How to Write a Dental PDP That Isn’t a Tick Box – PDP292

When did you last open your personal development plan — and was it December, the night before you worried the regulator might ask?

Are you spending hours typing out course titles, aims and objectives, and calling that a plan?

What would change if you held a short board meeting with yourself every three months?

And should your PDP have room for your finances, your family and your wellbeing — not just your dentistry?

My guest is Dr Callum Connick — general dentist, special-interest in endodontics, undergraduate teacher and one of the most helpful members of the Protrusive Guidance community. He’s also someone who, by his own admission, averaged eight hours a day of World of Warcraft for part of his first year at dental school and once planned his way out of dentistry altogether. What brought him back was learning to shape his own career pathway, and the planning system he built along the way. This isn’t the sexiest topic, but it might be the most useful thing you do this November — which, fittingly, is PDP month on Protrusive Guidance.

Protrusive Dental Pearl: Reflect More, Type Less: EZPDP

The valuable part of a PDP is the thinking: where you are in your career, your goals for next year, what you struggled with clinically and non-clinically, and what you’re going to do about it. The least valuable part is the admin — typing course titles, hours, aims, objectives and instructors into little boxes, which on some platforms takes hours. Protect the first; minimise the second.

That’s why we built EZPDP inside Protrusive Guidance. This is available on the Ultimate Plan.

You fill in a short form about your clinic, what you enjoy, your struggles, work-life balance, wellbeing and the procedures that still scare you, and upload any external certificates. Your Protrusive certificates — complete with the reflections you wrote when you claimed them — are pulled in for you. Within 72 hours Team Protrusive sends back an editable document that is roughly 90% done: your CPD in an appendix, a breakdown of your GDC outcomes, and your goals linked to your own reflections. You still do the reflecting; we take the data entry off your plate. You could do this yourself with AI — we just make it quicker, because we already hold the information.

What You’ll Take From This Episode

• The quarterly board meeting — a 30-minute review with yourself every three months that keeps goals short and measurable.
• Four time horizons — a lofty goal, a yearly theme, quarterly actions and an optional monthly focus.
• Three documents, not one — why your CPD log, your learning notes and your PDP should live separately.
• Reflection that protects you — how honest notes on complications turn a PDP into something close to a character reference.
• A personal plan, not just a professional one — making room for finances, time off and wellbeing.

Highlights of This Episode

00:00 TEASER
00:50 Why Your Dental PDP Is More Than a Tick Box
02:13 EZPDP: Reflect More, Type Less
06:22 Meet the Guest: GDP, Endo and Teaching
08:40 What Is a Personal Development Plan Really For?
10:15 How to Fall Back in Love With Dentistry
14:41 Quarterly Reviews: Run Your Dental Career Like a Business
18:34 Should You Plan the Whole Year or Just Three Months?
20:00 Set a Lofty Goal, a Yearly Theme and a Monthly Focus
22:16 Best Tools for Your PDP: Notion, Google Docs or Sheets?
23:45 What the GDC Actually Says About Reflecting on CPD
28:21 Why You Need a CPD Log Separate From Your PDP
29:24 A Personal Development Plan, Not Just a Professional One
31:24 Reflecting on Complications: Your PDP as a Character Reference
34:29 Just Start: Final Advice on Building Your PDP
35:43 OUTRO

From the Guest

Dr Callum Connick is a general dentist with a special interest in endodontics, working at tier 2 level in a Sheffield hospital alongside practice. He teaches undergraduates at the University of Sheffield, helps teach on RipeGlobal’s Fellowship in Restorative Dentistry, and mentors through Intaglio — in restorative dentistry and in the planning and career questions covered here.

👉  Instagram: @dr_connick

👉  Website: drconnick.com

Want more?

If you enjoyed this episode, check out: Burnout and Continuing Education in Dentistry – PDP095

Tags

#PDPMainEpisodes #CareerDevelopment #BeyondDentistry

Listen, Subscribe, Earn CPD

Listen: Subscribe to the Protrusive Dental Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

This episode is eligible for 0.5 CE credit via the quiz on Protrusive Guidance.

This episode meets GDC Outcomes B

AGD Subject Code: 770 Self-Improvement.

Aim & Learning Outcomes

Aim: To help dental professionals turn the personal development plan from an annual compliance exercise into a regularly reviewed tool for professional and personal growth.

Learning Outcomes — by the end of this episode, dentists will be able to:

1. Describe the purpose of a personal development plan beyond regulatory compliance, and distinguish it from a CPD activity log.
2. Apply a quarterly review structure — review, outstanding actions, reflection and new action points — to plan and track professional and personal development.
3. Explain how timely reflection on CPD, implementation gaps and clinical complications supports professional growth and demonstrates reflective practice.