The Transition from Dental School to Foundation Training

The first day of foundation training can be daunting. It will be the first day when you introduce yourself as 'the dentist' and no longer a student. With this comes new found responsibility and freedom to make your own treatment plans.

Lisa Gauson graduated from Aberdeen in 2013. In this article she demonstrates her personal experiences in the big transition from dental school to foundation training. The first day of foundation training will usually be at the practice and begins with an induction. A mutual contract is agreed between yourself and your trainer to discuss your expectations for the year. Factors included in the contract may include punctuality; notice required to take annual leave or simply the range of matters you wish to experience during your foundation training year. It is an opportunity to discuss your strengths and weaknesses with your trainer, be honest about areas where you lack confidence and your trainer should be available to give advice or ensure they are free when you have something tricky booked in.

On your first day you will have patients booked in with generous appointment times until the practice can assess how long you need. These appointment times will gradually be shortened so that you are busy but not struggling to keep up and compromising quality. As a rough guide; exam appointments are anywhere between 15-30 minutes in the first month, by the half-way point you should confidently be taking a concise medical history, listening to any concerns the patient may have, doing an extra oral and intra oral exam, BPE, radiographs and possibly a scale and polish in a 15-20 minute appointment. It is often surprising how quickly you can do things when you are making your own decisions and cutting out the time it takes at dental school to introduce every patient to the supervising clinician and get all the various stages checked.

In the first month, your trainer will be keeping a close eye on you. They will probably pop in and out of the surgery to see you but they will also be reading the notes you write and checking radiographs. How much time your trainer spends in your surgery will depend on their teaching style, how busy their appointment books are, and also the complexity of the work you are undertaking.

Each week you will have a tutorial, which will normally be scheduled for the same time each week. The training scheme will provide a list of mandatory or recommended tutorial topics which may include radiography or the SDR (statement of dental remuneration) which tells you the fee you can claim for each item of treatment). Generally you can discuss with your trainer any areas which you feel would be useful for tutorials such as root canal morphology, successful posterior composites, business management, employment contracts or simply challenging cases you have encountered.

Each week you will also do a limited English proficiency; this is a supervised procedure such as an extraction or crown prep where you will receive written feedback and a grade for your performance. You should be able to obtain feedback from you trainer at any point but this is generally the only time when you will have someone watching you perform treatment from start to finish. Each week or month you will also have study days, some schemes such as the 'North East' have these on Fridays but others may have whole week blocks. This is where everyone from your scheme meets up for planned training such as clinical skills, training courses, or talks from guest lecturers. It is also therapeutic to meet other people at the same stage and realise you have the same difficulties or challenging patients!

My final words of wisdom would be to embrace and enjoy the year. It will fly by so quickly. You will amaze yourself at how swiftly you gain confidence. Acquire as much experience as you can, if your trainer has a special interest such as implants or advanced bridgework shadow them and learn as much as you can from them. Think about where you see yourself in 5-10 years and try to tailor the practice you choose from what you can gain from your time there. Good luck to everyone with their final exams and foundation training applications!

Aberdeen Graduate 2013