Dental organisations investigate discrimination
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- Published: Monday, 21 December 2020 17:51
- Written by News Editor
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The British Dental Association, Faculty of General Dental Practice UK and College of General Dentistry have joined forces to conduct a survey into discrimination in dentistry. Onkar Dhanoya, Chair of the Programme Board, said: “Dentistry is a caring profession by nature, but the experiences of some dentists suggest that as a profession we don’t always treat our colleagues as well as we do our patients.”
The survey is aimed at all dentists who have ever practised dentistry in the UK, and at dental students studying in the UK, and asks about their morale and career satisfaction as well as any experiences they may have had of being treated unfairly whilst working or studying.
Feedback from the survey will be anonymised, and the data and experiences captured will be used to identify and raise awareness of the ways in which discrimination is experienced in dentistry, and how these affect individual practitioners.
In recent months, the three organisations have convened a programme board to promote joint working on issues of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in dentistry, as well as a joint working group to investigate racial inequality in particular. The survey results will help these groups take forward evidence-based actions to address the underlying issues, and to promote greater understanding in the profession of the experiences and concerns of their fellow dentists.
Onkar Dhanoya, Chair of the BDA-FGDP(UK)-CGDent Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Programme Board, said:“Dentistry is a caring profession by nature, but the experiences of some dentists suggest that as a profession we don’t always treat our colleagues as well as we do our patients. Only by listening can we better understand others’ concerns in order to address them”.
Russ Ladwa, President of the BDA, said: “Discrimination is unfortunately still a feature of our society, and dentistry is far from immune, but this survey is an important step towards understanding and addressing the issue in our profession, and I encourage all dentists to complete it.”
The survey is available at https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/racismindentistry/.
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