Complaints and notifications
Dentistry is a stressful profession. Stressors include time and scheduling pressures, striving for perfection, fear of litigation, anxious patients, demanding and unrealistic patient expectations (particularly meeting aesthetic needs), business pressures, staffing problems, regulatory demands and negative perceptions of the dental profession. It can also be an isolating profession despite there often being a large number of staff in the workplace.
“The incredible impact of a complaint lodged against a practitioner and the process of complaints being addressed ... needs to studied extensively, I believe this process needs to be improved greatly, practitioners are at enormous stress even without a complaint looming over their heads, the stress that the complaints process places needs to be mitigated somehow. The process heavily leans on the practitioner being judged guilty until they have exhausted every effort to prove otherwise.”
Complaints
Dental practitioners made up 3.5% of health practitioners, yet accounted for around 10% of all complaints made to Ahpra.[6] They had the highest rate of complaints across health professions (42.7 complaints per 1000 practitioners per year) with higher rates among dentists and dental prosthetists than other dental practitioners. Male practitioners were at highest risk of complaints.
The vast majority of these notifications result in no disciplinary action, although 13% result in some form of restrictive conditions on practice. Importantly though, the complaints process can be extremely distressing for the practitioner, particularly given the time taken to reach a resolution.
Mandatory Notification
Health practitioners have cited fears about mandatory reporting as a barrier to seeking care for mental health conditions, despite the guidelines only requiring reporting for significant health impairment which places the public at-risk of substantial harm. It is important that practitioners feel safe in seeking support for their mental health issues.
“‘There is still stigma in talking about it as it directly links to AHPRA and both students and practitioners don’t want to disclose but we are also obligated to put patient safety first.’”
The guidelines for a treating GP or mental health professional only require a mandatory notification if the dental practitioners has an impairment AND is placing the public at SUBSTANTIAL risk of harm. Rest assured that a mental health issue such as depression or burnout is not in itself a trigger for mandatory notification.