The Caring Face
British Dental Journal January 27, 2007

Sadly, the author is not alone. The BDA Benevolent Fund is aware of other GDPs in a similar situation who are facing significant financial difficulties. Banned from practising their profession in their thirties or forties, with borrowings against a future income that no longer exists, they find that obtaining a post outside dentistry has been impossible on the grounds that they are ‘overqualified’. To compound their problems, as self-employed workers, they are not eligible for the range of state support available to employees. Without the financial assistance of the Benevolent Fund, which is of necessity barely enough to meet their basic needs, their situation would be dire.

The look-back exercise is, as mentioned by your author, an additional problem for the practitioner. In one case the exercise gave the practitioner’s home address in the local paper, leading to such pressure on him that he had to move away. Clinical depression, almost inevitably, followed. There is also the problem of conflicting advice. One of our beneficiaries was advised by his doctor that there was no need for him to stop working, so he carried on for several weeks after his diagnosis.

I am disappointed to read that your author felt that he did not find the help from his fellow professionals that he might have expected, but would like to reassure your readers that the Benevolent Fund, as the caring face of the profession and the dental trade, is always there, in the strictest confidence, to help any of our colleagues in their time of need. Air Vice-Marshal Ian McIntyre Chairman of the Board of Trustees, BDA Benevolent Fund doi: 10.1038/sj.bdj.2007.38