In recent years, dental practitioners have started caring more about CPD (Continuing Professional Development) and how to get it. This may be because of developments that made acquiring CPD a mandatory obligation of all professionals. It was included in Health Laws that attaining a certain number of CPD hours or units is a prerequisite for the renewal of one’s professional license. Although this became an added load to the members of the dental profession, the advocacy for it is strong due to its expected benefits of improving each professional’s abilities in providing dental services, of assuring that patients receive good and safe oral health care, and of safeguarding the esteem of the dental profession in general. As such, dental practitioners are now seeking for programs or courses that offer qualified dental CPD. Saying that something is ‘qualified’ means that it is accepted, officially recognized or certified for its intended purposes. Qualified CPD activities would be those programs, courses or training workshops that have been recognized for their educational content as contributory to the enhancement of one’s practice of the profession. These may be offered through a traditional classroom-like arrangement or, more in-keeping with the times, through online education. Furthermore, these activities may be done through self-study, group reviews or teacher-student learning. Examples of qualified activities are: webinars, which are recorded lectures that may be accessed through the internet at any time; webcasts, which are live recordings of seminars or conferences; and reading articles then completing quizzes, which may be the most popular form of CPD as it provides a way to validate that learning or comprehension has been achieved. The person looking into online dental education for CPD must be cautious about where to get this. There are many websites filled with information on oral health and dentistry, but as with anything on the internet, the reader must be vigilant in checking the authors or sources of these web pages. By doing so, one avoids being misinformed, which is crucial in anything health related. As such, similar to traditional brick and mortar educational institutions, there are organizations that check and grant accreditation to websites that provide online education or online CPD. This is one way to be assured that the courses offered and taken are qualified to be recorded as fulfillment of one’s continuing development hours. As with any education, it is more effective when the teachings are given or offered by a person with qualifications. There are many members of the dental profession but not all will be qualified to teach others about oral health and the practice of dentistry. As such, the person looking into dental CPD courses should confirm that the authors, lecturers, speakers and demonstrators are in fact experts of the subject matter. In websites that offer dental education, this is more easily done because most of the time, there will be a web page giving a brief background about the persons managing and contributing to their content. There are little restrictions as to how one may attain and complete the required dental CPD hours or units. Many options for different activities are offered that advocate the enhancement of one’s knowledge of oral health and the continued skills development. However, there are standards set out by authorities, such as maybe by a nation’s Board of Dentistry, which should guide the dental practitioner when choosing sources for CPD. Basically, qualified dental CPD are those authored by dental experts and recognized by accreditation institutions. For more information please visit Education for you in Dentistry
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