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.
