A look at how best to keep on top of your personal development.
Continuous development is essential for providing exceptional care over an entire career in implant dentistry. As the equipment and techniques around you change, it is important to keep up with the latest information in the field to continue delivering the best patient care.
Understanding CPD hours
General Dental Council (GDC) registration requires all dentists in the UK to complete 100 hours of verifiable continuous professional development (CPD) over five years. This ensures practitioners remain up-to-date with the latest developments and that high professional standards can be consistently met.
The GDC states that within each CPD cycle, dental professionals should refresh their knowledge surrounding medical emergencies, disinfection and decontamination, and radiography and radiation protection.
Alongside these key topics, it’s important to align other subjects with your needs. If you focus on implant restoration, the courses and lectures you elect to attend should cover relevant techniques and technologies.
You may also consider courses that equip you with the communication skills to help patients fully understand their implant dentistry treatment plan. You might instead choose to enhance your knowledge and confidence in handling patient complaints or in a number of other topics.
Face-to-face learning
One way to successfully further your dental knowledge is through attending in-person courses, designed to take a dental professional through the entirety of a specific procedure or treatment workflow. Many in-person courses are of differing lengths, some spread over days, months or years, which allows for a deep understanding of the extended process.
Some more comprehensive courses will provide the opportunity to place implants, which can be invaluable as a way to not just retain information, but learn the necessary hands-on skills that can be taken into daily practice.
Dentists can find courses that are fashioned to their skillset and targets. You could be new to implant placement and want to learn single tooth treatment workflows, or more experienced and wish to expand into more advanced placement techniques, such as zygomatic implants.
Undertaking courses in-person also provides the chance to learn from those around you in real-world scenarios – including other practitioners studying on the course, as well as the instructors. By building these in person relationships you can be open to learn from other people’s ideas, successes and failures, alongside the set syllabus delivers the information.
In-person courses can be especially helpful when a dental professional wishes to understand a complex topic in depth. They do, however, require an immense commitment of time. Supporting them with learning methods that can fit around daily practice work could be beneficial to creating a complete developmental experience, year-round.
Online education
Engaging with online materials, such as e-learning courses or webinars, is another brilliant way to further your dental education whilst meeting CPD requirements in a manner that suits you. The Covid-19 pandemic played a heavy hand in the increased development of remote learning. As a result, there are specialised outlets that are qualified to deliver pre-written and recorded materials for practitioners that require a flexible approach, or simply prefer the digital learning experience. Utilising online learning can be especially beneficial for dentists who wish to develop their knowledge and skills around their day-to-day working lives. Completing a couple of hours at a time is possible with asynchronous courses, where the material can be used at the pace you work best at. Over time, as long as the outlet is recognised as meeting the GDC guidelines, your CPD hours can climb quickly – and your understanding can grow with it.
The best of both worlds
Online courses used in tandem with in-person education is especially effective; the pairing is sometimes referred to as blended or balanced learning. Establishing a plan for your professional development and then applying it across both mediums lets you take control of your own learning, optimising the strengths of both environments for your own gain. Using internet-based technology to underpin a comprehension of the information around a programme, whilst putting it into hands-on practice to gain full control of the skills, is ideal for many practitioners’ complete understanding.
The Association of Dental Implantology (ADI) is a network of professionals with a passion for implant dentistry, constantly looking to improve their knowledge and skills at every stage of their career. As an ADI member, you gain access to a premium membership of Dentinal Tubules, a community that supports impactful CPD education across clinical, nonclinical and regulatory topics. With access to a multitude of expertly designed online materials, you can develop your understanding whenever it suits your workflow, at your own speed. Year-round webinars and in person events enable you to keep up to date with the latest techniques and information for comprehensive career progression.
Continuing your dental education and development is pivotal to providing high-quality dentistry that is effective your patients. Empower your learning by taking control of a blended learning experience, and see a fantastic impact on your dental implant care.
References available on request.