Tag: Professional Development

Dentist members practising in the UK are reminded that Saturday 28 January 2023 is the deadline to submit your annual CPD statement detailing professional development activity undertaken between 1 January and 31 December 2022.

The General Dental Council requires dentists to complete a minimum of 100 hours of verifiable CPD every five years, including at least 10 hours during any two-year period, and to submit an annual CPD statement whether or not you have undertaken any CPD in the preceding 12 months.

The College offers members access to a wide range of CPD opportunities:

CPD library

Free, on-demand access to a library of around 1000 hours of certified, GDC-compliant CPD. To access the content, log in to www.prodentalcpd.com using the details sent to you following your transfer/entry into College membership.

This includes recordings of over 30 College webinars held to date, which are also available to non-members for a small fee:

• Practice ownership: an introduction
• How to get the best from your career in dentistry
• Leadership in dentistry
• Professionalism in dentistry
• Antimicrobial prescribing in dentistry
• Treatment planning for carious primary and permanent molars
• Duty of candour: the legal and regulatory risk
• Social inequalities: the impact on dental study applications
• Sustainability in dentistry and healthcare
• Non-surgical facial aesthetics: an introduction
• Non-surgical facial aesthetics: clinical cases and applied anatomy
• Non-surgical facial aesthetics: complications
• Research and critical appraisal of evidence: how to read a paper properly
• Research and critical appraisal of evidence: statistics in the real world
• Research and critical appraisal of evidence: meta-analyses and their appraisal
• Leadership in infection prevention and control
• Preventing wrong tooth extraction
• Domestic abuse in dentistry – speak out
• Looking after your data
• Making dental extractions predictable
• LGBTQ+ diversity and inclusion in dentistry
• Women in dentistry
• Mental health wellness framework
• Dementia-friendly dentistry
• Managing traumatic dental injuries
• Safe use of X-ray equipment
• The College of General Dentistry
• Returning to dentistry after COVID-19: implementing safe Practice
• COVID-19: your vaccination questions answered
• COVID-19: urgent dental care
• COVID-19: redeployment
• COVID-19: the risk-based approach
• COVID-19: guidance on the safe management of general dental practice

Live webinars

Live, College-hosted webinars covering a wide range of subjects are available free of charge every month, powered by ProDental. Upcoming events include:

• Record-keeping in the real world of general dental practice – 12 December 2022
• Creating a positive patient safety culture in dentistry – 10 January 2023
• Introduction to orthodontics: assessment, diagnosis and case selection – 17 January 2023
• Introduction to orthodontics: fixed appliances and functionals – 24 January 2023
• Dental care for patients with diabetes – 26 January 2023
• Introduction to orthodontics: retention – 31 January 2023
• Complaints handling: a step-by-step approach – 7 February 2023
• Supporting staff through menopause – 16 February 2023
• Mentoring in implant dentistry – 16 March 2023

Members also have free access to all of ProDental’s weekly live webinars.

And if you miss a live webinar, you’ll find it in the online library within around 24 hours.

Stay up to date with our upcoming webinars at https://cgdent.uk/events/

Study Days

Members receive heavily discounted attendance fees for study days and events. The following are currently scheduled:

• Advanced restorative study day in support of CGDent in Cymru/Wales

Friday 17 February 2023, Stride Dental Academy, Bangor

• CGDent-Quintessence Biennial International Conference: Excellence for the Dental Team

Friday-Saturday 24-25 March 2023, London

Courses

The courses for the College’s educational qualifications provide significant numbers of CPD hours. The following are currently offered:

• Postgraduate Certificate in Non-Surgical Facial Aesthetics
• Postgraduate Certificate and Diploma in Restorative & Aesthetic Dentistry
• Postgraduate Diploma in Primary Care Orthodontics

Third party resources

The College also recommends the following online resources developed by third parties, each of which offers free CPD:

• Antimicrobial stewardship e-learning modules (3 hours’ CPD)

• Alcohol (Identification and Brief Advice) for dental teams (1 hour’s CPD)

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This article was originally published on 22 September 2022 and was updated on 24 November 2022 and 8 December 2022

The College has declared its intention to develop a register of individuals with suitable experience and training to act as dento-legal expert witnesses or dental assessors.

At present, the College recognises education and experience in this area through the Law & Ethics domain of Fellowship – which can be fulfilled (among other ways) by holding a PgCert or PgDip in a legally-related subject relevant to dentistry, or a law degree or LLM together with five years’ experience as an expert witness, or having substantial experience of providing or assessing performance and/or expert reports.

Experience as an expert witness is also one of the means by which a dental professional might demonstrate Accomplished Practitioner status in the Professionalism domain of the College’s Professional Framework.

However, there is no formal or understood route to working in this field, and it is hoped that a transparent pathway to do so will encourage more practising dental professionals to undertake suitable training, increasing the pool and visibility of available experts and assessors so that those with the most relevant experience can be easily identified and instructed.

Guidance from the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges states that to act as an expert witness, healthcare professionals should have the necessary clinical knowledge, training and experience¹, and the College will convene a working group drawn from across the dental professions to determine appropriate criteria for inclusion in the register.

Dr Abhi Pal, CGDent President, said:

“The College considers it essential that those who are given the huge responsibility of providing opinion on a colleague’s performance in an official capacity have the appropriate training and experience to do so. This not only includes expert witnesses but also other dental professionals who provide performance reports. The College supports improved training and standardisation of dental expert witnesses as part of its mission of supporting careers and setting standards for the ultimate benefit of the profession and public. We intend to develop a register of suitably trained expert witnesses and assessors to support this work, and look forward to working with all stakeholders in the dento-legal field to achieve this.”

PDJ’s Dento-legal matters issue
For an in-depth dive into dento-legal matters, see volume 8, issue 2 of the Primary Dental Journal. College members have exclusive and searchable online access to the PDJ archive. For access, log in to the website and click here

The College is currently accepting applications for its Postgraduate Diploma in Primary Care Orthodontics, starting in April 2023.

The comprehensive Level 7 programme is designed to give General Dental Practitioners the skills and knowledge needed to treat more complex malocclusions, including extraction cases, taking them up to just below specialist training level. It covers all appliance systems – fixed functional, aligners, lingual and Inman – and includes both the theory and practical aspects of orthodontic care.

Through a combination of lectures, seminar and practical sessions, the syllabus includes:

• Records, assessment, diagnosis and treatment planning
• Treatment planning for Class I, Class II div1, Class II div 2 and Class III malocclusions
• Radiography – Ceph/OPG/CBCT
• Fixed appliances
• Lingual appliances
• Removable appliances
• Functionals
• Retention
• Aetiology of malocclusion, growth & development
• Development of the dentition and tooth movement
• Dental material & biomechanics
• Multidisciplinary care, including restorative, periodontics & surgery
• Critical reading skills
• Health education, health & safety, legislation and audit
• Marketing and practice management 

During the programme, which is limited to 12 places, students will discuss multiple new cases, participate in hands-on practical sessions and weekly online planning discussions, and will be given one-to-one mentoring by the course lead for ten treated cases. The 2023-25 programme is supported by six training blocks of 3-4 days each in April, September and November 2023, and February, May and September 2024.

The programme is delivered by IAS Academy and led by Professor Ross Hobson, a specialist orthodontist, former Head of Orthodontic MSc/Specialist training at Newcastle University, and former Chair in Orthodontics at the University of Central Lancashire. He holds a Master’s in Dental Surgery and PhD from Newcastle, a Membership in Orthodontics at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, is a Fellow of the College of General Dentistry, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and was the first dentist to be awarded the Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.

To ensure enough case-flow and experience, the course is recommended for dentists who have treated at least ten fixed cases, are treating a minimum of ten orthodontic cases per annum, and are familiar with using fixed appliances. Assessment will take place throughout the 120 credit programme, with a final examination held by the College.

In January, the College will be running three online Introduction to Orthodontics seminars presented by Prof Hobson. All three will be available free of charge to all dental professionals to watch live (prior registration required), and College members will also be able to watch them on-demand after broadcast, and can also claim free CPD certificates: 

• Introduction to orthodontics: Assessment, Diagnosis and Case Selection (17 January 2023, 7pm)
• Introduction to orthodontics: Fixed appliances and functionals (24 January 2023, 7pm)
• Introduction to orthodontics: Retention (31 January 2023, 7pm)