Michelle starts Orthodontic Therapist Training

In the middle of the year, Swords Orthodontics was delighted and honoured to be part of Ireland’s first ever training programme for orthodontic therapists. This is intended to prepare team members to actually carry out treatment on patients with the supervision of an orthodontist.

To make the selection, there were tough interviews for both Michelle and Dr Murray, and a mystery practical test for Michelle.

In addition to the interviews to see if the trainee was suitable, and if the orthodontist was suitable to be a trainer, there was also a rigorous practice inspection to see if the practice was suitably run and equipped to train. The visitation to the practice was authorised by the Dental Council and inspected pretty much every aspect of the practice from health and safety, emergency measures, X-ray safety, and cross infection control to complaints procedure and patient information, studying support and the variety and quality of the orthodontic materials.

In this initial intake of students, there would be only 6 therapist trainees and 8 trainers. We were delighted to learn that our candidate, Michelle, was successful. This was a great result for the entire practice as we demonstrated that the people and facilities of Swords Orthodontics were up to the highest national standards.

In addition to Michelle changing her role in the practice, the practice had to adapt to her. So, new visitors to the practice will notice our new partition which divides the clinical area in to two sub surgeries with more privacy for each patient, but easy access for Dr Murray to supervise Michelle’s clinical work.

There were also new IT systems and computers put into place and just before Christmas, we got a new dental chair installed, with new lights and power instrument unit.

The great benefit for patients with all of this is that we can see two patients at the same time, so there will be a higher availability of popular appointment slots like after-school times and evenings because we’ll often have two slots available at this time where we used to have only one. PLUS, patients can be reassured that the person treating them (or their children) is trained and authorised and insured to do so.

Look out later in 2015 for another Swords Orthodontics graduation!