Loathe as I am to touch on this subject lest I light the blue touch paper and detonate a s*&t bomb, it would be wrong of me not to out my view across as I seem to put my view on everything else across through this channel!
I have watched this debate unfold for some time and I have seen the protagonists on each side express their views. This is not a debate that is restricted to dentistry, there are awards in almost every profession. It generally is a good money maker for the people who run them.
I have no real issues with the awards themselves as long as everyone is made aware (profession but particularly patients) of the essence of the particular awards themselves.
The highest possible accolade would be to receive an award from the profession for which you had not self nominated. Perhaps a lifetime achievement award of some sort where, unbidden, your colleagues or patients had put you forward. My wife was recently nominated for Nottingham Nurse of the Year by one of her patients. That probably would be an award worth winning (unfortunately she didn't)
The award ceremonies on the whole which currently exist revolve around self nomination. Some of the people who have won these awards absolutely deserve the recognition and I wholeheartedly support it, for example: David and Brenda Nelson at Cranmore. I have been there and it is truly amazing.
There are also practices who have self nominated who are perhaps... less prestigious...these are the practices that self nominate and do not win but are given the title 'highly commended' or equivalent. These are the practices that then put the banners outside their practice saying 'come and see why the profession think we are one of the best practices in the United Kingdom'... I do take issue with that.
It would also be important for patients to know whether a practice has been rated on the clinical care that it provides or merely on its surroundings. Awards judged by an independent panel of respectable (is it possible to find them?) peers based on clinical presentations would be a good format for this but I would still prefer independent nomination. There is no question that used in the correct way they are an exceptional marketing tool which draws attention from a type of patient to your practice. There is also no question that there are patients who actively steer away from such practices and there is a market for someone else there too.
If we were really clever as a profession we would wrestle the control of awards away from larger businesses involved in dentistry and control the awards ourselves. We would encourage nominations and testimonials from colleagues and patients and judge awards on that basis. We would gain sponsorship from industry to fund the awards. This would make the awards really credible, like an academy of dentistry but it will never happen.
As a footnote it is probably worth mentioning that our practice has a smile award, not for an individual category (well we do have one of those) but for the overall smile award in 2008. This would be the first time we have ever mentioned that since the awards so please don't take this blog post a gripe against awards in general.
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