A Career in Dental & Maxillofacial Radiology

A career in DMFR is incredibly varied and no two consecutive days are the same. Most days are a mix of seeing patients for various types of scans and reporting radiographs. There is also a large component of teaching undergraduate dental and therapy students either in lecture or seminar format. Postgraduate lectures on various topics, particularly legislation (IRMER) courses for Core CPD can make up part of your week. You can also take on additional work by reporting private dental Cone Beam CT scans if required once you are a consultant.

DMFR is an enjoyable and rewarding but challenging career which provides a varied job allowing patient interaction, teaching and research.  As nearly all dental specialties require radiographs, a career in DMFR allows you to keep up to date in changes in other fields and therefore you are constantly learning.

It is useful to be organised and comfortable multi-tasking as it is a common occurrence to be interrupted mid-radiographic report to see a patient or give an opinion. You have to be a team player with good written and verbal communication skills as you take part in numerous multi-disciplinary team meetings. It is equally important that you are motivated and happy to work independently as most of your day will be reporting radiographs. I think the key feature would be someone who enjoys problem solving and has a passion for anatomy and dental pathology; in DMFR we regularly piece together clinical and medical histories with current and previous radiographic images to create a differential diagnoses.

Getting my StR job is probably my highlight as it felt like all my hard work in the years running up to the interview had been worthwhile.

In radiology, we rarely see patients for multiple appointments unless there is significant pathology that requires monitoring. For me, the most rewarding patients are the ultrasound patients who attend due having noticed a neck lump and prior to attending, they have been on the internet to read that “a neck lump means you have cancer.” It is incredibly rewarding to carry out a simple non-invasive investigation such as ultrasound and to be able to put their mind at rest and relieve the anxiety that was building prior to the appointment – there are usually a lot of tears!

Cone Beam CT (CBCT) has revolutionised 3D imaging for dentistry in the past decade. In less than 20 seconds (for the units I use), you can see the patient’s bony anatomy and pathology in three dimensions for a fraction of the radiation dose of Medical CT.

There have been multiple consultants within DMFR who have inspired me due to their passion for the specialty, their outlook/reflection on their careers and their willingness to support the trainees, both prospective and currently training. I also try and take something positive away from everyone that I have worked with both during StR and my previous jobs.