Preparing for Dental Practice

This book prepares dental students and vocational dental practitioners for primary dental practice. It will also be helpful to general dental practitioners to enable them to undertake continuing professional development. The book provides a background to the holistic approach that dentists need to use when identifying treatment needs, and covers the integration of treatment and its planning, aspects of dental team building, practice selection and management matters. The first chapter examines issues in relation to career choices, the location of the practice together with the means by which access to dental care may be increased. Chapters 2 and 3 take the reader from outside to inside the dental practice to examine relationships within the practice. This includes those with the patient as well as the dental team. The fourth chapter describes clinical excellence in primary dental care by examining clinical decision-making, the need for referral as well as the place of prevention and restorative philosophies in treatment of patients. The last chapters examine the business of dental practice and suggest future pathways for the newly qualified dental practitioner.

1: The first job, 2: Practice building - relationships around the patient, 3: Practice building - relationships within the practice, 4: Practice building - the need for excellence in treatment, 5: Essential business principles of dental practice, 6: The future