Investing in 12-month dental courses that provide postgraduate diplomas at the end of them is not just an investment in your professional expertise and an efficient way to expand on the services provided by your practice. It can also be an excellent tool for fulfilling your mandatory CPD hours, and it’s probably the most cost-effective way for entering the world of high-value dentistry and becoming familiarised with dental restorative techniques that are appreciated by the patients and characterised by a high ROI.
With long-term dental courses, you won’t just gain knowledge. You will transform the way you approach the cases entering your practice, and you will gain the practical skills necessary to mix the treatments provided in your dental clinic, while also steering your career trajectory into a new direction. A good dentistry course is not free, that’s true. But the value it can bring to your practice’s operations cannot be understated.
High-quality dental courses will give you the practical, hands-on experience necessary for expanding your clinical skills and handling complex cases that in the past you were likely to refer to other dental professionals. In short, they are a way to expand on the scope of your dentistry expertise, treat more cases in-house, unlock new treatment options for your patients and gain the qualifications required to form connections with other dental professionals active nationally or internationally. Will they take some time? Of course. But, for pretty much all dentists active in the UK, a dentistry course is more than worth it.
How Can Dental Courses Contribute to Your CPD?
In the United Kingdom, all medical professionals are required to continue their professional development, and deepen their theoretical and practical skillset by completing a certain quota of verifiable CPD hours. For dentists, this number is set at 100 hours over a five-year cycle. Most 12-month dentistry programs available in the UK are CPD-compliant, and upon their completion, they will provide the proof required to attest to the completion of the certified CPD hours.
Such courses are pretty much a win-win, as you will expand on your clinical skillset while also ensuring you keep up with the latest developments happening in the dental space. So, you will follow up on the framework imposed by the Dental Council, while also gaining the skills necessary to keep yourself competitive in the restorative dentistry industry. Plus, at the end of the program, you will receive a Level-7 postgraduate diploma that’s attested by EduQual, a regulated awarding body that’s approved by QSA.
Why Not Expand on Your Educational Portfolio?
This diploma will be the equivalent of a Master’s Degree and will be recognised in the UK and internationally as a certificate attesting to your postgraduate education. Yes, at £9,995, a 12-month dentistry course can represent a serious investment that will require some financial backing to pull off.
But in almost all cases, it is more than worth it. Dental courses, in the UK, are the best way to keep up with the technological modifications happening in the field, and by expanding on the services provided by your practice, it’s realistically possible to cover the initial costs of the program in the first months or weeks after starting to implement your newly acquired skills.
What Courses Can You Choose From?
It depends on what you’re looking for. Do you want, for example, to apply your already in-use clinical skillset and learn how to perform complex teeth alignment procedures while also becoming specialised in digital orthodontics? If so, you could opt for a postgraduate diploma in Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopaedics.
Are you instead looking to specialise in a growing market that has seen a gradual rise in the number of adult patients, and that is characterised by high return margins? In such a case, you could opt to specialise in cosmetic dentistry and aim to obtain a diploma in Aesthetic and Restorative dental procedures. But if the application of veneers or composites is not enough for your practice, you could aim for a PG Dip in Oral Surgery and Dental Implantology, a course in which you’ll learn everything there is to know about extractions, bone grafting and full-arch rehabilitation.
What should you choose? Well, that’s up to you. Orthodontics are an excellent choice if you are primarily interested in tackling long-term treatment cases and see your patients, with increased frequency, for adjustments. A diploma in Aesthetic and Restorative dentistry is good if you are primarily interested in performing cosmetic work, while Implantology can, in some cases, be a combination of the challenges of restorative dentistry and orthodontics.
Why Should You Choose Fully-Online Programs?
Flexibility mostly. With an online 12-month dentistry course, you will learn the clinical skills required for the further development of your practice at your own pace. Are you already a dental practitioner, and your free time is limited? You are not the only one, as this is an issue encountered by most dentists based in the UK. In fact, this is one of the reasons why completing your mandatory CPD hours can be such a challenge at times.
With an online CPD-compliant course, you will learn on your own terms, wherever you reside, and you will be free to browse the provided course curriculum as many times as you see fit. All teaching modules will be available in a VLE that’s accessible both from mobile and personal computers. Likewise, for acquiring the practical skills necessary for expanding on your practice’s clinical scope, you will receive a practical training kit that will be shipped directly to your location.
Will it be easy? No. Throughout the course, you will need to complete three separate examinations, and, at the end, you will need to submit a complex written case presentation, with a clinical case provided. But after graduating, you will gain a strong foundation of the dentistry course you chose to attend and you will be able to implement your new skillset in your own dental practice. As a way to expand on your professional knowledge and in terms of ROI, dental courses, at least in the UK, are pretty much always a fantastic deal.
