

Dentistry taught me precision and technical discipline; medicine broadened the way I assess risk, complexity and the patient as a whole. At the end of that long, convoluted route, I felt a powerful urge to create something of my own - a practice shaped by everything I had seen in clinics, hospitals and surgical environments, including the systems that worked beautifully, the mistakes I had made and the mistakes I had watched others make.

The First Dream, and the Rain

I had carried a clear vision of my dream practice for years before it became a reality. The first practice I built had a large tropical fish tank in the waiting room to help patients relax. It was furnished in white, with glossy cupboards and soft-close drawers. The culture was supportive and friendly. Most importantly, the infection control was immaculate. Every decision, from a hand instrument to a dental chair, was intentional.

The practice opened in October 2017 with one chair. Over the next three years, it grew to three chairs, a larger team and an expanding collection of equipment.

Then, in April 2024, rain in the Sydney CBD became so intense that water ingress overwhelmed the gutters of the heritage building housing the practice. The ceiling collapsed. Most of the dental equipment was destroyed: the chairs, computers and CBCT 3D imaging unit - all extraordinarily expensive, and all purchased through equipment finance I had only just finished repaying.

The insurer described it as force majeure: an event beyond anyone’s control, an act of God. After seven years, I was facing the prospect of starting again.

The loss was painful, but it clarified something important. I still believed in the original purpose strongly enough to rebuild. I did not want merely to replace what had been lost. I wanted to use everything the first practice had taught me to create a stronger, more considered next chapter.

Underinsured - The Lesson I Would Rather Not Admit To

Here is the part I would prefer not to write, and the part most worth reading. The practice was underinsured at the time of the flood. The policy had been taken out when the clinic was in its fledgling, one-chair state, and it was never updated as we grew.

That is not an excuse, but it is an explanation I suspect many practitioners will recognise. As dentists and doctors, our attention goes first to our patients, then our staff, then the endless work of doing everything properly - employment law, infection control, marketing guidelines, professional regulation and changes in treatment protocols. Reviewing the insurance policy simply never reached the top of the list.

The claim taught me that recovery also demands an enormous investment of time and resources: documents prepared with accountants, discussions with auditors and months of uncertainty. Even after all that, the eventual outcome may barely cover the legal and advisory costs. Insurance, asset registers and replacement values need to grow with the practice, not remain frozen at the size of the clinic you first opened.

“Review your sums insured every single time you add a chair. That may be the most expensive sentence in this article.”

Why Build Rather Than Buy?

So why would I build from scratch again rather than take over an established practice?

Because creating a practice from the ground up allows me to make it exactly the way I want it - from the individual hand instruments to the dental chairs. I have used a great deal of equipment over the years and, much like the first time you sit in a business-class seat, it becomes very difficult to go back.

I am particular about instruments because small details matter during treatment. My surgical kits contain three sets of scissors as standard, and that is the minimum. My extraction instruments are German-made Zepf instruments with diamond-coated tips for exceptional traction. These choices may sound highly specific, but together they affect efficiency, control and the way a clinician can respond when a procedure becomes challenging.

Buying an existing practice can mean inheriting somebody else’s compromises. Building from the ground up allowed me to select every element, design how patients and staff move through the space, position technology properly and ensure that the physical environment supports infection control and clinical workflow. A purpose-built practice is an opportunity to make your clinical values visible.

The Location Everyone Said Was Too Competitive

Building also allowed me to choose the location. There is no shortage of seminars, advisers and analytics devoted to site selection, and much of the conventional advice is to avoid areas with heavy competition or an apparent saturation of similar services.

I do not believe competition alone should decide where you practise. If you understand your strengths, know what your brand stands for and consistently deliver care that patients value, there can be room for you even in a crowded market. Patients will travel for the right care.

I chose the most central and convenient location I could find: in the heart of Sydney, within a ten-minute walk of both Town Hall and Central stations. I will admit that I did not think much further than that, which was not especially financially savvy. At a recent event, a dentist who had opened in Sutherland cheerfully compared his minimal rent with my comparatively exorbitant one. He was, financially speaking, entirely correct. I still have no regrets.

WOW Dental was never intended to be only a conventional neighbourhood practice. It was designed to provide welcoming family care while also being equipped to manage the cases I most enjoy: complex restorative and surgical treatment, patients with significant medical histories, dental care during pregnancy, children and infants with tongue-ties, and many others in between. My medical and dental training, together with carefully selected technology and equipment, allows me to approach these patients with a broader clinical perspective. If that is what the practice promises, accessibility matters. Patients should be able to reach us easily.

Financing the Second Beginning

Joe at Medifinancial saved my life. It felt almost literal.

We had met before the flood at an event for medical doctors, when I was trying to refinance a property and felt the existing process had become unnecessarily slow and complicated. Within a week, he had presented three finance options and the property was refinanced.

Then, soon after, the force majeure arrived: an act of God that destroyed the dental practice. Joe stepped in and said he could organise funding for a new practice. Because he already held the relevant information from the earlier refinance, the new application required very little to be resubmitted. When you are standing in a ruined surgery, that matters far more than you might expect.

Two practical lessons came from that experience. First, with appropriate professional advice, consider related lending needs together so the same documents do not have to be prepared repeatedly. Second, maintain a financial buffer. I invested my own savings in the project before the finance came through.

As for how I knew what to budget, I based it on what I had spent the first time round. There are always unexpected costs, and the standard advice absolutely holds: always budget more than you expect to need.

Having built once, and understanding roughly what everything should cost, made the second time enormously easier.

I should also be honest about how I make decisions. For me, building anything begins with a vision, a belief that it can work and the drive to make it happen. Some people calculate every detail before moving. My process is more intuitive: a sense of what should work, backed by conviction. Too much calculation might have amplified the fear and prevented me from taking the first step. I was driven by a vision, a passion to build something exceptional and a degree of blind faith. The flood delivered a painful lesson, but an important one.

What Nobody Tells You About a Dental Fitout

A dental fitout is far more technically demanding than a conventional commercial fitout. Dental equipment requires carefully integrated delivery systems for water, compressed air, suction, power and data. Many clinics use raised or floating floors so these services can run underneath. Imaging equipment may require radiation shielding and prescribed safety clearances. Then there are accessibility, fire-safety and infection-control requirements - all before aesthetics, comfort and atmosphere enter the discussion.

My design began with the way I wanted to work inside a dental clinic: a workflow shaped by years spent in countless surgeries and clinical environments. I then integrated the compliance requirements into that foundation. Building a dental practice requires you to learn a little about almost everything - accounting, computer systems and software, human resources, marketing, business management and, as it turns out, the basics of construction and interior design.

One of the clearest lessons was that the order matters. Finalise the clinical design and determine what equipment the practice will need, but resist ordering it before approvals and a realistic construction timeline are in place. Complete the Complying Development Certificate process and related design revisions, fire-safety certification, accessibility requirements and relevant planning approvals; then engage the builder, confirm a realistic program and schedule equipment delivery around it.

I did this in almost the reverse order. The approvals took so long that, by the time they were nearly complete, my preferred builder had committed to another project in rural New South Wales and could not begin mine for another six months. It was an expensive lesson in sequencing, patience and contingency planning.

One more thing: check the lease on your tenancy. If it is due to expire soon, confirm the renewal terms before investing a single dollar in building works. Clinical expertise does not automatically confer expertise in construction, finance, insurance or leasing. Good ownership requires the humility to build a team of professionals who can see the risks you cannot.

WOW Dental Today

More than two years after the flood, WOW Dental is still evolving, and I have made peace with that. I mean “work in progress” in the best possible sense. The essentials were never negotiable and are firmly in place: meticulous infection control, efficient clinical flow, patient comfort, a supportive team culture and the technology and equipment needed to deliver thoughtful, high-quality care.

The vision still includes a large tropical fish tank in the waiting room and a dedicated photography studio within the clinic, allowing us to capture more accurate patient records, undertake detailed smile design and produce consistent before-and-after documentation. Those additions can wait.

Not every cupboard is the ideal colour. A pair of inherited copper sinks occasionally develops a surprisingly artistic green-brown patina and demands attention. Practice ownership teaches you to distinguish between what must be perfect, what can be improved later and what simply needs to be handled with good humour.

And, as with every clinician who is passionate about their craft, there is always the latest machine, laser, 3D printer or scanner to consider. Remaining excited about advances in technology and research, attending conferences and continuing to learn - that is how I know I still love what I do.

What matters is that the practice reflects the clinician I have become: ambitious but careful, particular about standards, comfortable with complexity and conscious that patients remember how they were made to feel as much as they remember the procedure itself.

Would I Do Anything Differently?

I sometimes think I would have started my practice-ownership journey much earlier, and I probably would have done so had I not pursued medicine. But without that path, I would not have the hospital experience, knowledge or clinical perspective that now define WOW Dental. Perhaps the long way round is precisely what allowed me to build the practice I have today. The detour became part of the destination. So would I really change anything? Probably not.

Parting Advice

Expect the unexpected - not because pessimism helps, but because resilience does. Difficult, even disastrous, events will sometimes occur. When they do, acknowledge the loss, learn what you can and keep moving.

Build support before you need it: financial support, collegial support, family and friends. Surround yourself with skilled professionals - accountants, advisers, mentors and people who understand healthcare businesses - who will stand beside you when an act of God arrives. Keep insurance and asset values current, confirm the lease, sequence approvals properly and preserve a financial buffer for the inevitable surprises.

The greatest lesson is that resilience is not simply the ability to restore what existed before. It is the willingness to examine what happened, retain the useful lessons and rebuild with greater purpose. The flood destroyed rooms and equipment, but it did not destroy the reason I became a practice owner. If anything, it made that reason clearer.

WOW Dental is the result: not a finished monument, but a living clinical practice shaped by experience, high standards and the belief that thoughtful design can support better care. I am proud of what we have built, grateful to the people who helped make the rebuild possible and still excited by everything the practice can become.

“A practice may be built from concrete, equipment and cabinetry, but the heart and soul is always the people.”

About the Author

Dr Christina Yang is a dually qualified dental surgeon and medical doctor. Her training spans dentistry, hospital medicine, surgical positions and maxillofacial surgery. She is the founder and principal dentist of WOW Dental in central Sydney, a boutique practice open seven days a week with a team providing implant, cosmetic, surgical and family dental care. wowdental.com.au

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