The Final Chapter

As I reflect on my three years as Dental Dean, I have many different memories that will stay with me forever. 

The first year of my term of office was completely devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic which, through a combination of lockdown restrictions and specific Scottish regulations, prevented me from travelling to Scotland to visit the College at all
(I joked I might be labelled ‘the Dean who had never been’!).

Working from home through Teams™ and Zoom™ made life difficult, but the Faculty was at the forefront of helping the whole dental team through the pandemic. Regular webinars provided our membership with vital information on how to manage during those terrible and uncertain times. We carried on working hard to support everyone all over the world and to continue the important work of the Dental Faculty.

There are always positives to gain, even in the darkest moments, and we were able to use the opportunity of standstill to review where we were and set new strategies for a brighter and exciting future. The Executive set up effective strategies for Exams, Education and International Relations. We introduced and expanded our family of Dental Ambassadors across the world. They have shown such enthusiasm for their roles that we meet weekly to hear exciting stories of how the College is making a difference to Dentistry across the globe. These roles have proved so successful that we recently brought in the new post of Senior Ambassador for those Fellows who have significant influence in their country.

Success overseas

As we got back to normality, we began to travel to meet our colleagues in Malaysia and Egypt, and were part of the pan-College conference in Chennai, India, which has proved pivotal to our strategy in the Indian subcontinent. Malaysia has remained an important centre for our activity in the Far East. Through the excellent work of our office in Kuala Lumpur and our links with local universities we have expanded our reach in this country. We even met King Al-Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah and the two crown princes when they visited Edinburgh.

I was honoured to represent you and deliver a lecture at the international online conference held by the Commonwealth Dental Association, and was invited by colleagues in Malta to speak at conferences there and to represent the Faculty at the national meeting of the American Academy of Paediatric Dentistry in Orlando, US. I am writing this column in Sri Lanka, where we are presenting at the 90th Sri Lanka Dental Association International Dental Conference (SLDA). We will then move on to Bangalore to present there, and finally visit Chennai to review two universities as potential centres for our exams in southern India. We are firmly at the centre of dentistry across the globe. We have listened to our colleagues when we met them face to face or online. Having heard their concerns, we have developed a further tier of assurance for health regulators to convince them that dentists applying for promotion to consultant level posts have not only been assessed in our professional examination, but have carried out appropriate training in their chosen specialty. This process is called ‘Accreditation’ and is an internationally recognised stamp of approval. It includes reassurance that successful candidates have completed training in a centre of excellence, and assurance to potential trainees that the courses they are entering, and often paying substantial fees for, are of a high value to their future careers.

It also shows health authorities that successful trainees have been tested to the highest level in the domains of clinical training and education, and by appropriate assessment. We already have a large waiting list of applicants and have made great strides in streamlining the application process while retaining the strict high standards expected by our College.

As mentioned earlier we have been asked for more ways of providing continuing professional development (CPD), and we have introduced a new and exciting educational product: ‘Lightning Learning’. These are five to 10 minute videos of informative clinical tips provided by leaders in the field to help individuals focus on areas that matter to them and their clinical practice. This form of learning is more effective to facilitate changing clinical practice, and our aim is to have these vignettes available on all forms of media so you can even see them on your mobile phone or tablet. Of course, we also provide face-to-face lectures and webinars. Additionally, we have a programme of other CPD in the pipeline, including advice on what to expect in our exams and why we set up the exam assessments in the way we do. This has been a transformation based on current educational best practice and we are already reaping the rewards of changes we have made.

Leading the way

Within the UK we have been through a period of change like no other. For the first time we were visited by our regulatory body, the General Dental Council (GDC), which published a report on its website showing that we are leading the way. At the same time the GDC has led a review of specialty training in the UK, and we have been at the forefront of national discussions. Moreover, as a Faculty we have already put changes in place to enable us to be pivotal in both providing assessments and recognising achievement.

We have also been driving changes to the way we manage mediated entry to the UK specialist lists from either UK or international colleagues, and have suggested a fairer process, which is now in the late stages of discussion. Lastly, but also of interest to our international colleagues, the Faculty has been in discussion with the GDC over revised and innovative new methods of facilitating ways to assess our international applicants who want to apply for entry to the UK GDC register – again an example of the strength of your College.

I have been very involved in the workings of the whole College, and you may be rest assured that your voice has been heard through me
at the highest of levels and has made significant gains in the recognition of our work. So now it is time for me to hand over to your new Dean and my current Vice-Dean, Professor Grant McIntyre, who I am confident will carry out in the next three years even more exciting and important advances for not only the Faculty, but for the profession as a whole.

Thank you for your support and my best wishes for the future.