Scottish Dental Magazine: Essential Knowledge for Dental Professionals in Scotland
Scottish Dental magazine is a bi-monthly professional magazine for the dental team in Scotland, published from Paisley by Connect Publications (Scotland) Ltd. Listed in this directory under Paisley, Scotland, with its home at sdmag.co.uk, the magazine describes its aim in straightforward terms: to report and reflect the issues affecting the whole dental team, using its online presence to get closer to readers than print alone allows. Its cover line in recent years has promised essential knowledge for dental professionals in Scotland, and its subscription page describes it as a bi-monthly round-up of industry news, thoughts and innovations.
The title serves a defined national profession. Scotland's dentists, dental nurses, hygienists, therapists, technicians, practice managers and specialists work within a distinct NHS and regulatory landscape, shaped by the Scottish Government, NHS Scotland health boards, the General Dental Council and Scotland's dental schools and hospitals. Scottish Dental exists to cover that landscape from inside it — its politics, its clinical practice, its people and its businesses — rather than treating Scotland as a regional edition of a UK title.
Overview
Scottish Dental is a print and digital magazine published every two months, identified by ISSN 2042-9762 in its print issues. The August–September 2024 issue, for example, was a substantial edition carrying features, clinical articles and professional coverage, priced on the cover at £5.50. Readers can subscribe in print or by email through the magazine's website, and the publisher limits print copies to one per person or five per practice or office location, while placing no limit on access to the digital version and its email newsletters.
Alongside the magazine, the same publisher runs the Scottish Dental Show, an annual exhibition and education event in Glasgow, and a weekly professional news update, Scottish Dental Weekly News, delivered every Thursday. Together the magazine, website, newsletter and show form a small but complete media ecosystem for one profession in one country — the model that has sustained the title while many general dental publications have consolidated at UK level.
History and Publishing Background
Scottish Dental is published by Connect Publications (Scotland) Ltd, based at Studio 2001, Mile End Mill, 12 Seedhill Road, Paisley PA1 1JS. Connect is a contract and own-title publisher: when the Scottish Dental Show launched, Exhibition News described Connect Publications as operating Scottish Dental Magazine as well as a series of contract-based customer titles, and the show as the publisher's first exhibition. The magazine's own archive reaches back through the 2010s — a December–January 2011 edition and a March–April 2016 issue survive in its online library, the latter carrying political coverage of morale and investment in general dental practice under the same ISSN and Connect copyright line.
An early landmark in the title's wider history was the launch of the Scottish Dental Show in Glasgow. The inaugural show was held on 24–25 May at Hampden Park, Glasgow, attracted more than 1,200 visitors, and featured 100 exhibitors and 30 speakers, with 12 hours of CPD-accredited content. It was opened by the public health minister, Michael Matheson. Editor Bruce Oxley, who edited the magazine at that time, called the show a natural extension of the magazine, and Connect's managing director Alan Ramsay pointed to the gap left by large dental conferences traditionally being held in London or Birmingham. The magazine's present managing director for complaints and publishing purposes is also Alan Ramsay of Connect Publications (Scotland), showing continuity in the publisher's leadership.
Publisher and Ownership
Ownership is clear and unusually transparent for a trade title. The magazine's About page directs advertising enquiries to Ann Craib at Connect Communications, editorial enquiries to the editor, website enquiries to its web contact, and general and subscription enquiries to Connect Publications (Scotland) Ltd at the Paisley address. Complaints are handled under the Editor's Code of Practice, and the magazine states that it is regulated by the Independent Press Standards Organisation, IPSO, with unresolved complaints referable to IPSO in London. That regulatory footing marks Scottish Dental as a professional news magazine, not merely a sponsored product catalogue.
Connect's structure is a small specialist team. In the August–September 2024 print issue the masthead listed David Cameron as managing editor, Will Peakin as editor, Ruth Turnbull on design, Claire Nichol handling subscriptions, and Ann Craib handling advertising — the same Ann Craib who organises stand and sponsor packages for the Scottish Dental Show. A team of that size, covering editorial, design, subscriptions, advertising and a major annual event, explains the magazine's close, community tone: the people producing it are the people readers meet at the show and speak to on the phone.
Editorial Content and Sections
A typical issue is organised into recognisable departments. The August 2022 issue, for instance, opened with the editor's page and an Insider column, followed by News, then Features including full coverage of the Scottish Dental Show, reports from the EuroPerio10 periodontology congress and a BASCD summer scientific meeting, and a feature on facing the future from the BAOMS22 meeting. Clinical articles followed — timely referral and pain, severe crowding and appearance concerns — then Management, with Alun Rees writing on work–life balance, and a Professional Focus section of services and products, Meet the Reps interviews and Product News.
The August–September 2024 issue shows the same architecture maturing: features on a bioemulation symposium, a community dentistry conference, women in dentistry and the future of dentistry in Scotland; clinical material on radiography protocols and a journey into guided implant dentistry; professional focus, advice and services, Meet the Reps and product news. The website mirrors the mix with categories including news and in-depth features, covering everything from General Dental Council whistleblowing investigations to new haptic simulators installed at the University of Dundee's School of Dentistry. History is a recurring pleasure: the magazine has published a history of the Odonto-Chirurgical Society of Scotland, founded in 1867, and features on figures such as James IV of Scotland, whose interest in dentistry in the early 1500s preceded the 1506 Royal Charter for the surgeons of Edinburgh.
Audience and Reach
The audience is the whole dental team in Scotland — the magazine repeats that phrase, whole dental team, in its statement of purpose, and its content bears it out. Dentists in general and hospital practice appear alongside dental care professionals, practice managers, laboratory owners and company representatives. Meet the Reps, a regular department, literally introduces the sales representatives who visit Scottish practices, while features celebrate laboratory of the year, dental team and practice of the year winners at the Scottish Dental Awards.
Distribution is controlled but open at the edges. Print subscriptions are rationed per practice, digital access is unlimited, and the weekly email newsletter extends reach between issues. The show provides the physical audience: by its 2026 edition, the Scottish Dental Show at Braehead Arena, Glasgow, was promoting more than 130 trade exhibitors, suppliers and advisers, and up to 10 hours of verifiable CPD across two days, Friday 12 and Saturday 13 June 2026. A magazine whose publisher can fill an arena with its readership each year has a demonstrable, not merely claimed, professional community.
Print and Digital Editions
Print remains central. Issues are produced as full digital facsimiles as well as physical magazines — the August 2022 and August–September 2024 editions are available as complete PDFs through the magazine's site — and the cover price rose from £4.50 in spring 2016 to £5.50 by 2024, a small detail that tracks a decade of continuous publication. The bi-monthly rhythm suits a profession whose news cycle is driven by contracts, conferences and clinical guidance rather than daily events.
Digitally, sdmag.co.uk carries news between issues, an email subscription route, and the Thursday Scottish Dental Weekly News round-up promoted at the 2026 show registration launch. The site invites readers to send opinions on news, features and clinical articles in the magazine, making the website a conversation channel rather than a simple archive. Social sharing is built in — articles are picked up by dental news aggregators and journalist databases, where the editor's byline appears across UK dental industry coverage.
Notable Editors and Contributors
Two editors mark the magazine's recorded history. Bruce Oxley was editor at the time of the Scottish Dental Show's launch, speaking for the title to the exhibitions press and writing features such as a profile of oral surgeon Paul Stone around the European Association for Osseointegration congress in Glasgow. In recent years the editor has been Will Peakin, whose name appears across the magazine's news coverage, in its print masthead — editor, on 0141 560 3019 — and in the About page's direction that editorial enquiries go to him. David Cameron serves as managing editor, providing the senior layer above the editorship in the 2024 masthead.
Contributors mix clinicians, academics and professional commentators. The magazine has carried Alun Rees on management and work–life balance, Dr Paul R. Geissler on dental history from Surgeons' Hall Museum, coverage of Dundee Dental Hospital's psychological trauma course, and long career profiles such as BDA fellow Mike Arthur, recipient of the 2018 Scottish Dental Lifetime Achievement award after almost five decades in practice. That blend — named Scottish practitioners telling Scottish professional stories — is the title's signature.
Awards and Recognition
Scottish Dental is closely associated with celebrating the profession through the Scottish Dental Awards, which it reported in detail. The fourth awards, held at the Glasgow Hilton in May 2016 and hosted by Carol Smillie, drew nearly 450 guests. Categories reported by the magazine included Practice of the Year, Dentist of the Year, Laboratory of the Year, Employer of the Year, Dental Team Award, Unsung Hero, Community Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award, won in 2016 by Hugh Harvie after a 40-year career. Reporting the 2018 awards, the magazine profiled lifetime achievement recipient Mike Arthur, whose BDA Fellowship in 2012 recognised his service to the profession.
For the magazine itself, recognition is of a quieter kind: IPSO-regulated status, a permanent place in media databases as Scotland's dental title, and the institutional trust shown by the profession's bodies. Its pages carry BDA honours coverage, General Dental Council news and university developments as routine editorial matter, indicating that Scotland's dental organisations treat the title as a channel of record for the profession north of the border.
Recent Developments
The clearest recent development is the continued growth of the show-and-magazine model. Registration for the Scottish Dental Show 2025 opened in December 2024 for a return to Braehead Arena on 20–21 June 2025, with lectures and workshops covering GDC recommended topics — medical emergencies, disinfection and decontamination, radiography and radiation protection, legal and ethical issues, complaints handling, oral cancer early detection and safeguarding — and speakers including Professors Mark Greenwood, Marie Therese Hosey, Brian Millar and Mike Lewis. Registration for the 2026 show followed in January 2026, again at Braehead, with the education programme, exhibitor floor and weekly newsletter all promoted as one package.
On the page, recent coverage reflects a profession under pressure and in transition: GDC whistleblowing investigations rising, debates over NHS dentistry, new technology such as 3D printing safety and haptic simulation in dental education, and research stories from Scottish universities. Scottish Dental magazine enters that environment as it has operated throughout its history — a Paisley-published, bi-monthly, whole-team magazine for Scotland, small enough to know its readers by name at its own show, and established enough to be where Scottish dentistry reads about itself.
