University of Portsmouth Dental Academy, Faculty of Science and Health, University of Portsmouth, PO1 2QG, Portsmouth, United Kingdom.
Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences, Centre for Host Microbiome Interactions, King's College London, Denmark Hill Campus, SE5 9RS, London, United Kingdom.
Hum Resour Health. 2022 Jan 10;20(1):7. doi: 10.1186/s12960-021-00703-y.
Regulatory processes for Oral health care professionals are considered essential for patient safety and to ensure health workforce quality. The global variation in their registration and regulation is under-reported in the literature. Regulatory systems could become a barrier to their national and international movement, leading to loss of skilled human resources. The General Dental Council is the regulatory authority in the UK, one of the nine regulators of health care overseen by the Professional Standards Authority.
The aim of this paper is to present the professional integration experiences of internationally qualified dentists (IQDs) working in the UK, against the background of regulation and accreditation nationally.
Registration data were obtained from the General Dental Council to inform the sampling and recruitment of research participants. Semi-structured interviews of 38 internationally qualified dentists working in the United Kingdom were conducted between August 2014 and October 2017. The topic guide which explored professional integration experiences of the dentists was informed by the literature, with new themes added inductively. A phenomenological approach involving an epistemological stance of interpretivism, was used with framework analysis to detect themes.
Internationally qualified dentist's professional integration was influenced by factors that could be broadly classified as structural (source country training; registration and employment; variation in practising dentistry) and relational (experiences of discrimination; value of networks and support; and personal attributes). The routes to register for work as a dentist were perceived to favour UK dental graduates and those qualifying from the European Economic Area. Dentists from the rest of the world reported experiencing major hurdles including succeeding in the licensing examinations, English tests, proving immigration status and succeeding in obtaining a National Health Service performer number, all prior to being able to practice within state funded dental care.
The pathways for dentists to register and work in state funded dental care in UK differ by geographic type of registrant, creating significant inconsistencies in their professional integration. Professional integration is perceived by an individual IQD as a continuum dictated by host countries health care systems, workforce recruitment policies, access to training, together with their professional and personal skills. The reliance of the UK on internationally qualified dentists has increased in the past two decades, however, it is not known how these trends will be affected by UK's exit from the European Union and the COVID-19 pandemic.
口腔保健专业人员的监管程序被认为对患者安全和确保卫生人力质量至关重要。文献中对全球范围内这些人员的注册和监管差异的报道较少。监管系统可能成为他们在国内外流动的障碍，导致熟练人力资源的流失。英国的监管机构是英国牙科委员会，是专业标准管理局监督的九个医疗保健监管机构之一。
本文旨在介绍在英国工作的国际合格牙医（IQD）的专业整合经验，背景是国家层面的监管和认证。
从英国牙科委员会获得注册数据，为抽样和招募研究参与者提供信息。对 2014 年 8 月至 2017 年 10 月期间在英国工作的 38 名国际合格牙医进行了半结构化访谈。主题指南通过文献了解牙医的专业整合经验，同时加入新的主题进行归纳。采用现象学方法，结合解释主义的认识论立场，使用框架分析来检测主题。
国际合格牙医的专业整合受到可大致分为结构性（来源国培训；注册和就业；牙科实践的差异）和关系性（歧视经历；网络和支持的价值；以及个人属性）因素的影响。注册成为牙医工作的途径被认为有利于英国牙科毕业生和来自欧洲经济区的毕业生。来自世界其他地区的牙医报告说，他们经历了重大障碍，包括在执照考试、英语考试、证明移民身份和获得国家卫生服务表演者号码方面取得成功，所有这些都是在能够在国家资助的牙科护理中执业之前。
牙医在英国注册并在国家资助的牙科护理中工作的途径因注册人员的地理类型而异，导致他们的专业整合存在显著差异。个体 IQD 认为专业整合是由东道国医疗保健系统、劳动力招聘政策、培训机会以及他们的专业和个人技能决定的连续体。在过去的二十年中，英国对国际合格牙医的依赖有所增加，然而，目前尚不清楚这些趋势将如何受到英国退出欧盟和 COVID-19 大流行的影响。
