Bridge the gap in your dental leadership skills with the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh’s Foundations in Dental Leadership (FDL) course. Designed for modern dental professionals, FDL combines virtual learning and interactive sessions to build personal and team leadership capabilities. Aligned with GDC standards, it supports inclusive, multidisciplinary and future-focused dental care. Lisa Hadfield-Law, one of the Course Directors, discusses the course in more detail.
One Size Won't Fit All
When it comes to dental leadership, it's context-driven; if an emergency arises, it’s not the time to sit around and include everyone in your decisions. Outstanding leaders minimise rather than maximise the drama in any situation. However, the action fallacy can trick us into noticing those who act boldly and visibly, rather than those who are more subtle and behind the scenes, because they appear more exciting and much more happens.
Leaders Will Face Crises
However, exceptional leaders tend to encounter fewer crises. They invest their time and energy into fostering cultures and systems that can manage the pressures of our services. Leadership becomes more challenging when difficult decisions arise. By prioritising equality, diversity, and inclusion and ensuring a safe work-life balance amid a constantly evolving culture in all fields of dentistry, we understand why leadership skills are increasingly vital.
What About All the Pressure
What about all the pressure of maintaining clinical knowledge and skills, holding down a day job and supporting a family life? You can see how developing leadership skills can easily slip down the priority list. That’s why we were asked to create a programme bespoke to each participant, accessible from anywhere in the world, in any time zone, with costs kept to a minimum. We have aligned the Foundations in Dental Leadership (FDL) with the GDC’s Principles and Criteria for Specialist Listing, the framework of behaviours and outcomes for dental professional education, and the College's vision for inclusivity and innovation.
What Can You Learn?
At the end of the programme, participants will be able to:
a) Define their purpose as a leader within their service.
b) Evaluate their impact on others.
c) Plan effective reflection, coaching and feedback.
d) Manage their behaviour under stress.
e) Assess their style of managing conflict and develop some strategies.
f) Plan how to develop and maintain fortitude.
g) Experiment with and learn from new behaviours in the workplace.
h) Map learning to:
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RCSEd - Code of Conduct
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The relevant dental curriculum
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GDC’s Principles and Criteria for Specialist Listing
How Does it Work?
This is a 15-hour programme, with three of those hours at a live virtual meeting. Held either in the afternoon or early evening, the remaining 12 hours are spent reviewing lectures, completing relevant activities and assessments aimed at each individual participant getting a handle on their strengths as a leader and the areas they want to focus on for development.
The cost of the course is £495.
Who Should Join
This programme can be accessed by dentists in the UK & Ireland and overseas. Dentists in specialty training and those submitting a specialist list application will also find this course helpful in meeting the generic components of the curriculum.
When Can You Join
- Programme start: 28th June - Live session 29th July 6-9pm
- Programme start: 1st August - Live session 2nd September 6-9pm
Who Are the Facilitators?
Faculty with a proven track record of leadership and coaching are paired with each participant to maximise feedback conversations culminating in a carefully tailored personal development plan.
Lisa Hadfield-Law is an educationalist, trained as a virtual teacher, who has designed and delivered blended leadership programmes for over a decade. She’s also been involved in leadership and faculty development for dentists for over 20 years. Humphrey Scott is Colorectal Surgeon in Surrey and a professor of medical education. They both ran the Kent, Surrey & Sussex Leadership Programme for Core Surgical Trainees for 15 years, as well as the RCSEd Future Leaders Programme for the last 5 years.
Lochana Nanayakkara is a Consultant in Restorative Dentistry at Barts Health NHS Trust and an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at the Institute of Dentistry, Queen Mary University London. She is Director of Dental Education at Barts Health and Co- Director of the DClinDent programme in Prosthodontics at the Institute of Dentistry, QMUL. She is also Convenor of Dental Education at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.
Other coaches involved are RCSEd Future Leaders Programme alumni.
What Do Others Think?
Since its inception at the end of last year, two cohorts of dentists have joined the Foundations in Dental Leadership. Previous participants have included consultant maxillofacial surgeons based in the UK and the US, special care dentists, orthodontists, restorative dentists, and specialists in prosthodontics and endodontics. Some have led their service or practice for many years, while others are new to the leadership role.
This was a fantastic program. Was a very enjoyable program with invaluable input from very experienced educators in this field. The program was a great learning tool for anyone at any stage of their career. The time commitment involved, and structure of the course means that anyone can manage to fit the modules into a busy schedule. It gives a great start to further develop leadership skills and structure to your personal development plan. Highly recommend!
Previous Course Participant
This is a good course that will help you think about and improve your leadership skills in a practical way.
Previous Course Participant
The Foundations in Leadership course allowed me issues relevant to me and gave me the support to think my way out of trouble.
Previous Course Participant
I’ve become increasingly aware that joining face-to-face courses is expensive in terms of time and money. Today, dentists are managing more complex professional and personal lives. They need access to professional development, which is more flexible, and affordable but similar quality with similar networking opportunities. The FDL is the result of our effort to achieve that. I’m confident that the spaced-out and self-determined learning has a greater educational impact than the traditional two-day approach to course delivery.
Lisa Hadfield-Law (Course Director)
Applications 2025
We currently have some places left in July and September. With just the fixed three-hour live session on Zoom, most of the work can be done over 4 to 6 weeks. If anyone isn’t sure whether the programme is suitable for them, please email the convener.
It’s easy to prioritise other aspects of dental practice, particularly when you don’t consider leadership to be of particular interest to you. However, it could be regarded as the glue that holds your practice together and for just 15 hours of your time, this will probably be well, well worth the effort.