What We Offer
Jacaranda Family Dental is a modern dental practice with truly state-of-the-art facilities in Gympie.
In 2014 we decided to take the leap and set up our own dental practice. We wanted to offer our patients the very best in dental care and felt that it was easier to establish our own than to purchase one and have to make a lot of changes. We didn’t employ any staff initially but fast-forward to now and we are the largest practice in Gympie.
It is an absolute privilege to be able to employ our wonderful team and we’ve hand-selected the team of clinicians that look after your dental needs.
Our dental practice provides excellence in general and preventive dental care as well as all cosmetic procedures such as conventional orthodontics, Invisalign, porcelain veneers, crowns, dental implants and teeth whitening. Our team are highly experienced and expertly trained to provide you with the highest levels of care.
We understand that some patients may feel anxious or uneasy about visiting the dentist and we make a real point of providing a relaxing and comfortable experience.
We use the latest techniques and have invested in the most up-to-date modern equipment to provide you with pain free dentistry and high quality treatment. We also have a visiting anaesthetist to be able to offer sleep dentistry – he pops you off to sleep, you have your treatment performed, and you wake up not remembering anything.
Our focus is on building trust with you and we understand that everyone’s needs are different. Our team are dedicated to providing you with excellent, individualised care and service and we are always so grateful of you entrusting us to take care of your dental needs
We understand that people lead busy lives and our Gympie dental clinic will always ensure a minimum waiting time for appointments. Our evening appointment times until 7pm of a Tuesday and Thursday will allow you to fit your dental appointment into your busy schedule. Our hope is that our extended hours make it very easy for you to visit us. We treat patients from all over Gympie and surrounding areas and it would be our pleasure to be able to look after you.
Thank you for reading and we look forward to meeting you.
Adam and Sam Bradshaw
Our Story
How Jacaranda Family Dental was born
Hi, my name is Sam, and I’d love to share a story with you.
Jacaranda Family Dental began when Adam, a first year Dentist at the time, met a final year Oral Health Therapy student at the University of Queensland back in 2010. That’s me! A friendship was created, a relationship bloomed, and in 2012 Adam was asking for my hand in marriage. Our wedding is a fun story for another day by the way – we eloped and got married on the banks of a waterhole filled with hippos in South Africa in August 2013!
Establishing our own practice was often a topic of discussion and it was on our flight home from our honeymoon that we settled on Gympie, a beautiful community where we had been based since January 2011.
Discussions centred around purchasing an existing practice versus establishing our own, however we concluded that to establish ourselves was the best plan. I had worked as both a dental assistant and receptionist for the nine years prior, and Adam a Dentist for four years. During this time we learnt what we wanted to implement within our own business. We had very specific ideas on how we wanted Jacaranda to look and feel and felt that it was easier to create that with our own stamp from the beginning.
At the tender ages of 26 and 28, we opened the doors to our first baby in July 2014 – our dental practice that we had big dreams for!
Where we have come from
We both grew up in working-class families in Townsville and Ipswich and our core values have stemmed from our upbringing. We showcase our integrity through always being honest and having strong moral principles. Behaving ethically in all of our dealings allows us to sleep very well at night, knowing that we’ve done our upmost to do the right thing by everyone we interact with.
Nothing is ever always smooth sailing in life but the upside of being business-owners is that we’re able to rectify any problems as they arise and work to always be improving on our systems to reduce the incidence going forward. We pride ourselves on open communication and always want to make a wrong right. No one is perfect and although we do everything to ensure that each procedure goes well, there are circumstances that go array simply due to the fact that we’re working within microns in dentistry.
Our transparency is what sets us apart and it’s a huge part of why our patients place such great trust in us. It’s like taking your car to the mechanic when you have no idea about what they’re actually doing. You need to find someone that you can trust and our patients are in the same boat – they know we’re going to do the right thing by them.
Those early days
When we opened Jacaranda Family Dental, we didn’t employ any staff initially. We didn’t know how long it would take for appointments to be made, which was rather naïve of us in hindsight because the Gympie community welcomed us with open arms from day one and continue to do so.
We remember back to when the phone rang for the first time and Adam thought Sam was pranking him! And it must be shared that that patient is still a patient of the practice all of these years on! What warmed our hearts the most both then and now was when patients have had a wonderful experience and make their next appointment with us.
For the first three months we did everything, from answering phones and making appointments, to sterilising, ordering, cleaning and of course seeing patients! What we experienced in those early days continue to provide us with a great appreciation for what our entire team do on a daily basis nowadays, albeit on a much larger scale!
How an Elmo suit came into the mix
We’ve always placed a huge focus on being approachable within the Gympie community and we’re incredibly passionate about what we do! When we first opened, we worked six huge days at the practice, staying until all patients that needed our help were seen. This often looked like 7am starts and 9pm finishes, and we absolutely loved it! Come 9pm we’d often order a pizza, turn the music up and reflect on the day that was!
Come Sunday our day looked a little different! Our alarm would wake us at 5am and we would pack the car to head along to our local markets. Adam would dress up in an Elmo suit, handing out colouring-ins, while Sam was in uniform, answering any dental-related questions that people had. Sam’s mum would do face-painting and it was always such a lovely morning interacting with the community. 
We have continued that involvement over the years and offered both our time and money to different organisations that have aligned with our values. We’re in a privileged position to be able to do what we love and it’s such a pleasure to give back.
How the practice name came about
It always amazes us how Jacaranda trees sit quietly, unnoticed all autumn and winter, until one day it feels as if every single one throughout our beautiful town bursts with blossoms at the same time. The University of Queensland St Lucia Great Court used to be a sea of purple each October as well, a sign that exams were near and the Summer break was around the corner.
We never wanted to be Happy Tooth Dental, or a place name, so decided on the tree that brings us so much joy. It also represents wisdom and we pride ourselves on bringing our experience, knowledge and good judgement to all of our dealings.
It’s interesting to note as well that Johannesburg has over 10 million Jacaranda trees, the most of anywhere in the world, tying our marriage in South Africa to our love of Jacaranda Family Dental.
Our expansions over the years
We’ve found the Gympie community to be pretty special, because if you’re doing the right thing by them, people talk. Gympie has no shortage of dental practices and when we first opened, it was very much a lifestyle decision. We didn’t want to be in a capital city and planned for the first five years to be very difficult.
Fast-forward to today and we’ve expanded beyond our initial footprint three times.
Demand for our genuine care and compassion has continued to grow and it’s a pleasure to be able to look after the Gympie community’s dental needs.
We can appreciate that if you have a broken tooth or a toothache, you want it addressed as soon as possible, so we have increased our ability to be able to cater for more dental emergencies that arise. Adam now has over fourteen years of experience and has predominantly limited his practice to Invisalign, orthodontics and dental implants. Our team of clinicians have also continued to hone their general dental skills over the years and look after our patients as we always have – with genuine care, compassion and concern.
Our team culture and values
When we first opened we had no formal training in HR or in managing a team, and it’s posed our biggest learning curve over the years. We haven’t always gotten it right and have often walked the tightrope of wearing an employer hat as well as a friend hat.
Over the years we’ve invested in our own development as people and as leaders. It’s only as we get closer to having owned Jacaranda Family Dental for a decade that we feel we’re becoming the leaders we always wanted to be.
The biggest change has been in the value we place on our team culture and values. They’re terms that get thrown around a lot nowadays but we truly hold them in the highest regard. We’re so fortunate to be able to work alongside the most wonderful team of clinicians and support staff and couldn’t do what we do without them.
We love everything that happens at Jacaranda Family Dental and if you haven’t been fortunate to experience what we offer, it would be our absolute pleasure to be able to welcome you.
Challenges we’ve faced along the way
No pathway in life is ever linear and there are always going to be adversities that one is going to go through. The biggest impact that we’ve had on our lives both personally and professionally was when we had an unviable pregnancy in 2015. A lot of people have miscarriages and different situations arise surrounding this and our hearts go out to you if you’ve experienced this yourself. Our deepest apologies are extended if this brings up emotions for you when reflecting.
For us we’d made the decision to try for a family and found out we were expecting
before celebrating a friends’ wedding in Fiji. Upon returning and attending an ultrasound, the pregnancy was deemed to be a molar pregnancy. This went onto become a malignant cancer of the placenta and then spread to Sam’s lungs, a cancer known as choriocarcinoma.
Over six months from September 2015 to February 2016, she underwent weekly chemotherapy treatments in Brisbane, losing all of her hair and not knowing whether we’d be able to have a family. All of this while having only opened our doors to Jacaranda the year before.
Sessions were fourteen hours of a Thursday, so she’d stay overnight, and then four hours of a Friday morning, before driving back to Gympie that afternoon. Adam held down the fort at the practice during this time and the support shown from patients was extraordinary. People were bringing in meals, flowers and cards filled with beautiful well-wishes. The out-pouring of love and support for us was something we’ll never forget.
The chemotherapy sessions were successful and in February 2017, after twelve months
of monthly reviews with the oncologist, we were given the green light to try for a family. How incredibly fortunate we felt when we conceived just a month later, followed by a completely uncomplicated pregnancy. We gave birth to our beautiful little girl Olivia in November 2017. Our second daughter was then born in March 2020, right as Covid lockdowns were being implemented. Life huh!!
Covid itself bought about its own challenges of course but it’s been working through these hardships that have shaped the people that we are today. We appreciate everything we have and are so grateful to be parents to two beautiful little girls. We pour our heart and soul into our dental practice and at the centre of everything is our family. We’ll be leaning on those around us during the teenage years!!
How special the Gympie community is
Gympie has often been given a bad wrap from people in the past and quite often they’ve never been here! We’d always thought it was this well-kept secret but it appears that people have caught onto how special it is over recent years.
We get to speak to a lot of people in our line of work and we’ve always been curious as to what has bought people to town. We’ve been blown away by how many people have travelled Australia and then have made the decision to move back and settle in Gympie. It’s pretty special.
We’ve given our time and donated money to a range of organisations that we’ve
aligned with their values over the years including Hope Reins, The Jake Garrett Foundation, Little Haven Palliative Care and the Salvation Army. What we’ve always enjoyed is getting to know more about the people behind these organisations and connecting with those that receive the benefits
Our Story
Awards and Accolades
2014
- Winner Marketing Campaign of the Year
- Winner Presidents Award
- Runners-up New Business of the Year
2015
- Winner Marketing Campaign of the Year
- Runner-Up Micro Business of the Year
- Finalist New Business of the Year
- Finalist Young Entrepreneur of the Year
2016
- Winner Top Gun Woman in Business – Sam Bradshaw
- Winner Employee of the Year – Lisa Morgan
2017
- Winner Customer Service of the Year
- Finalist Business of the Year
- Finalist Marketing Campaign of the Year
- Finalist Entrepreneur of the Year
2018
- Winner Workplace of Choice
- Runners-Up Business of the Year
- Finalist Marketing Campaign of the Year
- Finalist Business Innovation
2019
- Winner Customer Service Hero – Lydia Williams
- Finalists Business of the Year
2022
- Winner Business of the Year
- Runners Up Marketing Campaign of the Year
- Finalists Workplace of Choice
Sam was then invited by the President of the Gympie Chamber of Commerce Petra Van Beek to be a judge for the 2023 Business Awards. It’s been an incredibly humbling experience and one that we’re incredibly grateful for.
The future of Jacaranda Family Dental
Dentistry has obviously changed a lot from what people experienced between the 1940’s to the 1980’s, but it’s even changed a lot in the last ten years to be what it is today. And not all dental practices are equal.
Our practice has placed a huge focus on minimal intervention dentistry, and you may be asking what that fancy term means.
It refers to not touching a tooth with a drill unless we absolutely have to.
For example, if there’s a baby tooth that’s going to fall out in the next three months but it has a cavity, it may be perfectly fine to leave. This avoids putting the child through an unnecessary dental visit and saves dollars.
Another example is if decay is only in the outside enamel layer, we can harden it in a number of ways so we don’t need to do a filling.
And in the circumstances that we need to do a restoration, we only remove the tooth structure that is needed, not further weakening the tooth by removing more than necessary.
Digital dentistry is of course the way of the future and we’ve adopted a wide-range of technology that assists us in providing the very best care to our patients.
When it comes to our team, we employ clinicians and support staff that exhibit our values and train them in our systems to ensure we’re all aligned. We hand-select our entire team so you know that you can put your trust in them with all of your dental needs.
As owners of Jacaranda Family Dental looking ahead, we want our legacy to be a dental practice that’s trusted and appreciated within the Gympie community.”