Two island students are the first intake of dental therapy students to be able to fully undertake their degrees in the Western Isles.
Anne Macaulay and Joanne Macdonald are undertaking their course, in its entirety, without going to the mainland. They have started their training in the new dental centre in Stornoway and will graduate in three years.
Accommodating the entire dental course in the Western Isles is hoped to attract promising dental students to the facility, year on year.
The first year students join two second year dental therapy students currently on placement in the Western Isles Dental Centre and two final year dental students who are on an outreach programme from Aberdeen Dental School. The second year dental therapy students and final year dental students are also all offering treatment to local patients.
Anne Macaulay said: “We started at the end of August. It’s hard work and there’s a lot of study involved, but it made a huge difference to us being able to do the course locally. It’s a three year course and we are able to complete the three years here, which was an important factor in attracting us to the course. We only started a few weeks ago, but we’ve used the facilities such as the phantom heads in the new Dental Centre and they’re really good to train on.”
Joanne Macdonald said: “An added benefit of training here is that there are only
two of us and two tutors, so we get one-
Second year trainees Laura Mauchan from Clydebank and Rebecca Young from Ullapool were previously based in Inverness.
They said: “The facilities here are very similar to what is provided in Inverness, but it’s a lot newer here. Because there are only two of us here, we also get exposure to a lot more variety than we would elsewhere, which is great experience for us. We elected to come to Stornoway for our placement as the accommodation is so good here. The mentors are also very good so we’re very lucky.”
Laura and Rebecca will graduate in June 2013, and will complete the remainder of their course in the Western Isles.
NHS Western Isles Chief Executive Gordon Jamieson said: “This is another very positive step towards realising the full potential of our state of the art Dental Centre. It is very heartening to hear the positive feedback from the students.”
First local dental students 28/9/11
2nd year students, Laura Mauchan and Rebecca Young at the back with local students, Joanne Macdonald and Anne Macaulay in the front row