Learning Over Fear. A New Direction for Professionalism in Dentistry

14 Oct Learning Over Fear. A New Direction for Professionalism in Dentistry

The General Dental Council recently said something that really caught my attention:

“We want to regulate in a way that promotes learning over fear and protects patient safety by focusing on what makes things go right.”*

I think those words matter because, for years, much of the conversation around standards in dentistry has understandably focused on what can go wrong, what needs documenting, what might lead to a complaint, and what we must do to protect ourselves.

These are all necessary considerations, of course. Still, I wonder whether, somewhere along the way, we’ve become so focused on proving we’ve done the right thing that we sometimes lose sight of what actually makes things go right.

Take a patient consultation, for example: we can document that we explained treatment options, discussed risks, and obtained consent, but none of that tells us anything about the quality of the conversation itself. We record what happened but not what the patient experienced. This matters because whether the patient felt understood, whether we discovered what mattered to them, gauged their uncertainty, or changed how we approached the conversation because of something they said, all matter and reflect the quality of the conversation.

And if we extend the direction of the GDC statement, perhaps most importantly, we need to recognise that by documenting only what happened, we miss the opportunity to learn from that conversation and make the next one better.

These questions interest me most because professional development shouldn’t depend entirely on identifying what went wrong, especially when there’s an enormous amount to learn from understanding what went right, and why.

It’s encouraging to see the GDC proposing a direction that places greater emphasis on professional judgement, reflection, and learning. While the new framework is still being considered, the philosophy behind that statement deserves attention now. What if we became just as curious about the conversations that go well as we are about those that don’t?

That could change how we think about coaching, leadership, the everyday experience of being a dental professional and ultimately, the experience of being a patient.

*Stefan Czerniawski, Executive Director of Strategy at the GDC, from the announcement dated 2 June 2026. The proposed is described as a consultation proposal, not an adopted regulatory requirement.