Career progression

Finding opportunities for career progression is an ambition for many of us in the dental profession, now that the culture of continuous professional development has become established. The past 10 years have been a time of adjustment to new educational requirements and has raised a new set of benchmarks that dental educators are now beginning to accommodate.

In 2006, the introduction of dental nurse registration brought a range of associated educational requirements that were not universally anticipated or understood from the outset. Before registration, dental nurse training was strongly recommended, rather than being a legal requirement. At that time across the profession, less than half of the dental nurses working chairside every day held a formal qualification. Now every dental nurse must be qualified, or be working toward a qualification.