Over 300 dental professionals attended the joint Dental Protection and schülke conference – Premier Symposium – for an insight into the challenges of complex clinical, ethical and dentolegal issues.

Dental Protection has appointed 17 additional part-time dentolegal advisers in response to the increased demand for our services. This will bring the total of full-time and part-time advisers to 68 as we head into the New Year. The new advisers met together for the first time at the end of November for a two-day training session in central London.

Natalie studied at The University of Newcastle and qualified June 2014. Natalie says "I wanted to share my experience volunteering as a dentist abroad and to encourage others to consider doing so"

Following the launch of the General Dental Council’s (GDC) consultation on the 2016 Annual Retention Fee (ARF), Dental Protection plans to continue dialogue with the GDC to help embed the recent encouraging improvements to fitness to practise procedures.

Dental Protection is regularly asked about the obligation of the clinician to record the batch number of each local anaesthetic cartridge when providing dental treatment.

Dental Protection, in partnership with schülke, has announced an outstanding line-up for the 15th annual Premier Symposium, which will take place on Saturday 28 November. The speakers will provide delegates with compelling insight into the challenges of complex clinical, ethical and dentolegal issues.

At this year’s Dentolegal Study Day, experts will explore issues around professional standards and regulatory guidance.

Studying abroad is now a given part of tertiary education worldwide. Final year dental student, Fathima Patel recounts her experiences on her Erasmus and elective programmes.

Pritesh Narsinh is a dental student who volunteered to do a dentistry elective in Tanzania with 'Work the World' and he writes of his experiences.

Dental student Kerry Bargelli reflects on undertaking a dental elective with 'Work the World 'when she went to a small village in Nepal and brought much needed dental care to the inhabitants.

As a fourth year dental student at Newcastle University Renna Mahsoub was given the opportunity to do a dental elective placement in her summer break before entering final year. Work the World have always had a good reputation at Newcastle and she had heard fantastic stories from the year above. She writes about her dental voluntary experience.

My name is Shawn Shelley and I graduated from Trinity College Dental School in 2012. A Montana native, I now work as an Associate Dental Surgeon in a private practice in Singapore.

The Medical Elective Network was established in 2011 to provide international student health care electives and free health care campaigns for people with limited resources in Peru.

Surinder has worked in NHS and private practice in the UK and now practises as a general dental practitioner in Singapore. Holding a holistic view to healthcare she enjoys working with anxious patients, carrying out oral surgery and is involved with public oral health teaching.

Annalene Weston provides a brief guide to practising down under.

Alma Creavan is an Irish Young Dentist. In this article she shares her experience of being a newly qualified dentist in Australia.

Thomas Graydon graduated from the University of Western Australia in 2014. After graduating he moved to Bunbury, two hours south of Perth, to work as an associate dentist in a private practice.

Challenging interactions were found to impact on 88% of respondents’ practice working environment with 94% believing it causes stress and anxiety amongst the dental team, 73% feel it causes a fear of complaints and claims, and 67% reported it leads to delays in appointments.

With almost 5,000 complaints to the General Dental Council (GDC) and the Dental Complaints Service in the past year, dentists are understandably anxious about receiving a complaint. In addition, a Dental Protection survey of over 700 dental members earlier this year revealed that 72% of respondents are fearful of being sued by patients, with this fear impacting on the way 81% practise dentistry.

Like their medical counterparts, Dental Boards and Dental Councils around the world have been wrestling with this issue for some years now. Most regulatory bodies consider that when giving advice remotely in relation to the treatment of a specific patient, you are practising dentistry, even if you never actually meet the patient in person.