Sherwood Forest Hospitals and HEE unveil virtual reality training for dentists of the future

Dentists of the future will be able to practice their drilling and filling using virtual reality patients at Nottinghamshire's King's Mill Hospital.

The postgraduate dental training suite at the hospital, run by Sherwood Forest Hospitals (SFH) Foundation Trust, is the first in the country to use the technology that uses computer simulations to improve skills and techniques before trainees move on to the real thing.

SFH, in partnership with ourselves, is investing £120,000 in three simulators as part of plans to establish the East Midlands as a centre of excellence for simulated dental training.

Andrew Dickenson, Postgraduate Dental Dean said:

This is a first for postgraduate training in the country and only a very few University undergraduates will have had access to anything similar. Drilling away decay, filling cavities, root canal work and building up chipped and broken teeth will build into more complex cases as training modules are added. The company behind the technology, Moog, will develop more and more scenarios in conjunction with SFH that will be shared around the world.