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How to Develop Your Career in Dentistry

 

Janine Brooks MBE, DMed Eth, MSc, FFGDPUK, MCDH, DDPHRCS, FAcadMed, BDS

Dentalia Coaching & Training Consultancy

 

 

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Foreword

As someone who many might say reached the top of a dental career pathway, I think it is really interesting to look back and analyse what the principle drivers were in that career.

Developing a successful career involves a range of skills and an ability to be analytical in assessing the needs of the population, ignoring high-profile commercial pressures and learning where to get objective and constructive advice and criticism.

I think it is fundamental to understand that change is a constant and not to see change as a challenge but as an opportunity. An unreasonable commitment to the status quo is unlikely to lead to a successful career.

The significance of change and the need to treat it as an opportunity is true whether we are talking about a purely clinical career, be that in specialties or in general practice (and I think that differentiation will blur more and more in the coming years), the development of services or the area of public health.

The oral health of the nation has improved dramatically during my career, as have patient expectations and clinical techniques.

Ultimately, to feel fulfilled during your career you need to feel you have played your part in improving services to patients and have used your skills to the full.

A quality service, on both macro and micro scales, is one which is safe, clinically effective and makes the patient feel they have been treated with respect.

Key to the delivery of this aim is the development of high-quality clinical and professional leadership, and using your clinical skills and knowledge to improve services and outcomes for patients is one of the most rewarding things you can do. I would urge readers to take note of the advice in this book, which is written by someone who has a good knowledge of education and leadership.

Barry Cockcroft CBE
Chief Dental Officer for England
2006–2015

Acknowledgements

I have been incredibly fortunate to have received contributions from a number of talented dental professionals, who between them demonstrate a huge range of the roles and responsibilities available to us in dentistry. They have generously written their career stories and shared their CVs with me and allowed me to pester them frequently for information. I am very grateful to them all, and I believe their words make careers in dentistry more accessible. As role models, they are second to none.

List of contributors

  1. Jackie Arnold
  2. Geraldine Birks
  3. Malcolm Brady
  4. Steve Boyle
  5. Steve Brookes
  6. Helen Caton-Hughes (for permission to use the ‘Forton Transformational Coaching 4-Quadrant Diagram’)
  7. Bal Chana
  8. Manish Chitnis
  9. Janet Clarke MBE
  10. Jane Dalgarno
  11. Jane Davies-Slowik
  12. Ken Eaton
  13. Sara Holmes MBE
  14. Ros Keaton
  15. Estelle Los
  16. Grainee Lynn (for checking accuracy)
  17. Shazad Malik
  18. Penny McWilliams
  19. Margaret Nash
  20. Sophie Noske
  21. Reena Patel
  22. Claudia Peace
  23. Nichola Peasnell
  24. Keith Percival
  25. Heather Pope
  26. Derek Richards
  27. Ian Taylor
  28. David Thomas (for checking accuracy)
  29. Peter Thornley
  30. Deborah White
  31. Emma Worrell

I am also extremely grateful to a non-dental professional who has also contributed so generously of his time: John Brooks, my husband. He has tirelessly proof read the manuscript and offered a much needed sense check, allowing me to see the wood for the trees.