In this section
In This Section
What do you do in your current role/area of expertise?
Working in one of the smaller dental schools in the UK means I have a multitude of different tasks in any one day.
Although my primary role is to lead on teaching dental radiography to dental students, I am also the year lead for 3rd year dental students, an academic line manager and the radiation protection supervisor for the Dental Hospital. I also provide teaching to dental nurses who wish to gain their post qualification certificate in dental radiography. This includes theoretical and practical teaching along with managing assessments.
Within dental radiography I deliver the theoretical training both face to face and using self-directed learning. Along with two NHS radiographers I provide clinical teaching. I have successfully introduced peer learning for our students starting their clinical radiography training, which has been valued by both learners and educators.
Like most educators there is a need to update teaching every year in response to a variety of factors including student feedback, changes to guidelines (regulatory body and university), assessment requirements, curriculum development and my personal learning around teaching and learning.
My year lead role is extremely varied. I have oversight of the teaching being delivered to my year group, checking that it is relevant and delivered at an appropriate stage of the student’s learning pathway. Timetable planning begins almost a year in advance! Each student’s clinical progress is closely monitored with the aim of providing a broad range of experience to each student, and facilitating remedial practice when this is required. Reports on clinical progress are written and presented to student progress committees at regular intervals.
I prepare exam questions for my own subject but also check all other assessments for my year group to make sure the assessment aligns with the teaching which has been delivered.
There will always be an abundance of administrative tasks to take care of, including absence management, occupational health referrals, providing references for employment to name but a few.
The pastoral component can throw up many surprises, the most common themes are: providing an intervention for a student who may be falling behind their peer group; offering support to a student who is facing a personal difficulty; or providing feedback to those who have not been successful in their class exams.
Educational research is never too far away from my desk, I am currently working on a project to assess the potential for bias during clinical examinations.
As a line manager I am responsible for local HR functions such as approving leave and requests for funding, conducting annual reviews and generally supporting staff within the workplace.
What steps did you take to get to this role?
I did not plan specifically to end up in my current role. My previous experience was mostly in general radiography including paediatrics, ending up in a community single handed post. I thoroughly enjoyed being the only radiographer within a team including physiotherapists, occupational therapists and minor injury nurses. As a group we began to understand how we could each interact to provide a more enhanced service to patients. Examples are being able to identify patients referred for imaging who had a high risk of falling and being able to refer them directly to the occupational therapy department for early intervention, or using the ‘red dot’ system to advise the minor injury nurses of a minor injury patient who needed to be transferred to a main centre for further treatment.
I arrived at a point where I did not feel I could develop my role further and was looking for a change, the advert for my current post caught my eye. This was a new post in a recently established dental school and did not list formal teaching experience as essential. I had prior (but not recent) experience of dental radiography along with considerable experience of clinical teaching. I had developed training packages for nurses working in the minor injuries unit and experience of working with NHS Education for Scotland (NES) on several of their projects including Flying Start (for band 5s to advance to band 6). Before applying for the post, I met with the consultant radiologist who I would be working with. I liked his vision of how the role would develop and believed that the post would offer an excellent challenge and learning experience.
What support did you have along the way or would have been helpful to have had?
My start date coincided with most of my new colleagues being on leave and the consultant radiologist having resigned! I was tasked with taking over most of the teaching formerly delivered by the radiologist and told that the lectures were timetabled to be delivered the following month. Being the only radiographer on an academic team full of dentists meant I had to prove myself rather quickly.
Fortunately, there were two NHS dental radiographers to guide me through the basics of dental imaging. They provided me with comprehensive practical training, this along with some excellent texts on dental radiography helped me to prepare my lectures and develop my dental radiography technique. Delivering my first lecture was one of the most nerve-wracking things I have done. This was undeniably a case of being thrown in at the deep end!
Ideally, I would have liked a mentor to guide me through those early days. Although the University and the NHS are both large organisations there are considerable differences in the way they function. A mentor could have offered advice on many issues including how the University structure functions, what support is on offer from human resources, how to find courses to help in developing teaching skills and more obvious things such as how to operate the IT and AV systems in a lecture room! Some insight into best practice when preparing and delivering lectures would have made quite a difference in those early days.
During my first year in post I was able to enrol on some short courses provided by the University, which gave an overview of how to deliver teaching. This allowed me to identify further courses which were more tailored to delivering teaching in clinical education. I followed my attendance at these courses with an application for fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (HEA). Achieving the recognition from the HEA was a robust and challenging process, providing an opportunity to develop as an educator and enable me to deliver high quality teaching specifically tailored to the needs of learners. It also encourages continual professional development in the field of learning and teaching.
What is the most rewarding thing about your role?
Watching students develop their skills as they progress through their course. Most students begin their training with no prior experience of dentistry, a few years later they leave us ready for their first role as a vocational trainee in general dental practice. As the person responsible for teaching dental radiography to our future dentists it is satisfying to know that they have been equipped with the skills to confidently produce radiographs of a high standard as part of the diagnosis and treatment planning in their future practice.
One particular highlight is attending graduation at the end of the academic year when staff are able to join our newly qualified dentists in celebrating their success.
What advice can you give to others who might want to work towards this role or follow a similar pathway?
Think about where a particular post will fit into your career pathway. Will it allow you to move up the ladder or perhaps take a sideways step into another role? Are there likely to be opportunities for development within the role? What skills do you already have and how can you develop to allow you to meet the specifications of any post you may wish to apply for? Seek out your practice educator who may have contacts who can support you, or even get you involved in delivering training.
There is a lot of support for educational roles, you might have to search for it, but it is there. The Society of Radiographers is an excellent place to start your search.