Consultant orthodontist and researcher Dr Farnaz Parvizi explores how a formal patient complaint can impact clinicians, from wellbeing to professional identity, and the role workplace culture can play in helping them cope.
Consultant orthodontist and researcher Dr Farnaz Parvizi has spent the last few years studying one of the most universal yet least discussed experiences in clinical practice: what really happens to a clinician when they receive a formal patient complaint? Her session at BOC 2026 in Brighton promises to be one of the most honest and personally relevant discussions at this year’s conference.
Ask any orthodontist about patient complaints and you will not have to wait long for a story. Almost everyone in clinical practice has been through one, or knows someone who has, and most will tell you it was one of the most difficult experiences of their professional life. Yet, for all its familiarity, the formal complaint remains one of the least studied areas in dentistry. Very little rigorous work has been done to define it, measure it or understand how it impacts clinicians’ wellbeing.
Dr Farnaz Parvizi is trying to change that.
How do orthodontists experience a formal complaint?
Now in the fourth year of a PhD funded by the British Orthodontic Society Foundation, Dr Parvizi is developing a theoretical framework for understanding how UK orthodontic clinicians experience formal complaints and what role workplace factors play in shaping those experiences. The research grew out of her own career, her work with trainees, and a conviction that the profession deserves something more substantive than the acknowledgement that complaints are simply stressful.
‘Like many of my colleagues, I have been subject to formal complaints,’ she says. ‘I knew how it made me feel; the emotional impact; the responses; the behaviours. I was interested to find out how it was for everyone else. It is one thing knowing it about yourself, yet we do not really know the impact it has on us as a collective.’
Turning experience into research
Dr Parvizi qualified from the University of Bristol, completed her orthodontic training in Birmingham and spent eight years in specialist practice, including a year in Australia. On her return, she pursued further training, secured a consultant post and has remained closely involved in teaching and education ever since. She is currently a consultant orthodontist at the Royal United Hospitals Bath and an honorary senior lecturer at the University of Bristol. A master’s degree in education, completed in 2019, gave her the appetite for a PhD. BOS Foundation funding has allowed her to have protected research time away from her clinical responsibilities. She is keen to highlight that support because she suspects many colleagues do not know it exists.
‘A lot of people have ideas but think they cannot access the funding, or that it is not for them,’ she says. ‘It absolutely is. If you have a question you want to answer, find out what support is available. You might be surprised.’
More than just stressful
At the heart of Dr Parvizi’s research is a distinction that will feel familiar to anyone who has been through the process: the difference between stress and threat.
‘In a regulated profession, a formal complaint is never just an uncomfortable experience. It challenges our professional credibility, how others see us, and our professional identity, how we see ourselves. In addition, there is always the risk of escalation and loss of one’s ability to practise. The possibility of losing your registration to practise means that formal patient complaints are no longer just a stress but a threat – and that is a very different thing.’
Having completed the qualitative phase of her study, involving in-depth interviews with orthodontic clinicians, Dr Parvizi has identified six domains that together define the complaint experience, including the cognitive burden of carrying a complaint, regardless of its severity, the way its effects can extend into other parts of life, and challenges to professional identity and moral values. All of these outcomes are influenced by workplace factors that either exacerbate or buffer the impact of formal complaints.
‘If the clinicians’ basic psychological needs are frustrated in the workplace, formal complaints will have a more pronounced impact on their wellbeing. People begin to doubt their own abilities. They withdraw. They become more cynical. Their productivity falls. Absenteeism increases. These are the downstream markers I will be looking at in the survey.’
What your workplace has to do with it
Dr Parvizi’s research focuses on workplace factors that she believes are especially important. The first is psychological safety: whether clinicians feel safe enough within their teams to acknowledge mistakes and ask for support without fear or blame. The second is organisational justice: when a complaint process begins, do clinicians feel it is handled fairly? Are they respected, involved and kept informed, or does the process feel opaque and out of their hands?
‘In aviation and in nuclear industries, psychological safety is well understood,’ she says. ‘But we have never actually looked at it in our own workplaces. Safe teams are teams that learn from mistakes. That is the culture we should be building.’
She is also clear that seniority offers no immunity. If anything, she suggests, the stakes can be even higher for those further along in their careers. ‘When that complaint comes through, you will experience the same dimensions as your trainees would,’ she says. ‘It does not matter who you are or where you sit in the hierarchy.’
A chance to take part
The next phase of Dr Parvizi’s research will build on her interview findings through a large-scale survey, extending the project to a broader group of orthodontic clinicians. Dr Parvizi hopes that delegates at BOC 2026 will be able to take part directly and plans to provide a QR code to direct them to find out how after the session. It is an exciting stage in a study that has the potential to shape how the profession understands and supports clinicians facing formal complaints.
For those wondering whether a session on complaints is really worth their time at a conference full of clinical content, Dr Parvizi’s view is straightforward. ‘It does not matter what technique you use, what grade you are, or how long you have been qualified,’ she says. ‘If you have ever received a complaint and wondered why it hit you as hard as it did, this session is for you. For the first time, someone is trying to properly understand what that experience involves. And that work starts with you being in the room.’
The British Orthodontic Conference takes place from 24 to 26 September 2026 at the Brighton Centre. Dr Parvizi’s presentation, ‘How do UK orthodontic clinicians experience formal patient complaints and what roles do workplace factors play in shaping their experiences?’ will offer delegates the chance to engage with an issue that cuts across every stage of clinical practice.
Book your place and see the full programme here.
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