Postgraduate prosthetic training within the community dental service

There is a need for clinical prosthetics training for community dentists. This was apparent when a postgraduate course, which dealt with prosthetic care of elderly people, was organised for dentists working in the community dental service. Over 100 community dentists applied for 40 places. At the outset they were asked to complete a questionnaire which addressed their professional career together with their current prosthetic experience. The majority of participants were employed at dental officer level; 18 per cent were at senior dental officer level. Many of the dentists worked in districts where one or more community dentists provided all the prosthetic treatment within the community dental service. The majority of districts receive their prosthetic patients as a result of referrals from a variety of sources. Only eight dentists saw the majority of their patients at domiciliary visits; many did not see any patients in this manner. The course participants considered that their greatest clinical weakness in prosthetic skills was in the production of copy dentures and in denture design. Many of the dentists who attended the course did not provide a prosthetic service but most of them said that they anticipated that the necessity for this would increase in the future.