The use of social media sites (SMS) has increased exponentially since their creation and introduction in the early 2000's. The number of regular users of SMS is estimated over 2 billion people worldwide 1 . Ethical and legal guidelines exert an additional responsibility on the behaviour of both graduate and undergraduate dentists when compared to members of the general public with some assumption that life experience can offer some insight into attitudes about online use of social media in relation to professional practice. Aim: We set out to explore the views of the first year graduate entry programme students at the University of Central Lancashire and their use of SMS together with their opinions on what they consider to be professional online behaviour. Methods: A mixed-methods approach was adopted with a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews which were designed to elicit the students' opinions. Results: For this group of students, 100% were using social media sites and some were aware of some of their limitation and possible impact on their careers. There was some rather superficial knowledge of what is and is not professional to post via social media however, students were not fully aware about the legal and ethical guidelines in place in relation to the topic. Conclusion: Results from this study present an opportunity and a challenge for educators to incorporate additional details not only about professionalism and ethical and legal aspects within the undergraduate curriculum but more specific emphasis on the use of social media as part of the undergraduate BDS course.

Introduction As patient-centred care becomes more of the focus in healthcare, informed consent is receiving more attention in dental practice as the pinnacle principle in patient care. Shared decision making or person-centred care appears to be taking a back foot in dentistry.Aim This study aims to gain insight into the current views and perceptions of shared decision making by general dental practitioners and how it can be utilised in daily practice.Method Empirical qualitative data were collected using semi-structured interviews of nine dentists working in general practice, with an average of 30 minutes for each interview. The data were analysed using thematic analysis.Results Overall, there was a misunderstanding of what constitutes shared decision making among dental practitioners, with communication focused more on information provision rather than collaborative discussion. There were barriers which prevented full discussions with patients from occurring, some of which directly conflicted with the focus of shared decision making.Conclusion There is a need to provide more clarity of what shared decision making is and how it can facilitate person-centred care in dental practice. Dental practitioners felt that standards and guidelines were not clear; therefore, they were confused as to what was expected of them with regards to communication. More support, in the form of standardised decision-making aids, is needed to assist dental practitioners to streamline the delivery of shared decision making in primary care.

Law and ethics is an integral part of medical and dental professional practice. The subject is touched upon in the undergraduate curriculum. Historically, dentists interested in postgraduate study in this subject have accessed courses on medical law and ethics. While there are areas of shared interest (for example, consent, confidentiality) there are differences in emphasis and content (for example, end of life care, organ transplants, etc) which are not relevant to dentistry. A new postgraduate certificate (PgCert) course was approved by the University of Bedfordshire designed specifically for dental practitioners, making it the only university accredited course in the UK that is specific to dental staff. Students' perception of the subject of dental law and ethics at a postgraduate level was not known. The first PgCert student cohort was assessed at the start and the end of the course using two questionnaires. Sixteen students, all qualified dental practitioners working in the UK, took part. The perception toward the subject of dental law and ethics was in-line with the current guideline and regulations governing the dental profession. Perception of dental law was clearer at the end of the course compared to the beginning while dental ethics remained a challenging subject.

It was a watershed moment when Archie Cochrane published his work on 'Effectiveness and Efficiency: Random Reflections On Health Services' which was considered the start of Evidence-based healthcare as we now know it. From there onward, Evidence-based dentistry (EBD) has developed and evolved, there has been little attention to the interlink between EBD and ethics. The aim of this paper is to explore some of the ethical basis of evidence based approach to healthcare utilising Beauchamp and Childress' four principles. Evidence Based Dentistry will be examined in relation to a variety of ethical theories. The case will be made that dentistry can, at times, be considered as the orphaned field of medicine and an examination will be presented about how this may affect the uptake of EBD in practice. While exploring the strengths and weaknesses of EBD from an ethical viewpoint, we will highlight some of the challenges facing many dental practitioners in judging what is considered high-quality evidence and examine ways in which this could be improved with links to patient outcomes from an ethical perspective.

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