A survey of the views of vocational dental practitioners on continuing professional education.
The Faculty of General Dental Practitioners (UK) has been leading the debate on a career pathway in general dental practice for a number of years. Little work has been done to establish the views of young dentists on the ideas behind a career pathway and on vocational training. This paper describes a questionnaire survey of 77 recently qualified dentists in the Thames region. The results show that there is great satisfaction with vocational training (76.4%) among the respondents even if it were not compulsory, that the majority would not welcome a summative examination at the end of a two-year training period and that nearly all thought it was right that postgraduate education for dentists should be compulsory. Of respondents 66% felt that dentists with postgraduate qualifications should be given a higher salary while over 70% felt that specialisation would become more important in the future. Young dentists are very much in favour of postgraduate education but do not want a rigid career pathway laid down for them.
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D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003815:Dentists / Q000523:psychology*; D004498:Education, Dental, Continuing; D004499:Education, Dental, Graduate; D005792:General Practice, Dental / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D013039:Specialties, Dental / Q000193:education; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D006113:United Kingdom