title: Proposed career pathway for clinical academic general dental practitioners.
abstract: The Modernising Medical Careers framework provides the opportunity for both medical specialists and general medical practitioners to follow training pathways that lead to appointments as National Health Service (NHS) consultants and to senior academic posts. Similar opportunities are  available for dentists who wish to specialise. However, they are not available to dentists working in primary dental care who wish to become NHS consultants or senior academics in general dentistry. An alternative pathway is required that does not force committed primary care dentists who  wish to become NHS consultants or senior academics down a path of specialisation. In this paper, the authors explore the situation in some detail and propose a career pathway with appropriate competencies for primary care dentists who aspire to become NHS consultants or senior academics. They  justify why such posts should be created. The competencies have been developed using key guidelines and documents from the European Bologna Process and the Association for Dental Education in Europe, the Curriculum for UK Dental Foundation Programme Training, and the General Dental Council  monospecialty curricula. It is hoped that the proposed pathway will produce highly trained generalists who will: (a) encourage and undertake research in primary dental care, where over 90% of dentistry is delivered, (b) support and lead outreach centres so that teaching and clinical cases  reflect primary dental care, where students will spend their working lives post-qualification, and (c) provide a means of increasing the numbers of clinical dental academics, which have been in decline over the last 10 years.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Dentistry, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, 4 New Road, London E1 2AT, UK. v.aggarwal@qmul.ac.uk
authors.forename: Vishal R
authors.initials: VR
authors.lastname: Aggarwal
authors.forename: Nikolaus Oa
authors.initials: NO
authors.lastname: Palmer
authors.forename: Pamela
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Nelson
authors.forename: Russ
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ladwa
authors.forename: Farida
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Fortune
mesh_terms: D002322:Career Mobility; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003253:Consultants; D018865:Dental Research; D005179:Faculty, Dental; D005792:General Practice, Dental; D006801:Humans; D013218:State Dentistry / Q000458:organization & administration; D006113:United Kingdom