In Sept 2017, Health Education England (HEE) launched Advancing Dentistry, a project for the reform of dental education and training, and invited the dental profession to contribute to the debate. Read more http://bit.ly/2tdZq9U. As a practicing young dentist, I intend to do my bit. I would also urge colleagues to engage and contribute to how best to reform our profession – after all it is our profession.

The training pathway into Dentistry currently requires trainee dentists to complete a foundation and core training programme before entering a 3-5 year training pathway to prepare them for Royal College examinations. The system encourages trainees to decide on speciality training too early to reduce the financial impact of taking time to complete training posts. What many trainees don’t know is that there is a vast inequality in the number of posts available.  Depending on their circumstances, they may be forced to consider a speciality which is receiving increased funding due to increasing need, such as paediatrics or special care dentistry.

There are important benefits to a trainee dentist spending time in general practice.  It offers an opportunity to increase their clinical experiences in providing a wide range of dentistry.  At a time when graduates increasingly lack clinical experience, restructuring the training pathway could provide access to the acquisition of enhanced skills within several different dental specialities without commiting to one single speciality and early specialisation.  A lack of clinical experience and confidence is pushing more and more trainee dentists to apply for further training posts in order to gain supervised experience in a safe environment.

The impact of this is already apparent.  With increasing pressure from regulators and litigators, trainee dentists are taking fewer risks and therefore skills which should be delivered by Level 1 practitioners are not being delivered by general dental practitioners and instead being referred on to Level 2 care, whether that be in a primary or secondary setting.

By restructuring the training pathway, Dentistry could offer trainees an opportunity to:

• Gain a broad range of expertise in clinical experience
• Reduce the financial burden of multiple training posts
• Choose a suitable and fulfilling specialism.

A training pathway into Dentistry should provide the clinical experience necessary to inspire confidence in ability and allow trainees to choose a specialism that complements their talents at every stage of their career. 

Elizabeth Jones, former Dean of Postgraduate Dentistry Health Education England, has identified some of the key issues facing the dental workforce, career development and education.  Given the general fall in levels of dental decay and an improvement in the health of the UK population over the last 70 years, the profession needs to adopt new ways of working:

If you would like to contribute to the debate on reforming dental education and training, join us on Social Media to share your ideas! Don’t miss out on the opportunity to add your voice to the discussion.