“Being a Shetland dentist has changed my life”

It wasn’t just the promise of a new life that drew Joanne Peat to leave Glasgow last October to become a dentist in Shetland. It was a chance to grow her career – not just by becoming an important part of the team at the Montfield NHS dental clinic in Lerwick, but by simultaneously doing an MSc in Clinical Dentistry at Edinburgh University, with a blended learning approach.

“I’d always liked the idea of coming up here, but thought I wouldn’t be able to do anything beyond basic dental care, due to the remote location,” says Joanne, who was previously a civilian dentist for the Royal Navy. “In fact, it’s been the opposite. Because there’s such an eagerness for the limited number of dentists here to upskill, I’ve got this amazing chance to learn while working with an incredibly supportive team. It would be much harder to find an opportunity like this on the Mainland.”

I’ve got this amazing chance to learn while working with an incredibly supportive team.

More than that, Joanne says it’s a joy to work in Shetland. “I knew from the first interview that the team here are keen to get the best people and to do well by their patients,” she says, referring to a continuing need for dentists on the islands. “There’s also just been a big welcome – from the staff but also the patients, who seem genuinely pleased to be seen.”

While Joanne has been surprised by the ability to grow her career while living in Shetland, so has her husband Adam Benson, who works as a Systems Engineering Manager for BAE Systems, working remotely on designing ships for the Royal Navy. “I was working remotely from our wee flat in Glasgow,” he says. “I can do the same here from our house in East Burra. It’s just that instead of looking into someone else’s living room, I’m looking through a big window out to sea.”

Joanne and Adam initially thought they’d just come up for a year to see themselves through lockdown with more space and proximity to nature. But having actually lived the Shetland life, they want to stay, and are currently looking to buy a plot of land to build their own house. “Building a house with a sea view felt too difficult and expensive on the Mainland, but here it’s achievable,” says Joanne. “And it’s really inspiring to be surrounded by people who live in a more natural and eco-friendly way, whether running crofts or their own wind turbines.”

Part of their happiness, even having not yet experienced a Shetland summer, is their work-life balance. Joanne loves walking out of the surgery in Lerwick and being so close to the sea, and also her curiously relaxing commute. “In Glasgow, I’d leave the surgery and work would still be on my mind. But there’s something about the wee drive home to Burra that makes me switch off. People say it’s got its own microclimate, but it feels different too.”

In Glasgow, I’d leave the surgery and work would still be on my mind. But there’s something about the wee drive home to Burra that makes me switch off.

She says they have more time for their hobbies, too. He’s a keen runner and banjo player, while she is learning the fiddle in the perfect place. Both of them are regular gym-goers, and Joanne raves about the Clickimin Leisure Centre in Lerwick. “We didn’t think the gym here would be better than the one we were members of in Glasgow, but it really is. It feels like Shetland invests in things.”

For all the benefits of life on the islands, Shetland still has a shortage of dentists, and Joanne says more should follow in her footsteps. “I would absolutely recommend it,” she says. “We’ve got a work/life balance we never thought we’d have, but it still feels like we’re moving forward with our careers. I can’t understand why more people wouldn’t want the same.”