Continuing professional development (CPD) has been defined by the European commission as ‘a career-long process required by dentists to maintain, update, and broaden their attitudes, knowledge, and skills in a way that will bring the greatest benefit to their patients’ 4. The new dental graduate as well as the established dentist need to develop a wider knowledge and skills base than what is provided in their undergraduate training alone 1- 3. Development of a structured CPD system with clearly defined educational objectives mapped against specific levels of competence is recommended.
At present, there is a need for improving the CPD structures in implant dentistry, strengthening the quality assurance and encouraging standardisation and transparency of the learning outcomes. There is a wide diversity of educational pathways towards achieving competences in implant dentistry through CPD. In addition, an electronic survey was conducted, investigating the attitudes towards CPD among a wide group of stakeholders in implant dentistry education. MethodsĪ search of the literature was undertaken in PubMed for manuscripts published in English after 2000 reporting on CPD in dentistry and in implant dentistry in particular. This paper aims to: (i) identify the current trends in CPD in implant dentistry in Europe (ii) identify potential and limitations with regards to the design and implementation of CPD activities in implant dentistry (iii) provide recommendations on the future structure and development of CPD activities in implant dentistry. In general, the teaching of implant dentistry in Europe lacks structure and standardisation. Training for dental practitioners in implant dentistry ranges from 1- or 2-day short Continuing Professional Development (CPD) courses to certificate/diploma programmes run by universities.
0 kommentar(er)
