Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Professionalism and Ethics: A guide for dental care professionals
    Professionalism and Ethics: A guide for dental care professionals
    Professionalism and Ethics: A guide for dental care professionals
    Ebook109 pages1 hour

    Professionalism and Ethics: A guide for dental care professionals

    By Fiona Stuart-Wilson

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    This book contains guidance for all dental care professionals, especially dental nurses. It also provides explanations of the implications of General Dental Council guidance on the Standards for Dental Care professionals, case study examples and checklists and self-assured responses to case study questions.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMark Allen Group
    Release dateJun 22, 2016
    ISBN9781856424868
    Professionalism and Ethics: A guide for dental care professionals

    Related to Professionalism and Ethics

    Related ebooks

    Medical For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Burnout

      Jul 18, 2021

      Triaging used to be a term we associated with hospitals. On television, it’s the stuff of high drama – think the flatlining “code red” patient surrounded by desperate scrubs-clad doctors and nurses sprinting alongside as the gurney thumps through the

      11 min read

    • Article

      Lumino The Dentists

      Jul 4, 2019

      Lumino The Dentists
      1 min read

    • Article

      Cheat Sheet Tooth Easy!

      Apr 22, 2020

      Cheat Sheet Tooth Easy!
      1 min read

    • Article

      Dentist Profiles

      Nov 25, 2019

      Dentist Profiles
      16 min read

    • Article

      Nashville S Top Dentists 2019

      Sep 1, 2019

      This list is excerpted from the 2019 topDentists™ list, a database that includes listings for more than 170 dentists and specialists in the Nashville and Middle Tennessee areas. The Nashville-area list is based on thousands of detailed evaluations of

      35 min read

    • Article

      Australian Traditional-Medicine Society

      Jan 15, 2023

      When I started working as the relationship coordinator for the Australian Traditional-Medicine Society (ATMS), I was tasked with helping students to find their feet and get to know their industry. I am a naturopath and have been a member of ATMS for

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Conversation

      Jun 16, 2019

      The Conversation
      14 min read

    • Article

      Reason to Smile

      Jun 25, 2022

      Reason to Smile
      2 min read

    • Article

      Before You Book

      Nov 22, 2021

      Before You Book
      2 min read

    • Article

      A Perfect Set

      Jun 24, 2023

      A Perfect Set
      2 min read

    • Article

      Utopia Lab

      Jan 25, 2021

      Utopia Lab
      3 min read

    • Article

      Disrupting the Healthcare System

      Jan 1, 2020

      What are the biggest wicked problems in healthcare right now? There are several, and from my perspective they are driven by two factors. The first is that there are so many stakeholders involved, which often means that there is no one ‘right’ solutio

      7 min read

    • Article

      Value Creation in Healthcare

      Sep 1, 2019

      You worked as a leader on the front lines in healthcare for more than 20 years. In your view, what is the industry’s greatest challenge? One of the greatest healthcare challenges is leading transformation within a culture that has been pretty static

      5 min read

    • Article

      Just What The Doctor Ordered: Virtually

      Feb 20, 2021

      MEDICINE has been continually evolving, but the advent of the greatest public health crisis in living memory has spurred that change exponentially. “Many doctors still practice as I did when I started some 35 years ago; their patients sitting in fron

      4 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      May 1, 2021

      Tragically, most of Canada’s COVID-19 deaths have occurred among seniors living in congregate settings. Your leadership team assembled an independent Advisory Panel to study the situation. Please describe its key findings. We convened a panel chaired

      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Professionalism and Ethics

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Professionalism and Ethics - Fiona Stuart-Wilson

      Title page

      Professionalism and Ethics

      A guide for dental care professionals

      Fiona Stuart-Wilson

      UMD Professional Ltd

      Publisher information

      2016 digital version converted and published by

      Andrews UK Limited

      www.andrewsuk.com

      Quay Books Division, MA Healthcare Ltd, St Jude’s Church, Dulwich Road, London SE24 0PB

      © MA Healthcare Limited 2009, 2016

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from the publishers

      Note

      Health and social care practice and knowledge are constantly changing and developing as new research and treatments, changes in procedures, drugs and equipment become available.

      The authors, editor and publishers have, as far as is possible, taken care to confirm that the information complies with the latest standards of practice and legislation.

      Preface

      This book has come about as a result of a series of articles written for Dental Nursing and I am indebted to the Editor of that journal, Andrea Porter, not just for commissioning the series in the first place, but in so doing for opening a door for me to explore the fascinating and perplexing subject of professionalism.

      This book is not intended as a definitive text on professionalism, if such a thing could even exist. Professionalism and our society’s view of it are evolving concepts, and they will continue to evolve over the coming years as our view of healthcare, and the role and rights of the patient, change. Rather, this volume is a personal reflection on the nature of professionalism and how it relates to the profession of dental nursing. In some ways professionalism is in the eye of the beholder, and to an extent I have enjoyed since the late 1980s a privileged grandstand view as the story of dental nursing as a profession has been played out. My observations are those of the interested lay person wishing to be informed rather than the immersed professional needing to know. The intention of this book therefore is to challenge thought and stimulate debate on what I believe is an essential subject for all dental nurses to embrace - what it means to be a professional.

      Many people have assisted in the writing of this book in many different ways but the practical assistance offered by Mike Grace and Penny Parry in particular should not go without mention.

      I must also acknowledge the unwitting input of the many hundreds of dental nurses I have met over the last two decades, who have provided me with many insights into the nature of their work and professional relationships, and from whom I have learned so much.

      Professionalism is a constant choice, and there are challenges ahead in dental nurses being accepted as professionals and also in understanding and upholding the GDC’s Standards. However, few I hope would argue that dental nursing is a responsible, skilled and worthwhile occupation and that it is important to develop and maintain public confidence. 2008 represented a major shift in the status and standing of the dental nurse, and developing professionalism is, I believe, something that all dental nurses owe not just to their profession but also to themselves.

      Fiona Stuart-Wilson

      July 2009

      1: Introduction

      The date 31 July 2008 marked a turning point in the working lives of current and future dental nurses all over the UK. From that date, all individuals wishing to work as a dental nurse must either be enrolled on a recognised training programme or registered with the General Dental Council (GDC). Although this is now common knowledge, what might be less evident is what registration really means and what responsibilities the dental nurse takes on with registration. The registered dental nurse becomes a dental care professional. But what does this mean? And what does professionalism actually mean?

      This book explores the idea of professionalism and its practical implications for the dental nurse. Professionalism, as we shall see, is not a cut and dried idea or concept, with clear-cut answers to tricky questions. Professionalism and ethics are closely allied, and professionalism also involves, amongst other things, exercising judgement.

      Perhaps a good place to start is to answer the question ‘How did we get to this point?’.

      The Dental Care Professional (DCP) registers actually opened on 31 July 2006, some 22 years after the BADN (or the Association of British Dental Surgery Assistants as it was then known) opened the Voluntary National Register (VNR) of dental nurses. That date saw the culmination of a protracted development and consultative process, involving different governments and an assortment of different organisations in dentistry, to reach agreement on the required legislation to allow registration.

      Probably one of the most influential reports which helped to move registration forward was the Nuffield Report on the Education and Training of Personnel Auxiliary to Dentistry, published in 1993. At that time dental care professionals were termed auxiliaries; this report made recommendations to increase the range of the skills mix available to the dental team, with a dentist involving appropriately trained staff to increase efficiency and orientate services towards prevention. We have seen some of the effects of that report in the introduction of compulsory registration of dental nurses. Other factors which have had an impact on dental nurse registration could not perhaps have been foreseen; for example, the necessity of ensuring the safeguarding of patients highlighted in the various findings of the Shipman Inquiry is one such factor, but so too has been the further development of the dental nursing training curriculum.

      The BADN published a response to the Nuffield Report in support of the Inquiry’s proposal in 1994. Other dental organisations also published responses, but interestingly at that stage not all were in favour of dental nurse registration. The following year the GDC published its own consultation document, which heralded the beginning of the next stage.

      1996 saw Dame Margaret Seward, then the President of the GDC, form the Dental Auxiliary Review Group (DARG), which brought together all interested organisations to discuss registration.

      In 1998 DARG concluded that dental nurses should be registered with the GDC. The following year, the GDC made the formal decision in principle to register dental nurses and other Dental Care professional groups hitherto not registered, as part of a wider move to raise the standards of education and training of Dental Care Professionals (DCPs) through registration, but it was not until 2006 that the first dental nurse registered with the GDC.

      You may ask why dental nurse registration took so long to come to fruition, and it is sobering to reflect on the number of changes that dental nursing has seen since 1993 whilst the thorny issue of registration has been debated. It is important to remember that the introduction of compulsory registration and, as we will see,

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1