With dental therapists seeing more demand than ever, Lauren Long shares her seven top tips for embracing your skills and offering your full remit as a dental therapist.
For many years, graduating with a qualification in dental therapy, which encompasses the full dental hygienist scope, as well as the additional skills of a dental therapist, has been commonplace in the UK. The most recent figures available from the General Dental Council [1] show the number of currently registered dental therapists to be around 6,300.
There has been a huge amount of focus on the role of the dental therapist in the past few months. With the advent of direct access exams within the NHS system, the prime minister citing dental therapists as one of the solutions to the dental access crisis and the success of the exemptions project – spearheaded by both British Association of Dental Therapists (BADT) and British Society of Dental Hygiene and Therapy (BSDHT) – gaining approval from parliament [2].
Due to this, we are now seeing more demand for the dental therapist than ever. Progressive dental practices are now embracing the skills of the entire team to offer the best care to their patients. However, some dental therapists have spent many years limiting their scope of practice to that of a dental hygienist.
If this sounds like you, what steps can you take as a dental therapist to embrace your skills and return to offering your full remit?
1. Speak to your peers
Contact experienced dental therapists to find out how they have integrated their skills efficiently into practice. Find out as much as possible, from how they explain their role to patients and courses they may recommend attending, to protocols they implement to ensure a smooth referral pathway within the dental practice.
2. Seek mentorship
Mentorship can play a crucial role in professional growth and development. A mentor is someone who will provide guidance, advice and encouragement while you find your feet.
Many practices or groups will now offer this kind of support to those trying to gain experience. In my role as therapist clinical director for Pain Free Dentistry Group, I am there to support, encourage and empower – working with dental therapists with a wide range of experience.
3. Introduce the team to your role
If the practice has never worked with a dental therapist before, it is useful to gather everyone together to give a brief introduction to the role. Often, awareness can be poor even within the profession.
Explain how your skills can be of benefit to both patients – offering more appointment availability for restorative work – and to them. For example, freeing up the dentist’s time to take on more complex, and often profitable, treatments.
4. Collaborate on protocols
Smooth referral pathways and practice protocols are a vital component when working to full scope as a dental therapist. These should be created with input from the whole team as one size does not fit all.
Discuss with the dentists which treatments you are comfortable being referred – if you are reskilling, you may want to start with smaller, less complex restorations and work towards progressing to taking on more complex treatment as you gain confidence.
Find out which treatments the dentists are passionate about and discuss how you can also refer patients to them, creating a mutually beneficial relationship.
5. Stay up to date
It’s easy to continue doing the same things we were taught at university. When I graduated in 2008, we had no training on topics like sectional matrices, minimally invasive dentistry or aesthetic restorations. These have all since become commonplace in our day-to-day practice.
It can be daunting to learn and progress, but it’s essential to keep up to date with the latest evidence in order to offer our best to our patients.
6. Get hands-on
A lot of our CPD tends to be carried out online nowadays. This absolutely has it’s place, but when honing your restorative skills there is no substitute for getting out there and practicing hands-on. Many courses are now run by dental therapists, for dental therapists, with many excellent dentists also supporting dental therapists on their courses to improve their restorative skills.
This is the reason Eilish Duffy and I have just launched the Restore course – a full scope dental therapy course which is suited to those wanting to reskill, as well as more seasoned professionals. This covers everything from carrying out a patient assessment and treatment planning, to a hands-on day incorporating simple methods to create excellent, functional restorations.
7. Reflect
Even the most skilled clinicians can learn something from reflecting on their past work. Reflection is crucial to self evaluate, identify areas for improvement and refine techniques.
A great way of doing this is to take photographs of your work. This can also be a great way to help build a portfolio that can be used when showing practices what you are capable of. Sometimes as a profession, we can be a little shy when it comes to showing off our skills, but why not showcase our work and show the world what we can do as a profession?
With thanks to our sponsor, NSK.
Celebrating National Dental Hygienist and Dental Therapist Day:
- Hygiene and therapy-led dentistry: a new standard of patient care
- Why preventive dentistry is the way forward
- How can we maximise the impact of dental therapists?
- Why everyone wins when you utilise dental therapists
- Supportive care and maintenance of dental implants
- Happy National Dental Hygienist and Dental Therapist Day!
- The evolution of dental hygienists and dental therapists
- Implementing a therapy-led model in practice
- Empowering dental hygienists and dental therapists.
- Introducing National Dental Hygienist and Dental Therapist Day.
Contact [email protected] for references.
