In this day and age, our professional success is, for the most part, influenced by the qualifications we receive and by the investments we are willing to make into our personal and professional development. Are you a dentist, and are you thinking of furthering your educational pursuits and advancing your skills in surgical procedures necessary in your work-related activities? In that case, one of the best things you can do is invest in oral surgery courses and expand on your existing knowledge by following the instructions of experts with experience in the implantology sector.
Why should you invest in a PG Dip in dental implantology and oral surgery? Well, it’s all about the expansion of your already existing skills with the help of a well-structured course that could be beneficial for your career. A postgraduate diploma, made possible by pursuing implantology courses in the UK, could act as a precursor to an MSc and help you differentiate your services from those of general dentists. Implantology and oral surgery are two of the highest-paying areas of general dentistry, and by expanding your clinical competencies in these areas, you could improve your customer flow, improve your reputation, and gain the necessary skills to handle more complex tasks that typically would have necessitated the skills of a specialist.
12-month implantology courses are convenient and are designed not only for beginners just starting their own practice, but also for experienced dentists who simply want to expand on their already vast professional expertise. Online courses are a good option for already-practising dentists, as the modules will be available on separate virtual platforms. At the same time, for practical 1:1 recreations of cases, the course practitioners will be helped by professional clinical simulation kits.
What Is a PG Dip in Dental Implantology and Oral Surgery?
A postgraduate qualification in dental implantology and oral surgery is obtained after completing a 12-month program and it is equivalent to a master’s degree. The course completion is also accompanied by a UK-accredited level 7 diploma that represents a long-term investment in your career. The course combines practical training with in-depth lectures presented by qualified field experts, and it represents one of the best ways to give a significant boost to your long-term career. A course like this is suitable for already-practising dentist who are looking to continue their everyday work-related activities while also developing their procedural skills.
Since implantology courses are hosted online via a VLE, the flexibility associated with them represents the main selling factor for the vast majority of participants. The practical sessions, necessary to build actual skills are made possible by a clinical simulation kit who is delivered individually to each student, while the separate course modules available for replay, anytime, will be available on a separate app.
Year-long oral surgery courses like these can broaden the theoretical and practical knowledge of dental surgeons, can provide dentists with a foundation baseline for implantology practice, and represent a way to prepare for the implementation of in-depth surgical techniques in everyday dentistry practice.
What Are the Enrolment Requirements for UK Dentistry Courses?
As is the case with the majority of oral surgery courses, applying for a 12-month program focusing on dental implantology and oral surgery will require you to already possess the dental qualification necessary to practice in this medical field. You will be required to possess a BDS and work as a dental practitioner for at least one year before the course starts. Do you already possess the right qualifications to enrol in the course? In that case, over the program’s 12 months, you will have to pass three separate examinations that will evaluate your practical and theoretical knowledge of the modules presented.
If you pass these tests, at the end of the 12 months, you will receive a PG Dip in dental implantology and oral surgery, which is a postgraduate qualification approved by SQA Accreditation. Since a course like this will meet the level 7 teaching hour quantum for a level 7 course, the program will be equivalent to a Master’s, which can represent a substantial boost to your reputation as a dentist. But let’s look at things from a more practical angle.
OMFS is one of the most in-demand dentistry specialities, with oral surgeons in our country often earning more than £120,000. The services of oral surgeons and implantology specialists are not exactly cheap, as even the most routine tasks in this dentistry subdomain will require specialised knowledge to pull off. After the completion of oral surgery courses, you should be able to provide services like dental implant restorations, complex wisdom tooth extractions, or perform procedures like GBR which can act as precursors to dental implants.
See also: The role of AI in healthcare: changing the way diagnosis, treatment, and patient Care
What Modules Will Be Covered?
12-month oral surgery courses that cover dental implantology & oral surgery will typically contain 25 modules that will be available online and be delivered by accredited professionals with experience in the lecturing sphere. These 25 courses will be divided into six separate units, each requiring around two months to complete. The first unit will go over the foundations of oral surgeries and implantology and help students perform the general medical assessment of patients, learn the jaw maxillofacial and neurovascular structures relevant for implantology procedures and go over CBCT imaging basics that represent the foundation of atraumatic oral surgery.
The second module of the course will be related to the planning of the dental treatment, while modules three and four will deal with the clinical impact of the surgical treatment and the restorative techniques applicable in implantology. Not least, module five will handle advanced dentistry procedures like full arch restorations and zygomatic implants, while the final module will go over the in-depth oral surgery principles applicable in clinical practice. All in all, implantology courses in the UK are a cost-efficient way to expand on your dentistry knowledge, and their popularity, at least in our country, is slowly but surely rising.
