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Show Notes

What happens when a mechanical engineer spends a decade fixing factories, then walks away from it all to start dental school at 34? Henry Totterdell joins Payman to tell that story. 

He talks about the years spent solving problems on aircraft carriers and chemotherapy production lines, the slow-burning itch to do something with his hands, and why he finally took the plunge. 

Along the way they get into first principles, the magic of human connection over Zoom, where robots might fit into the chair one day, and the quiet privilege of a patient simply saying thank you. It's a conversation about taking the long way round — and arriving exactly where you meant to.

In This Episode

00:01:55 – Travel and adventure

00:05:20 – Childhood in Stroud

00:06:15 – Choosing engineering

00:07:35 – Loughborough years

00:08:45 – Engineering versus dentistry

00:10:00 – First principles thinking

00:12:10 – Life as a consultant

00:17:15 – Losing his purpose

00:18:35 – The pharmaceutical world

00:21:00 – The itch to do medicine

00:22:15 – Working with his hands

00:23:50 – The leap to dental school

00:31:50 – The Innovations Hub

00:36:05 – First extraction

00:38:40 – Blackbox thinking

00:43:45 – Starting a business

00:44:55 – Lectures that stuck

00:48:10 – What makes a course brilliant

00:50:25 – The magic of being in the room

00:52:15 – Soft skills and integrity

00:54:20 – Reading the patient

00:57:45 – Regrets

01:01:45 – Robots in the chair

01:06:00 – Relentless optimism

01:06:45 – Darkest days

01:10:20 – Nervous patients

01:13:40 – Awards and recognition

01:16:20 – Confidence and family

01:18:35 – Fantasy dinner party

01:20:45 – Last days and legacy

About Henry Totterdell

Henry Totterdell is a third-year dental student at Bristol, having come to dentistry after a decade as a mechanical engineer and consultant. A Loughborough graduate, he worked across defence, pharmaceuticals and manufacturing before retraining at 34. Alongside his studies he runs a Dental Innovations Hub at Bristol, introducing students to the technology and business side of dentistry that the course doesn't cover.