Certified Membership

Certified Membership is the College’s new, enhanced membership scheme, offering authoritative recognition and augmented, one-to-one career support to all members of the oral healthcare team.

Certified Membership is the mark of professionalism in General Dentistry. As a Certified Member, you will be recognised as a committed professional – all the more important, in the confusing world we now face.

You can register for the programme here.

To access the registration form, please ensure you are signed in to your online account or register a new account here. 

What’s different about Certified Membership?

Membership of the College says something important about you: it marks your commitment, your aptitude, and your appetite to work to the highest level in your dental practice.

Certified Membership offers much more and shows you have reached key stages in your career – mapped by our authoritative Career Pathways in dentistry, underpinned by the Professional Framework.

It provides you with structured support so you can plan the next steps in your career, working with a trained facilitator to plan and document the staged acquisition of the skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours necessary to enable you to fulfil your professional ambitions.

What does Certified Membership involve?

Certified Membership has four components, which work together to support you, at each stage of your career. They help you instil the self-discipline and personal insight to succeed in your practice, in an increasingly complicated and challenging world.

Formal qualification

Do you already have the qualification to meet our requirements for Full Membership or Associate Fellowship? That counts toward Certified Membership, so you are well on your way there already. If you are not sure what qualification you want or need for a progressive and fulfilling career in dentistry, Certified Membership will help shape your thinking.

Ongoing reflective journal

You will be used to developing and documenting systematic, reflective practice as a committed professional. We will draw upon your existing portfolio and other commitments in personal development planning, to ensure you have a meaningful tool that works for you. 

Structured Facilitator support

You will be assigned a trained Facilitator to support your reflective development. Their role is to help you to realise the best in yourself, with insightful questions and active encouragement. Our Facilitators are deeply committed professionals who want the best for you and your meetings together will be structured, thorough and focused on your next steps.

Online study programme

Our Professional Framework will be the guide for your development, and we will ask you to commit to specific training to help you gain a deeper understanding of some critical skills and their application. Linked to your Facilitator meetings, each module will provide one point of focus for your discussions

Our Career Pathway and Certified Membership

So long as you are enrolled on the Certified Membership Scheme, you will be recognised as a Certified Member of the College as you progress through our Career Pathway. You will feature in the College Member Register, and be entitled to the use of postnominals.

If you have successfully registered with the GDC (or an equivalent), you are recognised as having reached the Safe Practitioner stage of the Career Pathway, and are eligible for Associate Membership of the College. As you continue to focus on your professional development and meet the expectations of the Career Pathway, you will be eligible to become a Certified Member. An overview of the eligibility criteria is below.

MEMBERSHIP Enrolled as:	CAREER PATHWAY Meet expectations for:	CERTIFIED MEMBERSHIP Eligible for*:
Associate Member	Capable Practitioner	Certified Associate Member AssocMCGDent(Cert.)
Full Member MCGDent	Experienced Practitioner	Certified Full Member MCGDent(Cert.)
Associate Fellow AssocFCGDent	Enhanced Practitioner	Certified Associate Fellow AssocFCGDent(Cert.)

Certified Associate Member (Assoc.MCGDent(Cert.))

If you have successfully completed Foundation Training (or equivalent), you are recognised as a Capable Practitioner, and once you have enrolled on the Certified Membership scheme, held an initial session with your Facilitator and produced a personal development plan, you are eligible for Certified Associate Membership of the College, and to be listed as such in the College’s public Member Register.

Certified Full Member (MCGDent(Cert.))

If you meet the requirements for Full Membership of the College, complete a minimum of two years within the Certified Membership programme, and meet the requirements of Experienced Practitioner status, you are eligible to become a Certified Full Member of the College.

Certified Associate Fellow (AssocFCGDent(Cert.))

If you meet the requirements for Associate Fellowship of the College, have completed at least two years within the Certified Membership programme, and meet the requirements of Enhanced Practitioner status, you are eligible to become a Certified Associate Fellow of the College.

Certified Membership fee

Certified Membership is an enhancement of your standard membership. If you are not currently a CGDent member, you can enrol in membership at the same time, paying the standard annual fee, a £50 one-time Registration fee, plus £150 a year to remain enrolled in the scheme (while you acquire Certified status, and thereafter to maintain Certified status).

Next steps

If you are already a member of the College, you can register now. To register, you must be signed in to your online account.

If you are not currently a member, you are already eligible to join the College as an Associate Member (with BDS) or Full Member (with PGCert, MFDS or MJDF). See our different memberships and eligibility here.

Contact us to find out more about Certified Membership and get started.