Continuing Education Requirements for Dentists in Jamaica

The Dental Council of Jamaica has decided that, in order to meet international standards, dentists practising in Jamaica as of January 2015 will need to complete continuing education requirements in order to renew their practising certificates. After extensive worldwide research, it has been determined that dentists will need to complete 40 hours of continuing education credits over a two-year period.

Of these 40 CEs the dentist would be able to obtain:

- The majority of these credits from core dental lectures

- 4 credits from internet-based continuing education programs (DCJ has a right to reject questionable programs)

- 10 credits from approved local general medical programs put on by Jamaica Medical Doctors Association, Medical Association of Jamaica, Nurses Association of Jamaica, or other entity approved by the DCJ.

- 2 mandatory continuing education credits are required from an infection control program

- 4 mandatory continuing education credits are required from ethics/professionalism lecture.

- One (1)   2" x 2" passport type photograph

 

The final requirement over the two-year renewal period is that of obtaining a basic life support (BLS) license.

Please note that NO CE credits are awarded for BLS, it is a separate requirement.

For the dental specialist, the DCJ strongly recommends that you obtain 80% of your credits from your area of speciality.

Exceptions

1. Full-time lecturers at the local dental institutions will not be required to have 40 hours continuing education credits but will be required to obtain the requirements for infection control and ethics, as well as completing BLS. 

2. For non-full time lecturers and others that give lectures at accredited programs, 4 hours of continuing education credits would be awarded for each 1-hour of a lecture given. Each lecture presented may only be used once in each renewal period for claiming CE credits.

3. Authors who contribute to “peer reviewed” scientific journals will receive 6 hours as primary author and 3 hours as the secondary author for each article published. The article may only be used to claim CE credits one time, even if re-published in a different journal.

4. Dentists actively enrolled in full-time post-graduate programs, and not practising dentistry, will not be required meet any of the requirements for CE credits or BLS.

5. Dentists actively enrolled in post-graduate programs, but still practising dentistry concurrently, will not be required to have 40 hours continuing education credits, but will be required to obtain the requirements for infection control and ethics, as well as completing BLS.

Who is an approved continuing education provider?

The Dental Council of Jamaica will be required to approve all local CE credit providers, as well as allocating the CE credits to the prospective programs.

The following are the expected providers for local CEs: JDA, JAPDENS, Kingston Study Club, UWI and UTECH dental programs, JMA, JMDA, NAJCE credits from accredited programs in the approved regions for reciprocity will also be accepted as continuing education for Jamaica, for example, ADACERP.