Dr. Howard Ironstone has been part of the Cayman Islands community for more than three decades. — Photo: Rhian Campbell
Name: Dr. Howard Ironstone
What do you do? Dental Surgeon at Cayman Dental
Where are you from? Gogama, Ontario, Canada. [I arrived in Cayman in] 1992. I was interviewed by a doctor, Ed Johns.
He and I formed Cayman Dental Services in '93.
How long has your company been based in Camana Bay?
About seven or eight years now. My buddy Tom (Cayman Dental Dental Surgeon Dr. Thomas Lerikos), his wife noticed that Camana Bay seemed to be an upscale location.
It was the best decision I ever made, actually.
How would you describe your day-to-day at Cayman Dental?
We try to prevent dental issues happening. So constant check-ups, regular [preventative] check-ups. We're not here to cause patients discomfort. We actually alleviate [discomfort] before it happens.
What do you enjoy about your job?
Getting to know people. See, I've been in Cayman so long that some of the kids ... I treated when I first came on island, they've brought their kids and then their grandkids would show up. So it's a matter of being in a small community.
You have your pilot's license. How did you get into aviation?
The desire for adventure. So I took up flying and I learned to fly a small float plane.
What I used to fly was a 90-horsepower Cub with the fabric wings on it and two pontoons. That's how I learned to fly. So I got to enjoy it.
Then I decided that I wanted more adventure, so I got bigger planes and then I owned a twin-engine Comanche ... and I flew all over North America.
I had a buddy who acted as navigator for the time I flew for him. We flew from Ottawa non-stop to Goose Bay, Labrador. I landed in Goose Bay, Labrador, got a weather briefing from the Canadian Air Force and took off and flew direct to Reykjavik, Iceland.
[Then] I flew all the way across from Reykjavik direct to Salzburg, Austria ... and I flew over all kinds of countries.
Do you have a favourite Camana Bay moment?
You know what, I was just impressed by the vision.
Favourite moment? There are too many.
Cayman Dental partners with several overseas, board-certified specialists. Why is that important?
All our specialists are board certified. We have two come in from Miami. [We have] a maxillofacial surgeon. We have an endodontist ... two orthodontists ... a periodontist.
This article was published in the May 2024 print edition of Camana bay Times.