By Andy Gunning
“For the last 2 years Gill and I have taken a week in January out of practice to sit down and plan our year ahead. This involves us looking at all areas of the business, looking at the last years successes and failures, learning and looking for areas to develop and improve.
One of the biggest areas of focus for our year is helping our current Vocational Dental Trainee or, ‘Junior dentist’ as we like to call them, and preparing for this academic year’s recruitment process.
If we are successful in recruiting a junior dentist this year it will be our 9th year of Vocational training and our 10th trainee. It has been an invaluable learning experience for me and I every year I adapt and learn new ways to teach and improve their experience.
One principle I have read about, and discussed with some of the last 2 cohorts of trainees, which is unashamedly stolen from the podcaster and writer Steven Bartlett from his 33 Laws book, is the 5 buckets principle. I’m pretty sure he alludes to stealing bit from someone else too. ‘Steal like an artist’ a wise man once told me…. and to be copied is a compliment.
Anyways, the 5 buckets principle can be adapted to anything in life, any career, and in short talks about filling your ‘buckets’ in the right order to achieve sustainable success.
So what are these buckets?
- Knowledge
- Skills
- Network
- Resources
- Reputation
All too often I think people want to jump quickly to the last 3, networking and getting their hands on all the latest technology and building their reputation all at once, but lack the time spent developing the necessary skills to progress.
The dental graduates we see have fantastic knowledge but, like all junior healthcare professionals, have not acquired the real world skills and experience needed for the job which is why the vocational training programme exists.
To me the Vocational training year is about gaining as much experience as they can, understanding that the first few years of their career is about the graft and the experience, and taking the time to do this will mean everything else will fall into place.
Dental vocational training is just the start. I believe you need two, or even three, years of an excellent grounding, in the right practice, to gain the necessary experience to thrive.
I might just know the place….”
