THE DIPLOMA IN RESTORATIVE DENTISTRY OF THE FACULTY OF GENERAL DENTAL PRACTICE ( UK ) RCS ( ENG )
BY IAN WOOD BDS MPHIL FFGDP ( UK ) MGDS RCS ( ED ) MFGDP ( UK ) DPDS . COURSE DIRECTOR , DIPLOMA IN RESTORATIVE DENTISTRY ( MANCHESTER ) CHAIRMAN , OASIS DENTAL CARE CLINICAL BOARD
T he Restorative Diploma was launched by the FGDP in January 2005 in response to the perceived growing desire of General Dental Practitioners for structured and accredited postgraduate training which was accessible from General Practice . At the time , it was almost impossible to study for a Postgraduate Diploma or Master ’ s degree without enrolling either full time , or at least three days per week , with a University Dental School . ( The honourable exception to this being the Diploma in Postgraduate Dental Studies from Bristol University .) The costs arising from a combination of Course Fees and loss of earnings were enormous and consequently very few practitioners took up the opportunities available .
From the outset , the Restorative Diploma was designed to deliver a Masters Level course which would enable a General Dental Practitioner to deliver a recognized standard of treatment to their patients . It was hoped , at the time , that the appointment of Special Interest or Enhanced Skills Contracts would become widespread in the NHS and this course was designed to meet those standards . Unfortunately , although some schemes were set up there is not yet a national model for this , though the confidence to deliver more complex cases predictably is also particularly useful in private practice .
THE COURSE The course itself represents twelve hundred hours of learning but six hundred of these are work place based training which take place in the practitioner ’ s own surgery . Another four hundred and fifty hours of distance learning , involving the development of critical reading skills and the writing of assignments , are integral to the course and the learning is completed by one hundred and fifty hours of face to face teaching either in Manchester or in London .
The course is heavily case based and designed to teach techniques which are of everyday value in practice . Candidates must complete six learning cases under the supervision of their tutor , starting with relatively simple courses of treatment and increasing in complexity as the course progresses . The final two cases are presented for examination and are the candidates own work , although advice may be obtained from the Study Group treatment planning sessions , which are an important and enjoyable aspect of the course for both candidates and tutors .
Subjects covered during the two years of the course include taking a comprehensive restorative history and examination , treatment planning for complex cases , managing the occlusion conformatively and with the reorganized approach , diagnosing and managing periodontal disease , endodontics , prosthodontics , and operative dentistry .
CHANGING TREATMENT TECHNIQUES AND PHILOSOPHIES Treatment techniques and philosophies have changed considerably since the inception of the course and the course has adapted and changed to reflect that . The techniques , which we still must master , of preparing crowns and taking impressions , which allowed us to restore mouths with full arch cast restorations are now much more rarely used . The understanding that our treatments have a biological as well as a financial cost has risen to the fore and the availability of reliable and proven additive techniques which allow us to restore heavily worn or broken down teeth with composite and get predictable results has transformed the options we can now offer our patients .
The need for valid consent to treatment means that many patients are happy to opt for the less invasive options when all the pros and cons are explained to them so the skills required today of providing predictable aesthetic anterior composite build ups are at least as important as those earlier techniques . Of course , the imminent widespread use of digital scanning to replace those tricky full arch impressions of a gagging patient will be a boon to all and a great step forward for patient comfort .
The case write up elsewhere in this journal by Matthew Condon is a nice example of the kind of work which practitioners who complete the course are confident to undertake by the end of the course and gives some idea of the thinking and rationale that goes into the cases . Candidates do , naturally , treat a wide variety of other types of case during the course depending on the type of practice in which they work .
THE IMPORTANCE OF REFLECTIVE LEARNING SKILLS An important element of our teaching is the development by candidates of reflective learning skills . It used to be said , not entirely in jest , that older dentists didn ’ t get better , they just made the same mistakes with more confidence ! Sadly , things will occasionally go wrong in practice . The reflective practitioner must think why something has not gone according to plan , what they might conceivably do differently the next time , and how they are going to implement the changes required for improvement .
This is not a course to confirm you in your ways . It is a challenging course and all our delegate feedback says that it will alter the way you work and change your thinking about restorative dentistry and even your careers . Many of our successful students have gone on to complete Masters degrees with our partner Universities , several have gone into specialist training and at least one has completed a PhD .
For further information please look on the FGDP website or contact Cherie Collins in the FGDP Education Office . The Restorative Diploma will be recruiting again for students later this year in both London and Manchester .
Dental Practice Magazine
21