I wrote here about how I was going to introduce the latest GDC lecture in London and I did it a bit like that.
The problem was I’d been emailed the night before and asked to elongate my lecture because one of the other lecturers had to pull out due to a family crisis so I elongated my lecture and travelled to London off the back of six days of illness only to find that the morning ran late and my lecture was to be compressed again!! This always seems to be the way.
Then when my computer was plugged in the audio-visual system went down. Again, this is always the way despite the fact that I use the most up to date computer I can with updated software etc.
Anyway, I digress.
I presented the GDC lecture which started at the British Dental Conference in 2016 and has been provided now five times since then.
It’s a different lecture now but still has the main essence of the allegations that I faced and in particular the allegations of dishonesty.
But interestingly this time I didn’t cry!
Four times I have provided it before and four times I couldn’t keep my emotions in check so something has obviously changed and altered.
Time is a great healer and it takes the edges off the points and perhaps that description of where I was when I first learned of the dishonesty allegations against me is not so powerful (even though I look at the spot in the living room now as I write the blog)
Perhaps also the fact that things seem to be moving on with the GDC at least to some degree.
They report complaints to them as having fallen in two years from over 3000 to 1600 last year and anecdotally I hear reports that a much fewer number of cases are going to Fitness to Practise hearings.
There are still cases that are problematic and issues within the hearings themselves but the Moving Upstream document is definitely a step forward.
It still comes across as angry and upset and hurt that lecture because that is what it feels like.
It still comes across with bitterness because parts of my career have been wiped away by the fact that I’m not eligible to work in certain spheres whether I wanted to work in those spheres or not – that seems truly unfair.
I am still hugely concerned by the fact that there was a 4 – 5 year period that wiped out a generation of dentists, almost a ‘genocide’ of openness of healthy, brave, free dental healthcare which was wiped away by a tide of fear and defensive practice.
I find it hard to see how we’ll correct that over the next 10 – 15 years, not just due to the people that were lost to the profession but also the ones that have been damaged.
But we move on, at least there is some sense of acknowledgement in the Moving Upstream document that this is the situation we have in front of us, although I think we’re a long way from any sort of apology or even acknowledgement that the damage has been done.
Anyway, onwards we move - still lots of work to be done.
I can’t promise I won’t cry onstage again but it probably won’t be about this subject.
Blog Post Number: 1930