In the midst of the new world that we find ourselves in, at least some people are starting to look beyond next week and next month to see the effects or the disruption and the carnage in the systems of what was a normal society before March 2020.
It’s not my job or even in my expertise or gift to look at this country as a whole, but I can look at little bits of the country with which I am involved and one of those is education in dentistry and in particular (but not exclusively) post-graduate education.
So, a little tale to put things into perspective before I tell you about a wonderful phone call that I had recently.
When I was a fourth year dental student (for those of you who are not dentists, dentistry is a 5 year undergraduate course) I went to Dallas, Texas, to study for weeks and weeks and to do practical dentistry including lots and lots of extractions in a blue cross hospital.
I returned back for my final year as a dentist quite experienced in extractions, at that stage having carried out at least hundreds.
I did as much extracting as I could in my final year and in my first year of qualification, I took 120 teeth out in 1 day on children under general anaesthetic alone!
I finished in the summer of 1995 as a dentist one year post-graduation with hundreds and hundreds of oral surgery extractions and procedures under my belt before I came to Nottingham to be a senior house officer in head and neck surgery.
Since that time and on and off for various reasons I have spoken to graduates in their first-year post-qualification and watch as the experience of oral surgery has dropped and dropped and dropped (in numbers at least).
As I’ve said many times in these pages before, David Beckham did not learn to take free kicks by reading a book and although it’s possible to learn the principles of oral surgery from a book, it’s not possible to learn the principles of practical oral surgery apart from doing it and reflecting and learning and changing.
And so, to the phone call the other day with the magnificent Ian wilson (he who was one of the founders of the Bridge to Aid charity).
A year or two ago Ian asked me to come and speak to Yorkshire and Humber DFT’s (first year qualified dentists) at a conference they ran at elland road and I spoke to a room with hundreds of people in it about oral surgery and implant dentistry in two separate short lectures.
I had the most marvellous day, and it was a huge privilege but I never got back to do it again, mostly because of the pandemic but for other reasons.
During that time though we discussed the possibility of utilizing the new clinic for Yorks and Humber in terms of teaching DFT’s in the Academy facility and that was followed up the other day in the phone call.
First year qualified dentists at present time are getting an extremely limited experience in practical dentistry and even less experience in oral surgery.
Imagine these guys left their first year post qualification having taken out 5 or even 10 teeth.
Imagine you were a patient who attended someone who was more than a year qualified from dental school, who was trying to take your tooth out having only ever taken out 10 teeth.
Would you consider that person to be qualified to work independently?
Would it frighten you?
This is clearly replicated across the whole of education, not just in healthcare, not just for dentists and doctors or nurses or physiotherapists or anybody else but it’s all across the board.
And so, the discussions the other day were about anything I could do to help to fix that and that is a huge, big question.
We have the perfect facility to teach 16 newly qualified dentists the practical principles of oral surgery and can do this over and over again on request.
That is the discussion with Ian (along with introducing ethics and philosophy and leadership to young dentists moving forwards to try to give them a view of a brighter future).
Taking out teeth on a pigs head is not the same as taking out teeth in a humans head who is aware and awake and alive but it’s a lot better than reading a book.
Over the coming months and years we will have to reinvent the education and practical education of dentists and I’m sure many more people cleverer than me will be doing that.
What I will commit to though is to help by lending the use of our facilities to bring on the dentists of tomorrow to be able to look after patients better, in a safer way that they can enjoy and where everyone can win.
Blog Post Number - 2546