‘The opportunities are endless,’ says dental nurse Faye Greenhalgh of her decision to become a dental nurse. In the ten years since Faye qualified, she has scooped up three further qualifications (in sedation, oral health and fluoride application), become Project Development Manager for Revive Dental Care's innovative ‘Hard to Reach’ service, and found the time to have two children. Read more about Faye's experiences and those of two of her colleagues in Greater Manchester in the cover story of this issue of BDJ Team.

Dental hygienists and dental therapists are also in the spotlight this month. Our CPD article explores the stress and well-being of dental hygiene and dental therapy students at the University of Portsmouth Dental Academy during their undergraduate training. The second part of dental hygienist and therapist Laura Cox's research into alternative methods of gag reflex control focuses on acupuncture; Michaela ONeill, immediate BSDHT Past President explains the BSDHT's and BADT's mission to secure prescribing rights for dental hygienists and therapists and how you can help their campaign; and Len D’Cruz explores the ins and outs of offering private dental hygiene services in a mixed general dental practice.

BDJ Team is increasingly publishing original research from DCPs such as Laura Cox (mentioned above). To encourage those of you out there involved in research to submit your work to BDJ Team for possible publication, we are pleased to have launched our own manuscript submission portal. You can read more about it in the news section this September, and if you would like to submit research or any other kind of article for BDJ Team, please visit www.bdjteam.co.uk and click on ‘submit’.

Everyone is welcome to send an article!