Pressures on dental education – a personal view

Dental schools and hospitals currently find themselves in the awkward position of being expected to be more productive whilst suffering a shortage of resources. In essence, they are expected to provide both education and NHS healthcare, yet scant attention is paid to the urgent issue of the resources required to achieve this. The same is true in medicine where the Government has promised 2000 more medical school places by 2005, a rise of almost 60%, to guarantee a decade of unprecedented expansion in doctor numbers in the NHS. However, the country's ability to train doctors is compromised by a shortage of academics available to teach them.