Dental Law and Ethics MA

University of Bedfordshire

About the courseThis flexible, part-time course offers a seamless progression from our highly regarded PgCert Dental Law and Ethics, extending your knowledge of fundamental concepts and theories of law and ethics as well as exploring how they are applied in practice. Encompassing both clinical and business settings, it provides you with the opportunity to examine your own practice, particularly when it comes to enhancing patient care and delivering excellent service.To take this course, you must have a relevant qualification in the field and be working in the profession.What will you study?Studying our Dental Law and Ethics MA course will equip you with the basic and fundamental concepts as well as the contemporary and practical applications of legal and ethical knowledge relevant to dental care and practice, with an emphasis on enhancing patient care and delivering excellent service. Our Dental Law in Practice unit will introduce you to aspects of law related to dental care and practice while enabling you to adopt a critical, analytical and reflective approach. Moreover, you will develop an awareness of the risks associated with legal issues and learn how this can be managed in a dental team. With a similar approach, our unit in Ethical Dental Practice will develop your knowledge of ethical issues in the provision of high-quality dental care. Furthermore, you will explore these ethical dilemmas in more depth to understand how it impacts patient care.Bringing these two units together, you will further explore fundamental concepts, principles and ideas of law and ethics with a critical approach towards how they are interlinked in our Law and Ethics, Concepts and Theories unit. This will provide you with the skills to identify and evaluate ethical and legal challenges in the field. Building on your professional skills, you will learn to explore issues related to regulating dental teams and how to ensure high-quality, professional and ethical service in our Regulating the Dental Team unit. This builds on a range of professional skills to work collaboratively and effectively in a dental team while encouraging you to prioritise the safety and care of your patients.To add to the list of core skills on this course, you will be given an Introduction to Research Methods that will allow you to explore quantitative and qualitative research methods, critically consider key ethical issues in health-related research and develop your ability to synthesise and critique literature. In particular, you will be supported to construct a research proposal that feeds into the Research Project Dissertation where you will develop and conduct an individual research project into a topic of your own interest relevant to dental law and ethics.CareersThis course is designed to develop the skills and practices of dental care professionals with an interest in legal and ethical dental practice. After completing the course you will be able to demonstrate a systematic understanding of the wide range of legal and ethical concepts and issues that directly or indirectly impact patient care. Your expertise will allow you to present your ideas and opinions in a structured planned and supported way.As a graduate in this field you can enhance your legal role in dental practice (such as practice manager or clinical lead); indemnity organisations; primary care organisations; or as an expert witness to legal firms.