Postgraduate training – the time is now!

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  Posted by: Dental Design      4th December 2021

As a new dentist, you may have considered postgraduate training. Postgraduate training can give your career structure, by allowing you to specialise. It can enhance your professional prospects, as well as personal satisfaction.

Maybe the experience you have gained since your degree has made you realise where you need to ‘be’. We are seeing changing patterns of oral disease – people are retaining their teeth for longer but presenting with heavily-restored dentition – and dentists must be ready for more challenging cases. The wider adoption of skill mix will offer opportunities for clinicians with the appropriate training to focus on complex work, while other members of the dental team deal with prevention and maintenance.

If your aim is to own a practice, you may want it to be a specialist one, to meet increased demand in a certain area. For example, the dental implants market is booming, thanks to emerging technologies and materials that have improved the predictability of treatment.[i] Quality implant therapy is safe and efficient, offering beautiful, natural aesthetics, as well as mechanical strength and function similar to a natural tooth. Small wonder, then, that dental implants are fast becoming the number-one choice for patients.

When embarking on postgraduate study, you will upgrade your general dentistry. Your degree and first years of clinical experience are the foundation; postgraduate study will enrich your clinical knowledge to increase your confidence when carrying out a range of procedures. But additional training will benefit you at every stage of your career. Learning is lifelong; as standards and patients’ expectations keep rising, dentists must be always open to new possibilities, forever curious and thinking about how they can enhance the quality of care.

Where to start

As well as knowing what you want to achieve from postgraduate study, you must know why you want to do it. Is this about employability, your journey to becoming an in-demand specialist or practice owner (or both!), for example? Do your research thoroughly. Reach out to dentists whose career path you admire and wish to emulate and read the dental press to see who is doing work that inspires you.

The quality of postgraduate training can vary, so look for accredited courses. Carefully check the content and that it offers the correct balance of theory and practical teaching. Technical skills must be combined with an education programme that will challenge you mentally and intellectually, encouraging you to question established theories and current concepts. When the learning extends outside the scope of your course, you will become a better dentist. You will become better at diagnostics and treatment planning, which in turn will help you become a better communicator with your practice colleagues, your lab and your patients.

Consider funding and value. Ensure you have the financial means to complete the course and that it represents good value. After completion, your investment must give you the solid skills to offer treatment safely and confidently and there must be commercial benefits too. Not only to your practice, with the addition of a new revenue stream including the ability to take referrals, but with regards to your own earning potential.

When finding the right postgraduate course for you, do not underestimate the importance of its ability to widen your network with new contacts and friendships and gain you a mentor. Working in a busy practice, it can be easy to feel disconnected, but other dentists will always be the richest source of support and guidance. Not only are they often facing the same issues, but they might also have found a different solution to a case similar to one that challenged you or want to hear what you did to achieve a good clinical outcome in specific  circumstances. This shared knowledge and sense of community is critical for feeling engaged with and motivated by the profession.

For accredited postgraduate training in implant dentistry, The One to One Implant Education’s Postgraduate Diploma in Implant Dentistry is an ideal choice for dentists looking to take their career to the next level in 2022. Overseen by leading clinicians and lecturers, with unrivalled experience in the field, the course combines key areas to make you a successful implant dentist including treatment planning, placement, soft tissue management, the laboratory/clinician interface, guided bone regeneration, full arch implant restoration and peri-implantitis. Half the teaching time is dedicated to live surgery, and there is a tiered peer mentor system, with every delegate receiving a tutor who has also completed the course, and who will guide them long after training has finished.

If you are thinking about embarking on postgraduate training, there has never been a better time. The benefits will not just be to your career, but also your ability to deal with changing patterns in oral disease and delivery of care, as well as sky-high patient expectations. Quality postgraduate education is how you can be ready for the future.

Dr Fazeela Khan-Osborne is the founding clinician of the FACE dental implant multi-disciplinary team for the One To One Dental Clinic based on Harley Street, London. She has always had a passion and special interest in implant dentistry, particularly in surgical and restorative full arch rehabilitation of the maxilla. She has been involved in developing treatment modalities for peri-implantitis within clinical practice.

Dr Khan-Osborne is also the Founding Course Lead for the One To One Education Programme, now in its 20^thyear. As a former Lead Tutor on the Diploma in Implant Dentistry course at the Royal College of Surgeons (England), she lectures worldwide on implant dentistry and is an active full member of the Association of Dental Implantology, the British Academy of Aesthetic Dentistry and the International Congress of Oral Implantologists.

 

 

[i] Global Dental Implants Market Report 2021: Market is Expected to Reach $6.60 Billion in 2025 – Long-term Forecast to 2030.  Intrado Globe Newswire, 30 August 2021. Link: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/08/30/2288181/0/en/Global-Dental-Implants-Market-Report-2021-Market-is-Expected-to-Reach-6-60-Billion-in-2025-Long-term-Forecast-to-2030.html (accessed September 2021).

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