Micro-educational opportunities in outreach clinical dental education.

Outreach education at the University of Portsmouth Dental Academy is providing a valuable platform to offer students 'micro-educational opportunities'. Some of these are highly innovative experiences, which allow senior students across the dental team to take short periods of time away from the clinic to broaden their life experience. The maturity of senior students generates a significant added-value to their educational experiences with minimal loss of clinical time. Another important outcome, which echoes the Marmot review on Health Inequalities (2010), is the population of the City of Portsmouth, particularly the socially deprived, gain better access to oral health advice, prevention and treatment. Our experience suggests these opportunities enhance the undergraduate experience, equipping our new colleagues for a professional life in a changing and challenging environment.

Caries control in health service practice.

It is suggested that it makes sense for dentists providing care for individual patients to take account of caries risk (as assessed by presentation of active, non-cavitated lesions) when deciding how to allocate time and effort of themselves and their staff. However, there is a question as to how realistic it is to ask the dental team to provide a full diagnostic assessment and all the preventive treatment required for a patient for the payment provided by 1 UDA. It is to be hoped that one or more of the Steele pilots will come up with a practical solution for controlling caries in NHS practice.