Help your career in dental practice by learning clinical photography
Mike Sharland, the lead educator of the University of Birmingham’s first MOOC, talks about the course starting on December 2nd on FutureLearn.com and what learners can expect to study.
The use of clinical photography has become such an essential part of dentistry but I have seen dentists and their teams struggling with the technology and practicalities of photography. The dental team has little time to set up equipment; this MOOC will help with this process, which should be a ‘once only’ activity, ensuring that quality consistent images are achievable in the minimum amount of time.
This MOOC will help to demystify the choice of equipment, proper set up and techniques to enable you to achieve consistent high quality results, with minimal impact on appointment times. This will in turn enhance the staff and patient experience.
You’ll be guided through the techniques regarding the actual photography of your patients, mixing in a few fun settings to try, and you’ll see what the camera can do to help you with your personal photography.
The actual process of recording the MOOC, though time consuming, was a great experience and by producing it logically session by session, it made me consider how best to help people learn.
This MOOC looks at all aspects of clinical photography, and gives guidance to the learner to achieve the main aim, to help you “get the images you want, not what the camera wants to give you.”
The new generation of dentists and Therapists/Hygienists graduating from Birmingham will have had training in photography, building useful skills for their future career. Our MSc in Advanced Dental Practice is offered part time and distance learning, meaning that we understand the pressures of working and studying at the same time. We have applied this learnt knowledge to our upcoming MOOC.
I look forward to working with learners from across the world and seeing their comments and discussions when the course starts on Monday. I hope that their feedback will help when developing future courses and in turn hope that they will develop their own understanding through the videos, articles and discussions made available in the coming weeks.
