As it's a leap year, it's once again time for the General Dental Council (GDC) to consider revising the profession's approach to continuing professional development (CPD). In a consultation draft being considered by the council, further major changes seem to be on the horizon.
The concept of CPD (or life long learning as it was in earlier guise) is to maintain the safety of patients by ensuring that dentists and dental care professionals are competent and up to date. It recognises that times change, research moves on and so do regulation, legislation and the body of legal case law.
Sir Liam Donaldson as chief medical officer famously compared safety in healthcare to the aviation industry when he noted that the chances of dying in hospital from a medical mistake were one in 300, or 33,000 times more likely than death in a commercial flight.
Observers were quick to point out that pilots have a vested interest in not making mistakes, in that they are irrevocably linked to the fate of their passengers. So far, no proposal has suggested that dental clinicians undergo simulator training (phantom heads) in the same way as aircrew. But many maintain the view that clinical competence is one central thing that dentists (and other surgical personnel) should be reviewed on.
Cynics have noted that Dr Harold Shipman was reportedly assiduous in maintaining his professional knowledge and skills – however, we have to accept that there is no absolute way to defend society against a psychotic individual.
So where will we go next? We've had checklists, systems and training in the all-important and so-called soft skills of communication, conflict management, complaints handling and clinical leadership. Now it seems that maintaining currency and competency will be proposed to be linked to individual personal development plans if a consultation goes ahead on the lines planned.
It's all part of a movement towards revalidation, which will eventually reach us as it has the medics. Although the potential for serious or fatal harm is vastly lower in dentistry than for, say anaesthesiology or obstetrics, the fact is that complaints against dentists continue to climb and their value increases yearly too. Is this a step in the right direction? Or is it yet more paperwork for the average registrant to have to contend with on top of all the other invasions which appear to displace time for actual patient care and treatment?
Perhaps the most critical thing is that dental professionals keep an eye out for this new GDC consultation and feed back their views. Nothing is ever safe and human error is inevitable. We need to keep in mind that minimisation of error and a realistically maximal safety level is what should be aimed for but above all it needs to be workable for professionals.