Running your own practice comes with many benefits, from being in control of your own income to choosing the staff and equipment you think will be best for the job. It allows you to work the way you want, and focus on the things that are most important to you – perhaps the factors that made you choose the profession in the first place. But growing a business also comes with challenges, and you can’t expect instant results.

When Faye McDearmid MCOptom, Director at Campbell & McDearmid, joined the family practice after qualifying in 2008, she had big ambitions. Faye says that, at first, she wanted to give everybody who came through the door state-of-the-art eye care, but soon realised that this wasn’t realistic.