What the team do when we're not at Absolute Dental!

As a dental nurses, dental hygienist, dental therapist or dentist we have to be registered with the General Dental Council (GDC) and one of the things we have to do to remain on the dental register is continuing professional development (CPD)

It was introduced in January 2002 for dentist and August 2008 for Dental care professionals (DCP) (which is a nurse, hygienist, therapist or laboratory technician)

What is CPD and why do we do it?

 ‘‘CPD is study, training, courses, seminars, reading and other activities which advance your professional development as a dental professional.  There are two kinds, general and verifiable.’’

It is important because …

‘‘CPD helps to keep up public confidence in the dental register by showing that dental professionals stay up to date so that they can give their patients the best possible treatment’’

A CPD runs over a 5 year cycle and for dentists they have to accrue 250 hours of learning, 75 hours of this has to be verifiable

For DCP’s they have to accrue 150 hours, 50 hours have to be verifiable

How do we do this?

By attending courses and lectures we can achieved verifiable hours as there are clear aims and objective to the learning and we have to give feedback then we receive a certificate.  This often takes place over the weekends or some evening courses.

Distance learning is becoming more popular it can be more convenient as you often do it via the internet or by reading some of the dental magazines you can fill out a question and answer sheet to test your knowledge and achieve a verifiable certificate this way.

Private study can be reading journals and magazine or researching new products, or even staff meetings.  This would be general hours.

 

Rachael