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What makes a good dentist and do recent trainees make the grade? The views of vocational trainers
1Department of Dental Public Health & Oral Health Services Research, Guy's, King's and St Thomas' Dental Institute, King's College London.
Objective:
The aim of this paper is to examine the factors that vocational trainers regard as important in a 'good' dentist and to assess whether they think recent graduates were achieving these factors.
Design:
The study was based on a statistical analysis of returns from a postal questionnaire.
Setting:
Postal questionnaires were sent to all vocational advisors in England who then sent them on to a number of their vocational trainers.
Materials And Methods:
The questionnaire was analysed using various statistical techniques including factor analysis. Analysis was undertaken to determine whether student or trainer characteristics influenced the trainer's responses.
Results:
The vocational trainers judged that the group of skills that contribute to technical ability are the most important component in making a 'good' dentist. However, the most important single skill is communication with patients, closely followed by diagnostic skills and communication with the dental team. The areas where trainees are most likely to fall short in terms of actual as compared to desired performance are in areas of technical ability.
Conclusion:
Overall, recent trainees scored rather well when compared with an idealised good dentist. However, it is clear that more evaluation of vocational training is needed. Recent studies, including this one have looked at several different aspects of vocational training. However, the time seems ripe for a full-scale prospective evaluation.