Sir, having recently returned to dental school after studying medicine, the importance of the hidden curriculum has never been so obvious.

Before, throughout, and indeed after medical school, during postgraduate training, the hidden curriculum was my crutch. Be it relatives or family friends with their hyperparathyroidism, or Duke's B Colorectal carcinoma, ER, Casualty, Sunday Surgery, glossy magazines, the tabloids, recounting stories with my friends, witnessing signs of disease on public transport and Panorama, I was never far away from someone or something that would reinforce my knowledge or inform my clinical practice.

Dentistry is a different kettle of fish. Although it is much easier to appreciate a cavity, restoration, or a gum boil on a friend or family member than perhaps carry out a colonoscopy in the living room, it is not easier to appreciate the finer aspects of dentistry through this method.

ER and House are of little help. There is no revision of the properties of elastomeric impression materials in the Sunday papers. I won't come across the morphology of the deciduous teeth on the London Underground. There will be no undercover investigations into oral bullous disease.

In terms of the hidden curriculum, medicine is like being a newsreader with an autocue. Dental students must be aware of this difference, although some of the attidudinal and communication concepts do translate, I will need to look elsewhere for my autocue this time around.