A pilot survey aimed at retired and planning-to-retire UK dentists has been launched – and your input is needed.
If you are a dentist who has retired in the last 10 years, or are thinking of retirement in the next five years, then the research team would like to hear from you.
Lead researcher David Obree, dentist and fellow in medical ethics at the University of Edinburgh, spoke about the need for new data: ‘There is a general impression that dentists are retiring early or choosing to work part time.
‘If this is true, it will be having an increasingly negative impact on patient access as the professional workforce becomes gradually depleted. We need to identify the main reasons that have contributed to retirement decisions, and in particular the timing of those decisions.
‘It is not good enough to make assumptions about the reasons dentists are retiring, or to work from anecdotes, we need dentists to tell us about their own decisions so we can gain a better understanding of the situation and plan for the future.’
Anonymous data
The survey takes around five minutes to complete and there is also the option for free-text comments if respondents wish to contribute more detail about their own thoughts on retirement, or their view of the profession of dentistry as a whole.
Retired dentists are asked to score which professionals institutions have been supportive, or unsupportive, in their final years of practice.
All contributions to the survey data will be anonymous and will remain anonymous.
The results will be collated and published as a report, with a view to further research. The preliminary findings will be summarised on Dentistry.co.uk.
For further information, and to take part in the study go to: www.surveymonkey.com/r/D7G6QDT.
The survey will be open until the middle of February.
