The Online Tools More Than 8,000 Dentists Have Used to Effectively Grow Their Clinical Skills
By Benjamin Rojek on July 8, 2015 | commentsFor nearly a decade, Spear has provided accredited dental continuing education to clinicians around the world, and as more than 8,000 dentists will attest, Spear Online is the definitive a library of dental CE courses to help you grow your skills any time.
In addition, by providing resources for staff training and patient education, Spear supports clinicians by aiding in the implementation of their new skills.
At the core of the Spear Online experience is the Course Library. Members have access to more than 700 video-based dental CE lessons on a wide variety of topics, from understanding dental materials to the etiologies of tooth wear. These lessons, which are grouped together in courses, are developed and taught by some of the profession’s leading clinicians and specialists.
Because there are so many lessons from which dentists can choose, Spear also developed a user-friendly search tool. A regular search box is still available. However, users can also narrow down their search by using a simple check-box system broken down by topic, clinical role and category. They can even select the presenters from whom they’d like to learn.
Don’t yet have access to Spear Online? Click this link when you’re ready to join your peers in our dental CE library.
The clinical learning does not stop with dentists’ staff members. Spear’s courses are designed to continue the learning of everyone in the practice.
A mentioned above, the Course Library’s search tool allows users to search for courses by role. Assistants, hygienists and front office staff members can all find courses individualized to their specific responsibilities. Better still, dentists can assign courses and track progress through CE-eligible quizzes.
In addition to the individual courses, Spear Online provides facilitated Team Meetings. These are not just video lessons; Spear also provides agendas, objectives, discussion topics, implementation plans and additional downloadable learning resources. From talking to patients about tooth wear to learning about occlusion, these meeting modules are meant to help the whole team grow together.
Do you want to learn more about online team training but don’t have access to the platform? Click this link when you’re ready to help your dental practice team increase their skills.
After developing hundreds of dental CE lessons, Spear’s faculty wanted to ensure clinicians were able to learn from them in a structured, efficient manner. These pathways are essentially online mini-residencies in various topics that our members have deemed crucial.
Pathways offer members a carefully curated, topic-based learning experience. Members can choose from such Pathways as “Treatment Planning for Wear,” “Material Selection,” and “Predictable Dentistry.” After clicking into a Pathway, users can see how many courses they’ve completed, how many CE credits they’ve earned and the total Pathway time (you can also assign a whole pathway to your team member!).
Not a Spear member yet? Click this link when you’re ready to begin your favorite dental CE Pathway.
Spear realizes that if patients don’t say yes to a course of treatment, your new found clinical skills will not really be able to improve. For years we have taught both online and on campus the best ways to communicate the value of your treatment plan to your patients. Now we have taken our time-tested philosophies and used them to develop our Patient Education resource.
Vetted by both clinicians and patients, these resources are specifically designed to spark patient discourse, increasing case acceptance rates. Using high-resolution animations, Spear Patient Education videos help dentists show patients how a procedure is done and the consequences of inaction. This allows the dentist to focus on the “why,” which may be different for each patient.
Optimized for mobile, tablet and desktop, these animations can either be shown chairside or sent to the patient via email. The videos can also be embedded on the dental practice’s website for patient viewing. These options allow dentists to ensure their patients can view the animations in a way that’s most convenient for them.
Don’t worry if you’re not a Spear member yet. Just click this link when you’re ready to improve your case acceptance rates with Patient Education.