Dental nurses Laura Russell and Susan Coull are celebrating promotion to posts as clinical managers with First Alba Healthcare, a business with five dental practices in Angus, Fife, Perth & Kinross and Tayside.

Whilst covering all five practices in their daily remits, Laura is mainly based at First Alba’s Forfar Practice in the High Street, whilst Susan is based at the practice in Station Road, Kinross,

Having worked at First Alba Healthcare for the last twelve years, Laura gained the NEBDN national diploma in dental nursing in 2007, supplementing this with the childsmile qualification in 2016 which she passed with distinction.

Originally from Aberdeen, but based in Fife for the past 26 years, Susan Coull qualified as a dental nurse in 1986.

As clinical managers both women will now oversee varied duties including handling staff rotas, organising holiday allowance for all five practices in the First Alba group, dealing with recruitment and training for all staff members, and ordering clinical materials. Laura will also cover social media and is more involved with nurse training.  She combines her busy role with dental surgery duties alongside principal dentist and owner of First Alba Healthcare, Dr Rami Sarraf, in the Forfar practice.

Along with her clinical management duties, Susan Coull is currently undertaking a management course to further strengthen her skills. One of her larger responsibilities is keeping all policies current for the combined practice inspections. Additionally, she recruits and trains reception staff.

“My congratulations go to Laura and Susan on their well deserved promotions,” said Dr Rami Sarraf. “Delivering dental services effectively is a collaborative effort. Behind every dentist are clinical managers like Laura and Susan. Their varied remit enables the dentists, hygienists, and dental nurses at each practice to fully concentrate on looking after their patients.”

Commenting on the promotion, Laura Russell said: “I’m delighted to have been promoted to this role which gives me more responsibility as First Alba Healthcare expands to become one of Scotland’s most digitised practices.”

Susan Coull said: “I too am delighted. Dr Sarraf has created a new structure which sees me given this new clinical manager role alongside Laura. We divide up tasks between us, and as we have worked together for five years now, it’s very much a case of teamwork. If one can’t do something, the other will.”

“We’ll keep the practices working as efficiently as possible, with high quality patient care at the heart of all we do.”