Professionalism in dentistry: deconstructing common terminology

There is a social expectation that dentists demonstrate professionalism. Although the General Dental Council puts it at the heart of their regulatory agenda, there is not yet consensus on the meaning and implications of the term.

To explore practising dentists' understanding of the character traits commonly associated with professionalism and what these mean in practice.

Constructivist grounded theory was employed throughout this study. Qualitative, in-depth interviews were conducted with dental professionals in England recruited through theoretical sampling to saturation point. Interviews used a topic guide informed by the literature, and analysis was conducted through constant comparison during data collection.

The study found that traits commonly associated with professionalism in the literature were difficult for dentists to define clearly or operationalise in a clinical setting. There was disagreement over how some traits should be understood, and it was unclear to participants how, or indeed if, the listed traits were directly relevant to practice in their current form.

Rather than expecting unconditional adherence to an externally imposed definition, further exploration is required to understand how health professionals make sense of professionalism by reference to their lived experiences and worldviews.

Institutional expectations of professionalism, defined through character traits and behaviours, do not appear to map neatly on to the experiences of dental professionals. Straightforward, apparently uncontroversial terms elicited a wide range of responses, including disagreement. This brought in to question whether achieving consensus is possible. Analysing how our respondents understood the terms by reference to the meanings they constructed from lived experience offers deeper insights.