How dental CPD can enhance your patient care
As you know, learning and development is at the heart of the dental profession.
It is an important part of your GDC registration and plays a significant role in improving patient care. Continuing professional development (CPD) allows us to meet and maintain high professional standards.
Stay up-to-date
CPD is a great way to ensure you provide effective treatments based on the latest research. Techniques and materials are constantly evolving. This is particularly true in fields like restorative and cosmetic dentistry.
The General Dental Council recommends the following topics to refresh your knowledge:
Medical emergencies
Disinfection and decontamination
Radiography and radiation protection
Develop a patient-centred approach
Dental CPD can help you develop a patient-centred approach to care.
We've all had nervous patients. It's important to approach them with empathy and understanding. By understanding their unique needs and preferences, you can tailor their treatment plans. This can help them to feel comfortable and involved in the decision-making.
"CPD makes a contribution to supporting registrants to maintain our standards and patient protection." - General Dental Council
Meet the Enhanced CPD scheme requirements
In the UK, dental professionals need to complete a certain number of CPD hours to be able to practice.
This enables you to provide safe and effective treatments while meeting GDC Standards. The 'Standards for the Dental Team' consist of the following nine principles:
Put patients' interests first
Communicate effectively with patients
Obtain valid consent
Maintain and protect patients' information
Have a clear and effective complaints procedure
Work with colleagues in a way that is in patients' best interests
Maintain, develop and work within your professional knowledge and skills
Raise concerns if patients are at risk
Make sure your personal behaviour maintains patients' confidence in you and the profession
Achieve development outcomes
The next step is embedding these principles into your work.
To help you do this, the GDC have outlined four development outcomes. You need to link each of your dental CPD activities to at least one of the following:
1. Communicate clearly with patients, the dental team, and others across dentistry. This includes:
When obtaining consent
Dealing with complaints
Raising concerns if patients are at risk.
2. Manage yourself and others in the dental team. This could include:
Providing constructive leadership where appropriate
Effectively collaborating with others
3. Keep your knowledge and skills up to date.
4. Maintain behaviours and attitudes. This is to ensure patient confidence in the profession and put their interests first.
Gain insight into your whole practice
Dental CPD encourages reflection on your experiences to support your learning and development.
This professional commitment helps to drive an open and honest culture across healthcare. By reflecting as a group, you can:
Develop ideas and bring about positive change in practice
Improve services and patient care
Show how you listen and act upon patient feedback and complaints
Assure patients that the dental team is continuously learning.
Think of your CPD as an investment
The importance of professional development is forever increasing.
Investing in dental CPD benefits patients, your professional development, and career advancement.
Regardless of your specialism, CPD involves maintaining, enhancing and extending your knowledge. It may include:
keeping up-to-date with developments in dentistry
broadening your knowledge into other related areas
improving clinical and communication skills
strengthening existing skills and developing new ones
applying your skills and knowledge in new ways
By regularly focusing on areas of growth, you can take action to improve. This can boost your confidence, strengthen your professional credibility, and improve your quality of care.
If you’re looking for a role that ticks all the boxes, browse our current dentistry vacancies. For any specific queries, please get in touch.
