Training dentists of the future

Dentists of the future will be able to practice their drilling and filling using virtual reality patients at Nottinghamshire's King's Mill Hospital. The postgraduate dental training suite at the hospital, run by Sherwood Forest Hospitals (SFH) NHS Foundation Trust, is the first post-graduate institute in the country to use the Moog Simodont dental trainer.

The Simodont offers a high-resolution, three-dimensional image combined with a dentist’s drill handpiece that has highly realistic computer controlled feedback, so that students get a realistic sensation and an exact feeling of the objects and materials they are working on.

Trainees can now improve skills and techniques before they move on to the real thing. Sherwood Forest Hospital, in partnership with Health Education England – East Midlands, is investing £120,000 in three simulators as part of plans to establish the East Midlands as a centre of excellence for simulated dental training. Up to 70 post-graduate dentists a year are expected to practice their basic techniques using the technology, along with up to 30 more experienced dentists wishing to refresh individual skills or dentists returning to practise after a career break.