Not many people appreciate the fact that when you qualify as a dentist, it's a bit like passing your driving test.
You've not really got any idea of what to do or where to go; you just have a bit of paper that allows you to go there.
Dentistry is much like that.
You drop into a career and you're trying to decide which direction to go in when there are millions of possible paths to take.
So, I would suggest the best thing to do at that stage is to 'try before you buy' and get as much experience in as many different places as you can.
I never got good in any way at restorative dentistry, but I think, in part, that was because I never did any restorative dentistry in the early stages of my career.
I did do perio and oral med and oral surgery, and that kind of defined my direction.
I toyed with a little bit of restorative dentistry early on but was so bad at it that it was obvious that I had to give up and focus my mind on becoming a specialist in surgery.
I think the days of that type of career pathway are over.
I believe that the superstars of the future will be superstar generalists. People who can master the skills of periodontology and perio surgery together with an excellent eye for restorative dentistry and probably a little bit of skill in orthodontics.
They'll be able to place dental implants beautifully and restore posterior teeth magnificently.
They will be able to prep teeth in conjunction with brilliant technicians but also understand ceramics and bonding and composite restorations.
And so that is a challenging task because it feels like you have to become a jack of all trades and master of none, but that is the direction of travel to become brilliant, and I have seen examples of people who exist in this space.
It's not to say that specialists won't still exist. It's just to say that they probably won't run the show, and the generalist with a broad view across the whole of dentistry is likely to be the person with the most skill and the most influence.
With that in mind, you need to design your own training pathway moving forwards because the old checkbox laminate pathways are just dead.
Different people's educational requirements are different, and everybody needs the opportunity to flex and to grow at different rates and different states depending upon what's happening in their life.
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