Dental Mentors Blog

Dr Zaid Al-Najjar, Deputy Medical Director of the service explains how NHS Practitioner Health can help dentists with mental health and addiction issues.

NHS Practitioner Health is a free and confidential service which specialises in treating doctors and dentists with mental illness and/or addiction issues. We recognise that this professional group face specific difficulties when wishing to access mainstream healthcare. They also find it difficult to switch from being a treating practitioner to a patient. Dentists have a higher rate of mental health and substance misuse problems compared to the general public along with double the suicide rate. 

As we all know the dental profession is struggling with extremely difficult times, perhaps the most difficult time we have ever experienced.

A group of dental professionals from all registration categories, who are also qualified/very experienced mentors have come together to provide pro bono mentoring sessions for colleagues and final year students.

We were proud and delighted to read that Martin Dyer, one of our DMUK mentors has been recently been awarded Life membership of the BDA.

Jane Davies-Slowik is a founder member of DMUK to read her profile click here

If you Google ‘Career mentoring’ you will pull up thousands of articles in newspapers, academic papers, university websites and business websites all discussing the benefits of having a mentor to help you to plan your way forward and the next steps you need to take to improve your chances of achieving your aspirations.

Mentoring is used most often to help people transition between career stages. Mentors can be useful whether you are stuck in a rut or at a transitional point in your career and can act as great catalysts to take your career to its next stage. Any dental professional can benefit from having a mentor at times when they are considering their future career, whether they want to explore taking on a new clinical area of expertise, would like to start teaching or a management role, moving areas, or developing academic potential.

Why do we need Personal Development Plans (PDPs)?

Most of us will have an idea of our career plans for the next 12 months and have thought about the professional development we need during the year to meet our goals, even if we plan to carry on as usual making sure we do our allotted continuing professional development (CPD) as determined by the General Dental Council (GDC).

But are you sometimes bamboozled with the amount of CPD available on-line, off- line, distance learning, new guidelines, Postgraduate diplomas, certificates, dental magazines, via e-mails, fliers, or local dental education providers, specialist societies etc ?.

It’s easier to decide what CPD you’re going to do, if you have an idea of your priorities for learning so that the money and time you spend is effective and increases your skills and confidence. We sometimes keep this in our heads, but it’s easier to make sure that you follow your plan and do not miss out anything vital if it’s written down, (much like patient records!).