A shocking statistic Yesterday the BBC published Children waiting over a year in pain for NHS tooth removal, highlighting the serious delays for children waiting for extractions under general anaesthesia and the impact this has not just on the children but their families and wider society. Caries, a preventable disease, remains the most common reas...

Last January I wrote "Looking Forward to 2022", discussing the changes we planned to make following our post-pandemic members' survey. I completed with a New Year's resolution, which like most started well and technically, depending on how you interpret 'regular', I kept. This blog completes my not-quite-as-regular-as-I-would-have-liked entries for...

Aims, objectives and outcomes will be familiar to anyone who engages in CPD, but how many really understand what they mean and why they are important? The reality is that most do not, including those responsible for dental education, GDC included! The terms are distinct but often conflated. Aims are what a CPD activity sets out to achieve i.e. its ...

Membership of The Dental Channel is free but access to any of our paid courses requires an active CPD subscription. Until recently this was either via a recurring annual bundle plan (Complete 365/Core 365) or non-recurring monthly one (single course/Complete 1/12 bundle). Whilst trying to cater for everyone we ended up creating confusion: go to a c...

Webinar survey At the tail end of last year we asked members about some proposed changes to our webinar programme. The pandemic has meant that everyone has become familiar with online meetings, often to the point of exhaustion. Coupled with the new pressures on dental practice we wanted to make sure that our live programme fits in with very busy pr...

Today is our 21st birthday. The Dental Channel was formed on 19 November 1998, two months after a certain company called Google was incorporated.Our aspirations were somewhat more modest, seeking to develop e-learning resources that would help dentists keep up to date with 'best practice', but nonetheless pioneering and innovative. So much has chan...

Dentistry in unusual amongst the principle providers of healthcare in not having its own independent college, let alone an independent college with Royal status. The College of General Dentistry (CGDent) – a collegiate home for all members of dental team in all sectors of general dentistry, is in the process of being created. A priority for the Col...

We have spent much of the summer break working on important enhancements to key areas of the website that will be rolled out over the autumn. Look out for webinars demonstrating the updated CPD, community and support features in action as part of the free course Making the Most of The Dental Channel. If you are already enrolled you will be notified...

So how is your personal development plan (PDP) faring? Are you carrying out your planned CPD activities, recording them and updating your PDP accordingly? Is it helping your career development and optimising the time you have set aside?  It should be, but it won't if the only attention it gets is at the end of the CPD year! The GDC made holdin...

Whether you are participating in an Iron Man event or a cake sale to raise funds for a worthy cause, you can easily and quickly create a community page with a description of what you are doing, why and the all-important link to  your online donation page. Keep your followers informed with updates, photos and more. Perhaps information about you...

This November we will be 21 years old.The time has flown by. When I established the company in the last century (!) to help dentists keep up to date by using 'interactive multimedia' on their home computers, there was no mandatory CPD scheme and the world wide web was often referred to as the 'world wide wait' with good reason. Mobile telephones we...

31 December 2018 marks the end of the first year under the enhanced CPD scheme for dentists. This date is now not only the deadline for paying the best part of £1000 for the annual retention fee and confirming that indemnity is in place, but also completing the minimum CPD requirement. A second deadline follows swiftly after: the annual CPD stateme...

Well it's all done and dusted. What a weekend that was. We arrived in Bolton on the Friday afternoon and went straight to the city hall to register. After all the registration checks, they give you a bag full of equipment for the swim, bike and run. Coloured swim hat, stickers for your bike and helmet, a timing chip, race number and number tattoos ...

If your email inbox is anything like mine, you will have recently been inundated with requests to confirm that you still wish to hear from various organisations, some familiar and some probably not.The deluge is due to the introduction of the EU General Data Protection Regulation today, accompanied by the Data Protection Act 2018 which, w...

Happy New Year! This is the traditional time of year for setting resolutions.  Things we would like to do to improve our lot.  Perhaps it is to shed some weight. That might mean going to the gym, taking up cycling, walking rather than using the car etc. You carry out your intentions and are rewarded by weight loss and ...

 ...Hello All. Wanted to make a small contribution, best as I can, to the forum. I've posted below an article I recently wrote for my state dental association newsletter on the Teach-Back method for patient communication. I hope it might prove to be useful to some.  Best wishes from Midwestern USA----Tim Teach-Back Method Multiple studies...

Here it is at last ​Enrol in the new Complete 365 subscription by Christmas Day for £150 and save £49.99. If you miss this, enrol before we 'go live' for £175 and save £24.99. And even if you miss the early bird offer, our new subscription is £40 less than our 2016 equivalent plus it runs for a full 365 days, not a calendar year. Complete 365 membe...

It's been a long time coming, but here at last is our new website and we hope that you like what you find. It should feel familiar but there are a myriad of improvements to explore. Learning Hub (CPD Library) Our core service remains our multi award-winning live and on-demand training for quality-assured CPD. A brand new Learnin...