CATEGORY 48 AUSTRALASIAN DENTIST The world has changed. Visual and audio communications have revolutionised in the last 10 years and the adoption and penetration of this technology has been accelerated synergistically by the artificial interpersonal barriers created by covid. It is a blessing and something of a miracle that the technology infrastructure network was robust enough not to fail dramatically on a global scale. The recent global outage related to an error in a four byte string in the Windows kernel demonstrates how fragile the digital world can be. As healthcare professionals we have a responsibility and duty to provide care and treatment for our patients to the very highest standards and levels of skill. This carries with it an obvious commitment to education, understanding, skills development and potentially lifelong learning. The Continual Professional Development requirements set by a country’s regulatory body represents the bare minimum a clinician should be undertaking to maintain competency in their field of practice. These requirements vary widely between different countries both in their quantity but also in their level of verification. Some countries also have a mandatory year of vocational training for new graduates. At the other end of the scale, dentistry itself is seeing exponential growth in technology development, new materials and advances in clinical fields including periodontology, prosthodontics, orthodontics and implantology. Today’s undergraduate education, whilst being seen as academically robust, can only offer the new graduate a glimpse into this future. This leaves something of a gap – nay a chasm – for clinicians to fill in order to be able to be current, skilled and experienced in delivering the best quality and most appropriate healthcare to their patients. Is there guidance for clinicians about the most appropriate educational and training pathways to serve their needs, desires and aspirations? INNOVATIONS The only formal and registrable pathway offered in Australia and New Zealand for most specialties is the three year DDS programme offered by a number of universities. Demand is high and places relatively few. Some areas of dentistry, such as aligner orthodontics or implantology, fall outside or overlap these specialties creating educational challenges because of their scope. So, as individuals how do we plan our education and journey of ‘lifelong learning’. To say many of us don’t, would be unkind and a little unfair. Thank goodness people are different and vary from micro-planners to those who take life in broad brushstrokes. But planning is good especially in the early parts of our career and to give us structure. Hence the excellent Vocational Training programme in the UK, where admittedly, some of the planning is done for us. Many of us are tactical throughout our lives dealing with the things that come at us in a serial manner, one after another. Few people are naturally strategic thinking forward and reasoning back. Many, many business books have been written about strategy. One of the finest: The Art of War by Sun Tzu (one of the best translations was by James Clavell) was written a few years ago (5th Century BC). So the strategy is not new. It is good to plan ahead and strategise, although it should be remembered plans are made to be changed. Clinical knowledge and skills are good examples of how strategic thinking can help us develop the most successful, fulfilling and rewarding outcomes. I am going to use dental implantology as an example. Dental Implantology is not taught in undergraduate dental schools. The curriculum may include (and rightly so) a short, well designed, overview to illustrate dental implants as an option for the replacement of missing teeth and encourage diagnostic thinking. Anything more would probably be foolish in a curriculum that is already overflowing and limited in the opportunities for clinical skills development. So, on graduation we can start afresh. And many recent graduates are drawn to the excitement, technology and perhaps, perceived profitability of dental implantology. How to start? and how not to start? The smart thing would be to think strategically, where we would like to be in one, three and five years. Dental implantology is especially challenging and interesting as it encompasses clinical and surgical skills in periodontology, surgery Strategy and Tactics in Dental Education in Implantology By Professor Neil Meredith, BDS.,MSc.,FDS RCS.,PhD,PhD, Director Postgraduate Institute of Dental Surgery Professor Neil Meredith
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