The influence of genders on career aspirations of University of Birmingham dental students and junior trainees in the West Midlands, United Kingdom. Br Dent J 2020; 228: 944-937. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41415-020-1704-6

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Why did you decide to undertake this study?

Anecdotally we saw a common trend that a large number of dentists graduating were females. We understood that this highlights the importance of females within the dental field and the increasing importance of their contributions. Therefore, we wanted to investigate the different career pathways taken post-graduation by gender, and more specifically to assess the long-term intentions of women in the field and aspirations of specialisation.

Did any of the results surprise you?

Although some of the results were predictable, the surprising aspect was that although there are more females in the dental workforce, 41% of respondents felt men have an advantage over women in career success. The majority of undergraduates opted to work in practice upon graduation as a general dental practitioner (GDP). Eighty-three percent of dental core trainees (DCT) wanted to specialise. Of the DCTs, 100% of the females wanted to continue and specialise in comparison to 40% of males who were 'unsure' if they wanted to continue training and become a specialist.

What do you think the next steps should be considering your findings?

Further research is required ideally on a national level looking at a multi-centre study gaining data from a variety of universities from the UK. These results then would represent a broad spread giving greater validity for a UK context.