What kind of people want to become dentists? General Dental Council Recruitment Working Party survey of first year undergraduate dental students.

Above all, the survey has provided a clear, if complex, description of the population of first year dental students: who they are and where they have come from; why they are doing the course and what they want to achieve from it. A number of specific conclusions about recruitment gaps can be drawn from the information received from the survey, namely: i) Girls at mixed-sex schools are apparently less likely to enter dentistry than their counterparts at all-girls' schools. This, however, is part of a much wider issue which encompasses the question of science versus arts choices amongst male and female pupils. ii) Some dental schools have a very high concentration of students whose home is the local region. Wider national publicity for these schools could be attempted. iii) In East Anglia, the East Midlands, Yorkshire and Humberside and the West Midlands, the number of qualified school leavers who become dental students is below average. iv) Family dentists and orthodontists are in a very strong position to encourage interested patients to enter the profession beginning at an early age, and with guidance could encourage these children towards additional sources of information and advice, such as the General Dental Council, which at the moment appear to be under-used. v) The information on dentistry provided by most careers advisers could be improved. In particular, careers teachers and form teachers/tutors are a widely contacted source of guidance but the information they were able to provide was not rated highly. University open days and residential courses are successful and might be used further.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)