BEAMing into Kilgraston School for the first time
Kilgraston’s Women and Business lecture series continued last week, reverting to an online speaker for the first time. Dr Rhu McKelvey, from BEAM Orthodontics, described his training and career, bringing him to the point of clinical lead at his Dundee practice.
“Peoples smiles are important to them,” Dr Ruaridh McKelvey of BEAM Orthodontics told senior pupils at Kilgraston, “orthodontics is definitely a growth sector.”
Via Zoom from his company’s recently extended designer clinics in Dundee, Dr McKelvey was speaking to pupils in the latest of the School’s Women in Business lecture series: “Mainly, I want to emphasise the importance of taking every opportunity to learn from your seniors and peers at every point through life.”
With a trademark splash of humour, Dr McKelvey described studying dentistry at Glasgow University, where he was known by contemporaries as “Mr 51%,” doing just enough to pass exams!
Despite this label, Rhu sealed his BDS in Dentistry, heading-off to a practice in Chester which saw a year of “lots of drilling and extraction.”
But further study called, taking him to Warwick, Derby and Bristol’s famous Dental School, where he saw some “heavy duty facial reconstruction” dealing with jaw surgery on patients suffering trauma from, among others causes, cancer and traffic accidents: “It was swashbuckling stuff,” explained Rhu, “and, briefly, I considered becoming a full-time surgeon.”
Achieving parts One and Two of his Royal College of Surgeons Fellowship, it was time to make definite career choices. But, deciding to concentrate on Orthodontics, Rhu moved to Exeter for a further three years, ultimately leading to his RCS M.Orth.
“This was a full-time post-grad course - combined with an MSc. - specialising in Orthodontics,” Rhu told pupils. But it was a tough time in the young dentist’s life: “We had teaching one day a week in Bristol, combined with attending patients in Exeter the other four days, then lots of homework on top.” As if this stint in the South West wasn’t busy enough, Rhu also managed to fit-in being a member of the Army Reserves. “I look back on it now and just think “phew, how did I do all that?””
Having qualified as a Specialist Orthodontist it was time to make some firm plans for the future.
“Basically, I had been continually learning and training for twelve years,” he explained, “I was thirty, so it was time to make some long-term decisions.” But, before settling down to a “proper job” Rhu had the opportunity to indulge his soldiering hobby with a 6 month deployment to Afghanistan.
Returning from the heat of the dust, Rhu was offered more traditional locum work in Edinburgh, “It was great to be north of the border again and I was lucky to fall under the wings of the great orthodontists at Edinburgh Orthodontics” and started doing market research into a location for a new Orthodontic practice.
The pin in the map landed in Dundee and he has never looked back. Initially, a surgery was rented to build-up a client base, before buying a building and starting hugely-successful BEAM Orthodontics in 2007. “It was a very steep learning curve,” he told girls, “I knew literally nothing about being a property developer, marketer, employer, sales director etc. etc. We started with myself and three nurses and now employ 25 staff, serving 1600 patients.”
The moral of the story was definitely to pursue a career that makes you happy. “Dentistry is a broad church,” Rhu emphasised, “there are many varied way to be a Dentist and it’s the same with Medicine, Law, Engineering, Design, Accountancy etc. I always tell people, ‘dare to be different’. You don’t meet many unhappy Orthodontists.”
Kilgraston’s Women in Business lecture series welcomed engineer
If it’s a varied future you’re after, pupils at Kilgraston need look no further than the fascinating journey of a structural engineer.
Rachel Battilana MIStructE, who works from Perth on SSE’s hydro power plant throughout Scotland, visited the school as part of its Women in Business lecture series.
“Engineering has given me the scope to travel, constantly learn and work with a huge range of materials and people,” Rachel told senior pupils at the school, many who were listening-in via Zoom.
Asked by one 16-year-old if she wanted to pursue Civil Engineering from a young age, Rachel told the pupil that it was around the same age as she was, but surprised the audience by telling them that, exploring the career route, the book’s reference stated that for ‘Civil engineering, see boring.’
Of course, the ‘boring’ reference wasn’t casting aspersions at the nature of the task, but a nod to the enormous drill-bits used to drive through sheer rock: “I was hooked,” Rachel told pupils.
Reading engineering at Cambridge University, Rachel described how her Masters project saw her designing and building low maintenance cold-climate shelters for Afghan refugees, including “thoroughly testing them in Ford’s vehicle wind tunnel assessment centre.”
After graduation, global design consultancy Buro Happold offered Rachel the opportunity to work on huge civil projects including the impressive Evelina London Children’s Hospital and state-of-the-art Museum of Liverpool: “This was a huge challenge,” she said, “the area included ancient dock gates which had to be preserved and remain undamaged.”
The solution was a great deal of discussion between various organisations, resulting in a formidable, cantilevered, structure suspended over the dock: “Historically, the wall has crumbled around every eighty years, but thankfully” pupils were told, “after all our efforts to avoid placing any more weight on them, they are holding firm.”
Pupils heard how the young engineer completed her professional training to become a Chartered Structural Engineer, before volunteering for an NGO in Malawi, working on an orphan housing project: “It felt good to really make a difference.”
Returning to the UK, she moved into the renewables sector, being offered a job with Sgurr Energy where more travel was possible, working on, among many projects, Mongolia’s first wind farm and a number of offshore wind farms where unexpected slippage of the turbine tower had occurred.
Family life brought Rachel to Perthshire where the opportunity to combine her engineering experience with environmental awareness arose: “I’ve always wanted to try and make a difference from the inside, rather than just sit on the side-lines,” explains Rachel, “so when the chance to join SSE’s hydro department came up and, in particular, the re-watering of the River Garry project, it was really exciting.”
Girls learnt about the extent of Scotland’s hydro scheme, most of which was constructed during the 1950s. “So much more has been learnt about environmental impact in 70 years so a lot of the equipment has to be rethought and updated,” she said, “I’ve been involved with designing a system of gates and sophisticated pivot-valves to release and control the Garry’s water levels.”
Keen to learn more about the engineer’s experience, enthusiastic pupils grilled the speaker, wanting to find out more about being a woman in a traditionally male industry: “Honestly it has never been an issue,” Rachel assured the young audience, “if you know your stuff and get on with your job, it’s a level playing-field with lots of opportunities. The world definitely needs more engineers. Prospects really are limitless.”
Kilgraston’s Women and Business lecture series - Gleneagles
Kilgraston’s Women and Business lecture series continues this term and our latest speaker was Gleneagles’ Commercial Director, Jane McGee. Jane, who has worked for the luxury hotel since 2018, outlined her career and some of the incredible highlights. It is a career which has seen Jane travel all over the world, working in some of the most beautiful and luxurious hotels including Bangkok’s Mandarin Oriental where Jane said: “The level of customer service is phenomenal with several members of staff to every guest. You can just sit high above this amazing city and calmly watch the huge city gyrate before you.”
Kilgraston’s Women in Business series is an opportunity for our older pupils to hear in-depth stories from women in rich and diverse careers. In the past year, we have welcomed a National newspaper columnist, an accountant, a family law expert, a Professor of Photodermatology and Consultant Dermatologist to name just a few. In line with our on-going commitment to building the next generation of entrepreneurs, in 2019 Kilgraston was also the proud sponsor of the Inspirational Women category at the 2019 Business Women Scotland Awards.
Kilgraston Headmistress, Mrs MacGinty, said: “Having the opportunity to hear from someone of Jane’s calibre was a treat indeed. Her global experience and obvious love for her chosen career was a great chance for girls to hear, first hand, about this fascinating path. We’d all like to say a very big thank you to Jane for giving up her valuable time at this extremely busy time.”
The School’s Women in Business series will welcome an engineer from SSE, an orthodontist from Dundee and a stem cell expert from Ninewells Hospital during the next four months.
You can also read more about Jane’s talk on the GSA website.