20 September 2024
Dentists entering specialty training from September 2024 will follow the revised UK General Dental Council (GDC) curricula and will benefit from a new approach to examinations provision.
The new examinations are being developed following an agreement from the four Surgical Royal Colleges of the UK and in Ireland to work together on a joined-up approach to summative assessment. The new examinations are fully aligned with the launch of the GDC revised curricula for dental specialties and will support trainees to demonstrate their specialist knowledge, skills and capabilities during specialty training.
The new examinations will be offered from Autumn 2026, when those starting specialty training in Autumn 2024 will be first eligible to sit them. The examinations will examine against the standard required for CCST and culminate in the award of a Fellowship with the relevant College. The examinations will be known as Dental Specialty Fellowship Examinations.
Previously, most dental specialties had multiple examination versions, administered by individual Royal Colleges, or a combination of Colleges. The previous examination bodies – SMEE, TSMEE and SFEE – will be dissolved, with the new structure overseeing the new examinations.
Alan Mighell, who chairs the Royal Colleges’ group working on the new examinations, said: “We are developing the world-class standard for summative assessment in the dental specialties. This is a credit to the collective expertise of all involved to ensure that future specialists are ready to deliver the best outcomes for patients.
“The partnership approach to assessment from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, will enable consistency for trainees across the UK and Ireland and will provide them with a clearer training pathway.”
The new assessments cover 10 dental specialties, with assessment of the remaining dental specialties staying with the current non-surgical Royal College in each case.
Working closely with the Specialty Advisory Committee (SAC) Chairs and others, the education specialists within the Surgical Royal Colleges have identified the assessment tools to be used in these summative examinations, aligned to the priorities of the Dental Curriculum Advisory Group (DCAG)[1] and the Joint Meeting of Dental Faculties.2
The working group are now developing a blueprint for each specialty exam that will include the tools used to assess different areas of the curricula and the detailed format for the exams.
Trainees who start their training in Autumn 2024 will be following the new curriculum and will sit the new examinations. Trainees who are already on the training pathway, having started specialty training before September 2024, will generally complete their training with the existing curriculum and the existing membership and fellowship examinations.
Transitional arrangements are in place for certain specialties and Trainees who commence their training prior to Autumn 2024 should refer to these.
As the awards for the new examinations will be Fellowships, a model is being developed for review by the Dental Councils within each College to enable those on the specialist list who have passed one of the current specialty membership examinations to convert their qualification to Fellowship with their College.
Dentists who are not training with either a UK National Training Number pathway or through the Irish Committee for Specialist Training in Dentistry (i.e. international dentists undertaking university-based courses either in the UK or internationally), will be eligible to sit these new examinations subject to criteria to be published. Examination sittings run both in the UK and Ireland and internationally will use the same question bank.
From September 2026, trainees will be required to have passed the MFDS/MFD examination before being eligible for entry to the new dental specialty fellowship examinations.
Progress updates will be shared in the coming months, and updates will be published on the DSFE website. Please direct any questions to info@dsfe.org.uk or your SAC Chair.
| List of specialties covered by the new approach: Dental Public Health Endodontics Oral Medicine Oral Surgery | Orthodontics Paediatric Dentistry Periodontics Prosthodontics Restorative Dentistry Special Care Dentistry | List of specialties not covered: Dental and Maxillofacial Radiology Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology Oral Microbiology |
[1] DCAG: A short-life working group including representatives from the Dental Faculties of the 4 Royal Colleges in the UK and Ireland, COPDEND and the GDC.
2 JMDF: The group comprising the Deans and Vice-Deans of the surgical royal colleges which oversees all intercollegiate dental examination activity.