There is something for everyone in the 2012 dental implantology education programme on www.courses4implants.com.
The online prospectus enables dental professionals to ‘pick and mix’ a training programme tailored to their individual needs.
According to Dr Ashok Sethi, of The Centre for Implant and Reconstructive Dentistry, Harley Street: ‘Through its continuing commitment to education, Dentsply Friadent offers a variety of options for every member of the dental implant team. Whatever your current level of competence, there are opportunities to help you improve your skills, from restorative through to advanced surgical training.’
Many of the most popular courses feature live surgery and hands-on sessions to help develop practical skills.
Lectures by leading experts give theoretical teaching in implant surgery and prosthetics. Mentoring supports dentists in their own practice and direct learning online provides convenient training opportunities for the whole implant team.
The GDC states that a dental professional’s primary qualification is only the first step in their education, which lasts throughout their practising life.
Dr Sethi explains: ‘To meet patients’ needs in the fast developing field of dental implantology, it is more important than ever that all clinicians continue to maintain and extend their level of competence. There are many ways in which training can be accessed and a variety of recognised pathways, all of which can contribute to implantology skills development.’
During 2012, there are more comprehensive year courses for those who want to be able to place dental implants for their own patients.
Dr Paul McKenna, of Finaghy Dental Practice, attended the Interactive Surgery and Prosthetics programme in Belfast. He says it is ‘an ideal course for anyone looking to get started in implants’.
For those who are already active in dental implantology, the 2012 programme offers additional surgical courses to help clinicians gain the skills to tackle a wider range of cases.
Dr C Michael Parkinson of Faces and Smiles, Norwich found the live surgery with sinus grafting and bone augmentation on Dr Andrew Moore’s Advanced Implantology course “particularly useful for moving on to the next level of implant treatment.
Combined with appropriate formal tuition, one-to-one mentoring is an essential component of training in implant dentistry. More than 30 accomplished implantologists listed on courses4implants.com are keen to share their wealth of knowledge to help colleagues get involved with implant treatment.
Dr Nilesh Bhatt of Ocean Dental, Manchester, believes, ‘Having one of the country’s top implantologists in the team offers my practice a certain cachet. You cannot put a price on that!’
Dr Ashok Sethi continues: ‘In addition to the implant dentist, Dentsply Friadent also reaches out to the increasing numbers of general dental practitioners who are starting out in this field. Meanwhile, for dental technicians, hygienists and dental nurses, training provided by implant suppliers is especially valuable, in the absence of any formal accreditation.’
Dentists who wish to restore implant cases can quickly learn to do so through an even more extensive selection of short courses and training events.
Dr Mike Kelly of Southview Dental Centre, Edenbridge, Kent, found the ‘Restoring Implants’ course with Dr Matthew Holyoak and Steve Taylor, ‘demystified all the implant components and gave me a chance to practise using them’.
Knowing he will be involved in the case gives Dr Kelly ‘more confidence when talking to patients about implants’.
Dental nurses and hygienists can gain the knowledge and confidence to support implant dentists, on courses around the UK.
Practical interactive training is also available for dental technicians who wish to undertake implant work for dental surgeons.
As a complement to attendance on traditional courses, dental professionals can gain knowledge of this exciting field with the click of a mouse during a break at the practice, at the end of the day, or from the comfort of their armchair.
Implantology postgraduate education is more widely available than ever before via the online learning resources within courses4implants.com.
In addition, practice development seminars help dentists to treat more patients and grow their business.
For further clinical inspiration, insight into the latest developments and a great deal of fun, implant dentists can join more than 2,000 colleagues from 60 nations at the Dentply Friadent World Symposium on 16-17 March 2012.
This stimulating event is the flagship of the company’s international implantology education programme and details are available on www.courses4implants.com.
Patient interest in dental implants is increasing all the time. One way or another, every dentist needs to be able to offer the treatment, as part of a comprehensive package of care. DENTSPLY Friadent supports postgraduate training for any dental professional who wants to get involved or broaden their skills. However they prefer to learn, there is something for every member of the implant team on courses4implants.com.
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Dentistry comment: Let them eat cake^
You may detect a slightly European flavour in the contents of this column. This should really come as no surprise given that the subject of Europe and the under-siege Euro has been de rigeur in all corners of the British media recently.
Greece’s palpable irritation of having to go down on bended knee to Germany, of all people, reminds us that only a generation or two ago, Greece found itself invaded and then ruled by Germany (and Italy). Greece has been around for a fair while and, like most of its more recently civilised European partners, has had its fair share of conflicts with a number of its European neighbours over the years.
Several European economies are obviously in a parlous state and several more could join them if a workable and sustainable solution cannot be found. One does not normally think of healthcare professionals when the term ‘economic migrant’ is bandied around, but the free movement of labour around the European Union means that, through Acquired and Derived Rights, the door to the UK Dentists Register is very much open for those who choose to walk through it. In recent years, it is our European colleagues rather than our Commonwealth cousins who are topping the list of newly registered dentists here in the UK. I have mentioned in previous columns (but it bears repeating) that all the graduates of all the UK’s dental schools put together are still in the minority when it comes to additions to our Dentists Register each year.
It is thought to be highly improbable the French Bourbon Queen Marie Antoinette ever uttered those words traditionally attributed her ‘Let them eat cake’. Had she done so, I suspect it would have been with a strong French accent. We will never know whether she would have passed the new English language test recently suggested by the secretary of state for health as a mandatory requirement for healthcare professionals wishing to work in the NHS. He believes that, although it is illegal for a European members state to impede the free movement of European workers from an immigration perspective, NHS Trusts are free to impose criteria on who they will or will not employ from an operational perspective.
This represents a change of policy and direction by the Department of Health in the interests of patient safety and in the wake of some high-profile NHS disasters resulting from communication failures. There is widespread recognition that it is just not possible to practise safely as a healthcare professional if you cannot communicate in the language spoken by your patients. But the elephant in the room was the fact that many fluent English-speaking healthcare professionals also cannot communicate with their patients in their native language. This results from the fact that in an increasingly multi-cultural Britain, it is arguably more likely that the patients (rather than the healthcare professionals) will not speak English to an intelligible standard.
WeightWatchers
Mme Antoinette herself might have been a candidate for a junior ministerial position in the Department of Health, because an understanding of cake and the tendency of the proletariat to want to eat it, will assume increasing relevance as the health reforms are taken forward.
The size of the overall NHS cake, having expanded hugely in the past 10-15 years, is having its own dose of realism, just like the rest of public spending. Yes, it is being allowed to overhang the plate intended for it, but increases in one area mostly need to be justified by savings and efficiencies elsewhere. The real pain of the current trip to WeightWatchers has yet to be felt, because the first round of austerity measures is always easier to absorb than those subsequently overlaid upon it.
And what are the realistic prospects of NHS dentistry getting a bigger slice of that finite NHS cake? Dentistry has always been, and it continues to be, a much softer target than many other areas of healthcare. Consequently, we will do very well indeed if the Treasury cake tongs deposit a slice of cake anywhere near as large as we have become accustomed to.
Mille-feuille
And it doesn’t end there, either, because this particular cake does not have the solidity, density and cohesiveness of a doughnut or muffin. Far from it. Our cake is more like a mille-feuille (something that would have won Madame Antoinette’s approval, no doubt), with one flaky layer suspended precariously over another. It is a balancing act between primary dental care (including community dental care), the hospital and specialist services, public health dentistry and the rest. And the NHS pilots are already suggesting a much bigger (and hence, more expensive) role for secondary care in dentistry.
What happens, therefore, if more and more people are queuing up for a slice of whatever limited serving NHS primary dental care ends up with? You don’t need to have won Masterchef to realise that not everyone is going to get all that they had hoped for.
Providers up and down the country have already been softened up for this disappointment because on my travels I keep hearing of cases where successful practices have pitched for additional UDAs, only to be told that the PCT’s larder is bare.
The last real downturn in this country (about 20 years ago) was very different to the current economic situation because it was deep and relatively short-lived. Most downturns last little more than a year and the period of actual recession within that is even shorter. And history tells us that the recovery from such a downturn is usually strong and fast. For most of 2011, the UK economy has become surgically attached to the flatline between economic growth and contraction and history also tells us that the flatter the downcurve, the longer it takes to bounce back. It is all about confidence, a commodity that is in short supply right now.
Within a year of the depths of the early-1990s recession, strange as it may seem, UK practitioners were striding off into the private sector and Denplan thought Christmas had come early. There was the small matter of a 7% NHS fee cut to start the ball rolling, of course.
In many ways, that migration helped the GDS sums to add up at a difficult moment in time, because the cake went a little further than it might otherwise have done. In today’s economic climate, it is difficult to imagine the private sector coming to the rescue of beleaguered NHS practitioners in the same way. And if it doesn’t, all the additional mouths to feed will severely test the new-look world of NHS dentistry in a few short years from now.
Désolé
It matters not if Marie Antoinette never actually said ‘let them eat cake’ because she has left us a far more enduring legacy which is a lot more likely to be true and also much more relevant to banks, politicians and errant newspaper editors today.
‘I am sorry, I didn’t mean to do it’ are believed to be her last words, after inadvertently treading on the executioner’s foot as she climbed the steps up the scaffold. A mistake, I suspect, that she lived to regret – although probably not for long as things turned out.
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Tory U-turn on school dental screening plan^
Dental screening checks will not be re-introduced in schools as they are ‘ineffective’ at improving oral health, the government has said.
Department of Health guidelines published in 2007 removed the obligation on primary care trusts to provide dental screening to school children.
But before the 2010 election the Tories promised every five year old in the country would get a free dental check-up.
In addition, children would be taught how to brush their teeth properly and warned of the dangers of eating too many sweets and drinking sugary drinks.
Then shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said around 680,000 children would benefit from the £17 million scheme, aimed at combating the decline in pupils’ dental health.
But, on questioning from MPs, Conservative health minister Simon Burns said: ‘We are committed to improving the oral health of school children but have decided against the reintroduction of school screening checks.
‘In 2006, the National Screening Committee (NSC) advised that the routine dental screening of children in primary schools was ineffective in improving children’s oral health. The NSC found that children who were identified as requiring treatment were not accessing a general dental practice where it could be provided.’
Labour’s shadow health secretary Andy Burnham added: ‘This is the latest in a long line of NHS broken promises from the prime minister.
‘David Cameron made the pledge in opposition to show the Tories had changed, but his failure to keep his word yet again goes to the heart of his personal credibility.’
But the British Dental Association welcomed the coalition’s position. Dr Peter Bateman, chair of the BDA’s Salaried Dentists Committee, said: ‘We are pleased to see the Department of Health restate its commitment not to introduce school-based dental screening. Dentists know that such screening does not help to reduce oral health inequalities, and early in the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill the BDA campaigned for this ineffective measure to be set aside.
‘Far more effective are targeted schemes such as Manchester Smiles and Childsmile that seek to engage the child population with intervention and education. It is these approaches that government and commissioners must focus on developing further.’
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Dentistry focus: Time for reflection^
Are you successful but there is something missing? Do you keep dreaming of a better life? That whole work less earn more theory keeps banging away but you just can’t quite get there?
Well, it’s time to take some personal time. It’s time for reflection and re-evaluation. Have you ever asked yourself what you actually really want and where you want to be? What is success? And what does it lean to you?
The most successful in business take time for reflection and evaluation and re- evaluation. They know and understand what success is to them personally and how to measure it.
• Mentally plan and aim for the future
• Avoid stagnation and staying in the present
• Be honest with yourself about your goals – if something isn’t working for you
right now than consider change
• Rethink and rewrite plans if necessary
• By making change you are on the road to success.
The only true measurement of success is our own interpretation. This means that if we don’t take time to think and plan we can’t make things happen however large or small our business is and then we fail to grow and develop.
I have been running my own very successful consulting company for many years and suddenly I realised I was overworking and getting frustrated. I have a clear vision to create a work life balance and spend time with my family. This to me is success. Suddenly on reflection I was juggling my family and constantly responding to my mail.
I took the time to unload. I thought long and hard about my achievements to date, looked back and my plan and my goals and took an honest look at what I was doing. I re wrote some of my plans and considered all of the ways I could manage my work life balance. I thought of a new strategy and then set to work.
For me, it was a case of appointing team members to further support the growth of my business, but most importantly mentally let myself off the hook for not being able to always commit to everything. I had to take time to change what and how I was managing my day to day running, to ensure efficiency. The key here, being ‘change’.
After all, if I kept on doing the same things I was going to get the same result!
On many occasions, I coach individuals asking themselves these very same questions and I take them through this process and assist them in their move toward success. Is it time for you to ask yourself the questions to move you towards your ultimate vision.
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Young dentists elect new leaders^
Dr Martin Nimmo, an associate working in general dental practice in London, has been elected to chair the British Dental Association’s (BDA) Young Dentists’ Committee (YDC).
He has vowed to strengthen the committee as a political force and make its voice heard in the decision making of the BDA’s craft committees.
Until earlier this year, Martin worked as a senior house officer in oral and maxillofacial surgery in Scotland. He is also the current chair of the BDA’s Student Committee.
He will be assisted by newly elected vice chair, Dr Maria Papavergos, a general dental practitioner working in a mixed private/NHS practice in Edinburgh.
