How to Pass the Dental ORE Exam UK – PDP060

Jaz’s Introduction:
Imagine coming to a new country and you’re learning a new language, a new way of life maybe you have your family with you, maybe you’ve got a spouse, a child to support but you can’t work. You can’t work until you sit possibly the most difficult professional exam of your lifetime and your entire family depends and relies on you passing this exam.

Protruserati, this is a reality that a lot of people face is that people who come from other countries to practice dentistry in the UK for example. Now this could apply to any country whereby they have entrance exams right? So what I’m referring to is the overseas registration exams which in the UK are required for people of certain countries because their dental degrees are not valid right? It’s the same where for example if I was to go to the USA, I’d have to sit their exams right? And essentially in the USA I’d have to go to dental school again or the equivalent.
You can listen to episode 2 with Kristina Gauchan, if you’re interested in the USA but essentially these exams can be very tough even the ones in the USA and we talked about that.

Now the purpose of this episode and joining me today is Dr Yazan Duedari, who is from Syria and he completed his ORE but he’s got a very unique story as though he actually came as a refugee and that really resonated with me for many reasons and will explain the podcast but wow to learn about the hardships and the challenges you have to go through to be able to practice dentistry in another country especially like in the UK it’s just crazy. Like did you know that when they open the examination process like the online booking process for the exam goes so fast as though it’s like a massive celebrity concert like a Beyonce concert right? You log in and you’re there ready to buy your Beyonce tickets and like within five seconds they’re gone. Well ORE exams just sit the damn exam that’s the situation they face.

So there’s I mean there were so many different layers of complexity that I learned about from speaking to Yazan today so I’m so honored that he gave his time and his energy and his mistakes and his advice. It’s full of absolute gold so this episode really is for those people who are looking to come to the UK or move to any country where they have an entrance exam. You will definitely learn something from this episode.

If you’re from the UK and you want to understand the challenges or from the USA, you understand the challenges of a foreign dentist then fine listen to it but this is more for those people who are about to sit the ORE exam we do, we do go into the very nitty gritty of the ORE exam, the different stages, how much it costs, what’s the pass rate, what are the different challenges people face I mean it’s just amazing to think that the process can be incredibly slow and incredibly difficult for no reason at all. So wow I mean even when you finish the ORE to actually find a job is just a whole challenge in itself. So I hope this episode will inspire and help many of you out there.

Protrusive Dental Pearl
So the Protrusive Dental Pearl I have for anyone who’s looking to sit an exam in a different country to register as a dentist there is this, it’s a quote you may know who it’s by and the quote is “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” It always seems impossible until it’s done the quote of course is by Nelson Mandela and I kid you not when you listen to this episode and you listen to Yazan’s story and some of the stories that I know about like I know I’ve got some close friends who have done the ORE exam and I know what a grueling process it is.

I’ve got a friend in Korea right now who’s looking to sit the Korean exams and that’s a massive challenge. I have so much respect for the people who go to the USA and this and they pretty much go through dental school again like wow I have crazy amounts of respect for these people but it always, always, just like when you were like sitting your finals exam to become a dentist like how impossible did it seem? Can you like tap into that moment where you’re about to sit your finals exam like it seems impossible until it’s done. So keep going, keep that faith and I really hope you gain a lot from this episode so we’re going to dive right in with the chat with Dr Yazan Duedari for anyone who is interested in the ORE exam or any exam for that matter.

Main Episode:
Yazan Duedari, welcome to Protrusive Dental podcast. How are you my friend?

​​[Yazan]
I’m good and I’m very honored to be on my favorite podcast

​​[Jaz]
Oh you’re too kind, your flattery will get you right very far, Yazan. So Yazan I’ve got you on here for a mission okay? Your mission is to help people okay and let’s be really realistic because there’s ups and downs but it’s to do with the ORE exam and someone’s listening and they have no idea what ORE is that if you want to come to the UK from certain countries then you need to do the overseas registration exam to be able to work in the UK, right?

And from what I’ve heard it’s a really tough exam, I’ve had loads of friends who’ve done it and I just want to look at the challenges, the benefits, the risks, the rewards I really want to dissect it. But I also want to learn about you Yazan because you email me because you kindly did my resin bonded bridge master class and you emailed me some kind words you said hey how can I find more courses like this and we were discussing and then I found out a little bit about you. But can you just tell me roll back the years ,go back to your childhood because something very interesting I want to highlight because wow what a story you have just tell everyone a little bit about yourself, childhood and then what you do now as well.

​​[Yazan]
Yeah so I’m from Syria and I grew up in a small city called Idlib which is now famous or infamous for war unfortunately. And I studied in Haripur University, graduated from dental school in 2011 and that was the year when the war started and I stayed there for one year, left for Egypt for one year and didn’t stay in Egypt for longer than that. Went to Turkey for two years again and then came here to the UK in 2015 and after arriving here I claimed asylum so I am currently a refugee here in the UK. And I had to go through the process of the ORE to be able to practice again as a dentist, that’s very briefly.

​​[Jaz]
No but I like that and I’m delving deeper into it and the reason why that story resonates with me so much is because I came to the country when I was six years old from Afghanistan and I’ve been through a process of claiming for asylum and I’m so grateful to receive a British education and I’m absolutely indebted to this country but like yours is a little bit different that you came later in life but the challenges are definitely there and would you consider yourself lucky that you are here today?

​​[Yazan]
Yes definitely like I mean yes being a refugee is not fun. It’s not easy but at the same time unfortunately being a refugee in the UK it’s better than the alternatives for me so yes I consider myself lucky that I was able to come here. My asylum request was accepted and I’m surrounded by really amazing people in this country like British and non-British resident of this country are really really amazing. And yeah I’m also lucky to have came here in a relatively young age. I’m 32 but yeah I’m like it’s not too advanced in life and I’m now done with the difficult part. There are more difficult parts to come but it’s good to be done with some of it.

​​[Jaz]
Well I also want to say we had a little chat earlier before we started before I hit the record button so congratulations for your newborn son, Hassan, three months old. It sounds amazing and also recently you started a new associate position in Chelmsford right?

​​[Yazan]
Yes, right.

​​[Jaz]
That’s the one fantastic and you’ve been telling me good things about that how you’re enjoying the position but now before we get to this place where actually now you’re working in an environment that you like and although you have a significant commute you’re still happy. We need to tackle the elephant in the room which is that mammoth of an ORE exam I mean what did you- why did you move from turkey to the UK? What did you expect in terms of- what did you know already about the ORE? Did you have people to help you? Tell us a little about what you expected before you came and then when you came we’ll start from there I suppose?

​​[Yazan]
Yeah so actually just to highlight I came to the UK for a scholarship and it’s basically the foreign commonwealth office scholarship. I did a masters in public health and after that I worked in a few non-dentistry jobs and after that I thought I should really get back to my career and it’s just that it’s worth the investment in time and money to just do this scary exam that everyone talks about.

And basically I did have some help from people from my country who passed the exam before but the actual that like the more important help you can get is from people who are doing the exam at the same time or who have recently passed the exams because my friends have passed exams like three years ago, four years ago so they would forget about the nitty gritty details and even the exam sometimes they changed over the years. So yeah it’s I had some great support from great people throughout this journey and the support was mutual like we were supporting each other, we were complementing each other.

​​[Jaz]
Well, tell us about for those people who are maybe considering doing the ORE and coming to the UK for example or anyone who’s about to start that journey. What’s the first part? What’s the second part? How much does it cost? What’s the pass rate? What’s the failure rate? And then we’ll get into what it actually involves and I can tell you some stories I’ve heard from friends who’ve done ORE as well but tell us how many parts are there how many years does it take on average?

​​[Yazan]
Yeah so I will start like maybe with a general description and then we will delve into the details. So basically the ORE is two parts and in terms of time commitment because this is the first thing that comes into mind like will I spend like five years doing this or is it just few months. Basically in terms of studying I wouldn’t say it needs more than one year of full-time if you’re like dedicating yourself five days a week to studying. Then one year is enough but there are some logistical challenges that I will come into it so you should expect to spend one to two years on average to finish this exam. It might be longer but ideally I think for the majority of people they are all able to finish it in two years.

In terms of money, the money part is very important because not many people would know how expensive it is. I would estimate it to be between 10 000 pounds to 15 000 pounds and this is I’m only talking about the exam costs and the material cost, the courses that you have to do. I’m not mentioning the living cost because the living cost it’s going to be large.

​​[Jaz]
That’s variable but that’s significant as well so you raise a good point there’s the examination fees and everything around it but then the longer it takes you to pass this exam to be able to earn an income from dentistry and then there’s a longer you’re supporting a family, potentially and supporting yourself, rent you name it that sort of stuff so I completely appreciate that so what else do you want to add to that? Sorry.

​​[Yazan]
So yeah actually on top of that even this is something that people rarely mention after finishing the ORE which I will also touch upon later but it also takes like maybe six months sometimes paperwork. And sometimes finding a job could also take a few extra months so you could also consider maybe an extra six to 12 months after passing the ORE to start earning money. So this is a very broad picture for anyone considering doing the ORE, you have to have these commitments in place. Financial commitment, time commitment and the effort of course and the mentality to do this.

​​[Jaz]
That’s crazy yes and that’s crazy because I know of people who’ve done the ORE and their whole life is consumed by this exam. I need to pass this exam and now you’re saying that hey even after you pass the exam there’s so many more hurdles at that point as well. So naturally my next question is, is the juice worth the squeeze?

​​[Yazan]
I never really thought about it because in to me it wasn’t really a choice like for me doing the ORE it’s not about being a dentist in the UK, it’s about being a dentist everywhere, anywhere, because basically I can’t go back to my country and I can’t is like I can’t go out from here like I’m a refugee here even if I wanted to go back to the countries that I lived in like Egypt and Turkey now I need a visa and they’re not really granted visas so it’s about me being a dentist.

So I didn’t really have another choice but now that I’m thinking about it after having gone through it, it’s definitely worth it. It’s difficult, it’s time consuming but once you’ve done it like yeah it’s just maybe one or two years and that’s it. It’s done and it’s not a horrible two years. You enjoy many parts of it, you hate some parts of it but it’s a journey like any other journey.

​​[Jaz]
Did you enjoy the learning, the re-learning? Did you enjoy that?

​​[Yazan]
Weirdly, yes I did and I learned many new things. I enhanced for example my communication skills massively during the ORE even my hand skills. Like I used to have like good hand skills but I can’t say that I significantly enhanced my hand skills like practicing on the mannequin, on fake teeth even I learned the indirect vision technique so just like working looking at the mirror only this is something that we don’t really do it much in Syria or it’s not at least it’s not taught in our universities. So I learned that here I’m very happy that I’m able to do this now very comfortably I mean.

​​[Jaz]
For someone listening right now and they know about the ORE already and they know about people who sat there ORE. None of what you said the last 30 40 seconds will be surprising to them but in case someone’s listening right now and you already have a BDS from a uk university or us or whatever and you’re listening and you’re talking about mannequins maybe they haven’t appreciated the following which is the number of people who do the ORE they actually here, they source and they buy their own mannequin head and a motor and a handpiece and they’re there like in their garage like practicing and stuff for hours and hours and hours for the practical element of the exam.

So you guys pretty much yeah you do really delve deep into the clinical hand skills the repetition and I can see why I mean anyone even if I had the opportunity for two three months have a mannequin head some models and just practice preps for three months? Of course you would improve so there is that beauty of it I suppose. Is there anything you want to add to that in terms of any advice you want to give someone already with regards to purchasing a mannequin, where do you even buy one I mean eBay or?

​​[Yazan]
No, most people buy used ones and this is what I did because it’s cheaper and you don’t want to spend a lot of money and basically it’s just people passing and then like selling their own but some people would prefer to buy new ones. And if you can comfortably afford new ones it would be definitely better. There are specific companies here that are known that provide specific stuff for ORE so I don’t know if you want me to mention.

​​[Jaz]
Yes, mention it because it’s definitely going to help someone. I mean there’s no commercial interest but we can help people.

​​[Yazan]
Yeah definitely. There are MR dental for example they are the most famous providers. There was a new company that also started and it’s based in London but I forgot its name.

​​[Jaz]
You can email me I’ll put in the show notes yeah because people will so go to protrusive.co.uk/ore and you’ll be able to find all the resources that Yazan can help us with hey was it helpful because I found it helpful to like when I was moving to Singapore for example to find a Facebook group for that or whatever would you, do you guys have like a secret ORE club on Facebook?

​​[Yazan]
Yeah we do actually. Yes there is one well there is one big group for part one I think it has like 8000 members so it’s a huge group and yes people can post questions there you get answers so this one is really helpful. For part two there are few Facebook groups but I don’t know why they’re not that helpful. They have different mentality but-

​​[Jaz]
Do you think it’s competitive? Do you think it’s because people are now feeling like they’re competing against each other maybe?

​​[Yazan]
I think yeah partly I think that part two groups, Facebook groups, they’re owned by different providers of courses so this is probably why but while the part one group I don’t think I don’t know who owns it I don’t know if really it’s owned by someone. So yeah.

​​[Jaz]
Okay that’s very interesting so you must send us this thing so people can join these groups. That’d be amazing again. I’ll stick that on the website. So tell us you apply to your part one. So part one’s purely written break the exams for us.

​​[Yazan]
And actually I forgot something because I didn’t really go through it before even part one at part two, there are two small issues. You need an IELTS and you need an overall score of seven and a score of 6.5 in each subsection like reading, writing, listening, speaking. So I know people struggle a lot with this. For me I already have had my IELTS because I came here and studied for a master in public health. It was expired so I just communicated with the GDC telling them like look I have a master from the UK and I have my expired IELTS and they accepted it. They requested some sort of preference but there are some rooms there because I see a lot of questions asked about the Facebook groups, about different people having different things to document that they have really good English. So it is possible sometimes if you have an expired IELTS or maybe.

​​[Jaz]
To bypass it?

​​[Yazan]
Yeah exactly. So because I know one of my friends, he spent two years to get the ielts degree and then one year for the ORE. So for him the IELTS was more challenging than the ORE itself and I think just getting that specific grade is enchanting, not sure why exactly but there is something in there. So yeah this is something to consider.

​​[Jaz]
You know I imagine, Yazan, that the exam is, how do you say this exam, this English exam. How do you say it? What’s it called?

​​[Yazan]
The ORE?

​​[Jaz]
No the English, the one, how do you spell it?

​​[Yazan]
e-i-l-t-s. Okay international English language examination.

​​[Jaz]
I’m with you. So I imagine that that’s like it’s not like it’s probably a complexity whereby if the majority of the public in the UK did it a lot of them would probably fail. Like that’s what I can just imagine it being like that because it’s like if someone does a nationality exam like half of the people in the UK probably just fail it because no one knows that stuff unless you’re studying for it but anyway that’s yeah a side thing so yeah it’s a very good point ray so you have that hurdle to cross. What’s the next hurdle?

​​[Yazan]
A very small one but you also need to send your documents to the GDC and this could take basically, it shouldn’t take much. It should take like once you send your documents to the GDC, the general development council, they come back within like a month or two but sometimes people struggle with the paperwork. It takes them several months to prepare the paper works. But in my opinion there aren’t many like a huge amount of paperwork, just the reasonable ones and then the logistics for example part one, it’s run, well pre-covid it was run twice a year. Once in April and once in august and the opening to register to the exam and the registration open eight weeks before or two months before the exam date.

So you have a really small window. You have to have your papers ready for your IELTS ready everything, ready before the opening of the exam. And for example if you miss the august one, the next one is in April the next year so that’s almost eight months of waiting. So it’s something also to consider.

​​[Jaz]
And so this is once you apply and you do it and you’ve got eight weeks left until your exam and you’re studying and this is a purely written exam?

​​[Yazan]
So part one it’s mcq, so multiple choice questions. So you don’t really write anything. There is a computer that you just read the question and you read the answers and you choose one answer, sometimes you might need to choose more than one answer for some questions but yeah that’s basically it runs over two days. It has paper A and paper B and you need to pass both. Well, paper A is more focused on what we called applied, applied science something like anatomy and physiology, the basic science while the paper B, it’s more focused around the clinical like for example prostho, perio, endo questions. But you might get like anatomic questions and paper B and it’s not really like a clear cut in there and you have one day break between the two papers and you need to pass both papers but passing like to pass part one you need to answer 50 of the questions correctly so I would say that’s easy one. Like if you have prepared for the exam just to get 50 of the questions that’s really not difficult.

For me I prepared for four months and it was enough for me. It doesn’t need to be like I see people would like to spend one year preparing for part one because it’s a huge like if you think about everything we learned in dental school over the five years. It’s a huge amount. If you want to perfect it, yes you need maybe one year or two years but you don’t really need to perfect it you just need to study the popular topics. So I would advise people not to overdo it with part one.

​​[Jaz]
So maybe practical advice there is if someone’s thinking hey you know what I don’t feel ready for part one but they’re a dentist, they’ve got their degree from India or Pakistan or Syria or some of that and so they’re a dentist but they don’t feel confident your advice is just do it.

​​[Yazan]
Yeah exactly. At the same time I see people who would like to study at the night of the exam and go to the exam and I would really advise against that. I’ve heard of people passing, doing that but think of the time investment, the money investment because of the part one it’s like 900 pounds, it’s a lot of money and you will need that money believe me. Even if you fail then you have to wait several more months to just do it again. So wire is to prepare I would say at least three months and in my opinion a maximum of six months would be enough for this exam and to know what to study because it’s very broad but at the same time there are known topics that they’re kind of repeat or they’re kind of.

​​[Jaz]
Recurring themes.

​​[Yazan]
Yeah exactly and the things that you’re not very strong of, for example if you had an endo question like most of us are likely to answer it correctly without really studying anything but for example if you ask me now about anatomy I might not be able to answer this question without revision.

​​[Jaz]
You mean like kidney function and it could be liver function and it could be like that sort of stuff as well okay interesting so very important. So okay let’s move on you’ve passed part one hooray. You celebrate, you call your family this has happened. It’s very good. What’s next?

​​[Yazan]
Okay now the serious bit starts well, the good thing is that you’re halfway through. You finished like a huge part of the exam now just the final step is remaining but it’s a difficult step. It’s where you spend most of your money, most of your energy and also it could be when you spend most of your time as well. For part two basically it’s four exams in one exam. The first it’s called the OSCE. I think it’s an abbreviation for can you help me with that?

​​[Jaz]
It’s an objective structured clinical examination.

​​[Yazan]
Yes, so it’s basically a test of your communication skills. Well it has many parts but most of it, it’s an actor sitting in a room acting like they are the patient and you need to enter the room and to speak to them for example ask them questions to diagnose a problem or even explain a diagnosis or explain a treatment plan and then.

​​[Jaz]
It sounds like mfds. Like we, well I’ve done mfds and we had OSCEs and it was all pretty much a communication from one I remember from the mfds part two. So is it the all ten stations or how many of the stations there are? They’re all communication based?

​​[Yazan]
Yeah 20 I think but some of them would be written and some of them would be skilled OSCE. So for example to do a suture or to place a rubber dumb and so there are like different pieces. The second part, it’s called the diagnosis.

​​[Jaz]
I just want to ask you before we move on to each because I like this format that you’re going through each part. So out of difficulty, how difficult do you think the OSCE is?

​​[Yazan]
Well I think it’s medium difficulty and mostly because many people would fail the OSCE and this is partly because of the way some people prepare for it. It has to be spontaneous, you need to really communicate with the patient or with the actor, you need to actually forget that they are actors you need to think of them you just-

​​[Jaz]
And that’s what you just said you forgot you’re in the zone. This is why you pass exactly.

​​[Yazan]
I’ve seen people just focusing on the information and what they need to tell the patient and just memorizing what they need to say to the patient before entering and it doesn’t really work like this. It doesn’t really matter like no it matters what you say but I mean what matters most is how you say it, how you explain it. Is it simple to understand, are you just constantly speaking and explaining things like yeah the actor will not really appreciate that.

So just forget about everything. If you’re in the exam forget about everything you learned and just enter the room, communicate with the person in front of you because they might tell you different things, they might tell you weird things. It doesn’t really matter, just communicate with them and make them feel appreciated and listen to them and-

​​[Jaz]
It’s a good tip.

​​[Yazan]
Then I’m sure you would pass these stations.

​​[Jaz]
Brilliant. So then that’s on day one for example or is it half the morning or like half a day or a whole day okay? Then what’s next?

​​[Yazan]
Maybe two hours I think they will feel like five minutes but it’s two hours.

​​[Jaz]
Definitely been there.

​​[Yazan]
The next day it’s the mannequin, which is the money cutting exam which is the most difficult example and basically in this exam you have to do three tasks. One is made sorry…Two is made considered major and one is considered minor and you need to pass each one of them to be able to pass the manika. And so for a major for example to prepare a crown and you need to do this indirect vision technique so you can’t like clean and look. No, you have to all the time just look in the mirror and just prepare it and even for one second leaning is not really acceptable so no direct. I mean yes you can do direct vision if you can see like this but you can’t lean forward.

Another major exercise is also to prepare for class two. This is a very common class two cavity and does an amalgam filling on a different tooth. A minor exercise could be something simple like take an impression or do an access cavity. So things that are simple but the tricky part in the mannequin is that they don’t evaluate your whole performance. They evaluate each like if you do a cavity they will evaluate this cavity if you fail in that cavity you fail in the whole exam in the whole world. So that’s the difficulty.

​​[Jaz]
The stakes are high.

​​[Yazan]
And the other difficulty is the stress. This is the most important factor you need to manage, your stress and I failed my first attempt in the part two because of this and I just got so stressed that I almost fainted and I’ve never fainted or almost fainted in my life. Although like I was near death several times in my life because of the war. I was close to getting kidnapped maybe two or three times, isis like I’ve been through many things but they didn’t scare me as much as this exam.

It’s really scary, it’s really stressful. It was difficult and I knew that beforehand I knew that I had to manage my stress. I didn’t really do that very well but in my second attempt I just entered the exam. I said you know what I really don’t care anymore. I’m just tired of those whole exams. If I fail that’s fine I’ll try again. A third attempt in January and we’ll see how it goes but I’m just tired of stressing out.

​​[Jaz]
So that’s fantastic advice I think because if someone can listen to this and then just learn from, I hope you don’t mind me saying this learn from your mistake because or learn from, you not passing the first time around and just learn from that and remember that hey you know what Yazan said in that podcast not to stress because stress will put my body in not the right state to pass the exam. So it’s very honest of you to say that. So I really appreciate you sharing that with us all. So you think, you believe that the stress was a major reason and was it like a major or a minor one of the clinicals that you failed because of the stress?

​​[Yazan]
I’m not sure why, like I’m not quite sure why I felt to be honest but generally my preparation on that day wasn’t as good as I usually prepare it wasn’t horrendous but it wasn’t perfect. They look for perfection. That’s the thing I might have made few minor mistakes but generally my preparation was a bit not as good as I usually do and another actually factor that is really important is we practice at home on our mannequin, on our motor, on our handpiece for like six months then we go to the exam and the settings are slightly different that when you press the pedal the speed is different, the cutting speed it’s really different though the way the teeth even respond to the handpiece, they are different.

So that was also a little bit shocking to me so that helped me in my second attempt to know what to expect. My advice is in part two you will be doing mock exams for the manika. Try to go to different places for the mock exam. Try to be out of your comfort zone because I noticed myself doing amazing preparation at home but when I go somewhere else for a mock exam for example it’s not as good, it’s still good but it’s different because the setting is different an-

​​[Jaz]
Environment will be different.

​​[Yazan]
Yeah and some of the mock exam providers have equipment which are very similar to the exam and equipment so try also to make sure you go to these ones so you can test because in exam it’s usually the cutting speed is usually more it’s usually faster than what we use at home. Even for the slow handpiece they really cut in at a very slow speed but it’s much more cutting so-

​​[Jaz]
I can definitely use one of those at work right now. I think that would be good. That sounds very good to me actually I quite like the sound of that hand piece. But no you’re right to have a more familiar setting would really help you. I can totally appreciate that. So the second time around you passed the sort of the mannequin challenge mannequin challenge, I don’t mean to say mannequin challenge obviously you can call it the mannequin challenge. What’s after that?

​​[Yazan]
So that’s on the second day. Now the third day you have two exams at the same time one is called diagnosis and treatment planning, where you also it’s from the name you have a patient, you enter the room, you need to communicate with them like taking medical history, social history, dental history and of course their chief complaint and you only have 10 minutes for all of this and you need to write it down at the same time you need to be as comprehensive as possible but at the same time need to be reasonable with the time like I saw many people try to ask all the questions that they have to ask and it doesn’t really work like this for example for the pain questions there’s subcrates-

​​[Jaz]
Subcrates.

​​[Yazan]
Yes exactly. Some people would go to the room and they try to ask every single question and in my personal opinion it doesn’t really work like this. Like if you ask a few questions and you’re able to diagnose that it’s an irreversible pulpitis let’s just move on. It doesn’t really matter if you cover the whole questions and yeah basically part of it is communication with the patient. Part of it is actually diagnosing and putting a very comprehensive treatment plan for the immediate term and long term and after that to communicate this to the patient and convince them of the treatment that they have to go through.

That exam, it’s actually on one hand, it’s difficult because it’s one hour it’s actually 54 minutes but you get a lot of information from the actor who will tell you a lot of information so we don’t have enough time to deal with it. So most of it is about time management but in my personal opinion the marking it’s not that tough it’s easy to pass it. I would say don’t worry it sounds intense but it sounds like it’s still possible.

​​[Jaz]
But it sounds very intense though yes it sounds like the main power there is manage your time and be efficient instead of instead of going through the entire Socrates going all the way to the e to the s at the end to once you get your diagnosis be a good communicator and then get the mark, get the past that station and move on.

​​[Yazan]
Yeah again and similar to OSCE, just communicate with a person in front of you like you don’t need to cover all, you need don’t need to tick all the boxes but what you need to do is to have an actual conversation with a person in front of you because these I think are valued very much by the examiners because all of us can diagnose, all of us can write treatment plans but the tricky thing is to communicate.

​​[Jaz]
Okay so you’ve got that one and what’s next? That was the third one?

​​[Yazan]
Yes the third one and on the same day the fourth one which are mythical emergencies. This one is relatively easy because you don’t have anything like it’s known that medical emergencies you have heart attack, asthma attack.

​​[Jaz]
I think as long as you learn the recess document that’s it right? If you just learn that research documentary inside out.

​​[Yazan]
Exactly so you have to really know it by heart and not just do it for the exam, for real life because you might have someone in the clinic fainting and you need to deal with their life threatening condition. So it’s worth the investment in time. The good thing about this exam is that, like you know what to study, it’s limited. They will ask about these things and that’s it. So if you know it you will easily pass it. But it’s not like yeah the questions sometimes could be tricky so you need to really-

​​[Jaz]
It’s a written exam?

​​[Yazan]
No it’s like an interview okay and some of it you need to give CPR.

​​[Jaz]
Okay yeah.

​​[Yazan]
And the other tricky thing about the ORE is basically you need to pass all four exams. To pass the part two so if you for example pass everything and you fail manika like I did you need to redo the whole thing again and I’ve seen people sometimes like maybe I heard about a few cases people like for example failing their market in the first time and then in the second time they passed. Everybody came but they felt they’re asking so it’s like they failed again but for a different reason so you need to make sure that you pass the four elements to be able to pass part two.

​​[Yazan]
How long after you sit the fourth and final exam do you get your result?

​​[Yazan]
It takes four weeks.

​​[Yazan]
Oh my goodness oh my god four weeks. That was the most painful four weeks ever but we the four weeks is stressed but like it’s out of your way but we all remember passing dental school and that wait until they until you get find out until you know you get your finals results or whatever so I can sort of empathize with you in that sense yeah. Four weeks is massive. They just do it to tease you, they just do it to tease you they already know by day two. It’s all electronic, they’re done already, they just say how did you feel 28 days.

​​[Yazan]
They actually put the marking on the day so I don’t know what takes them four weeks it’s same for part one actually they take it takes them four weeks although it’s all on the computer like we press the answer on the computer and then it like they can immediately.

​​[Jaz]
They’re just trying to delay you, they’re just trying to delay that’s the only causal explanation. I’m sorry to hear that but let’s get, so amazing you’ve mentored someone through this journey, they’ve passed the ORE something that’s been consuming their entire life. They’ve spent all their time, money, energy, livelihood, thinking, practicing, learning for this exam but then the struggle is not over. This is why I admire you and anyone who’s been through ORE so much because I really admire the hard work that it takes and it the journey continues so hopefully you get the result that you want and you passed. But then there are some more challenges so just next the final part of the podcast tell us what challenges can you expect once you pass the ORE finally?

​​[Yazan]
Yeah so that’s the thing that you don’t, you’re not done by passing the ORE but of course you’re done with it with the difficult part but before moving to that I just want to highlight another thing that I think is really important to highlight some logistical challenges with the ORE is booking the exam. I would say this is the worst thing about the exam because basically spaces are limited and there are many people who want to apply for the ORE and as I mentioned there are only for part one there are only two settings per year. So what is actually happening and what has been happening for the past few years, maybe three or four years, is that the exam opens usually on a certain day 2:30 p.m. 2:31 or 2:30 and maybe in two seconds it’s fully booked so-

​​[Jaz]
Oh my god.

​​[Yazan]
Yes so basically you need to refresh the page at 2:30 exactly and what happens with many people is that the screen will show no exam to book or exam hasn’t opened yet they refresh the page and it says exam fully booked.

​​[Jaz]
That is terrible!

​​[Yazan]
That’s true.

​​[Jaz]
I mean this is like a Beyonce concert, they you hear like in seven seconds it goes this is like oh my goodness I never knew that you don’t even think as an outsider that this applies but this is so disheartening. This is like you’ve been preparing for this exam your whole family. Your livelihood depends on it and you have to there’s this extra dimension of pressure.

​​[Yazan]
This is the worst. I would say this is the worst because this is something that you can’t really control at all and it’s not within your hands you’re just sitting there and trying to refresh and hope for the best. And I know people who like this are extreme but I know someone who maybe spent two years waiting so that’s horrible. So yeah that’s even for part one and part two. So this is something also to factor in your calculation expect that there might be delays outside of your control and just have a plan B for example if you can’t book the exam just know what to do in this extra time.

​​[Jaz]
That’s a very fantastic point you made because I had no idea about that. I mean I’ve heard of so many different challenges and obviously the challenge we’re going to come on to now and shortly about how to find your job and stuff but sorry you’re going to say something?

​​[Yazan]
Yeah and I mean we tried to just want to highlight that we tried to sign petitions and communicate with the GDC but unfortunately they were saying it’s first come first serve but it can’t be first come first serve when it’s like he didn’t get the chance to click a stupid button like that’s not so if anyone out there who can like help with solving this issue please do because this is just so horrible.

​​[Jaz]
I 100% agree with you man. I 100% agree with you and hopefully someone will listen and do something who knows you never know okay you never know so I appreciate that so wow what a challenge you just told me about there. So you’ve passed your ORE after the vigorous process of even getting a damn place on the exam like a Beyonce concert and now this added challenge of actually getting work, finding work. So what’s the requirement like what’s the rules?

​​[Yazan]
So before even getting to that you also need to again send your papers to the GDC. It’s actually the same papers that you said the first time but they requested again.

​​[Jaz]
How can we delay these guys even more?

​​[Yazan]
I don’t know even the ielts they requested again and there are some few extra bits and pieces that you need to do not necessarily related to your registration the GDC for example to make sure that you have vaccinations. So blood tests for example to have a CPR course for example like yeah there are so many different bits and pieces that yes basically it takes several months just to be done with the paperwork and yeah some people would take them like a very lengthy process like six months some people will finish it within like few weeks. So I heard my friend finished it in like I think 10 days and that was it so it’s different from what the person told me.

​​[Jaz]
That’s like the GDC clearance of the ielts and the paperwork and everything like that and so that’s an extreme example of but you as you said it can take up to six months to just get your paperwork in order and all that stuff.

​​[Yazan]
Yeah exactly and after that you have to apply for work and again it’s very difficult because well basically you have two options, you can either go to the NHS or go to private. Now many dentists who pass the ORE would prefer to go to work with nhs but there are reasons-

​​[Jaz]
Why, Yazan? I don’t understand what’s this attraction to the NHS why I don’t see it?

​​[Yazan]
I don’t think it’s really attraction I think it’s-

​​[Jaz]
Maybe not feeling? Is that what it is?

​​[Yazan]
I mean going through the ore it’s mentally difficult because you are a dentist you have several years of experience but someone out there is telling you no you’re not worthy you need to go over through this lengthy process and they challenge you and they put you through like very difficult experience so I think what happens to most of us including myself that we start to doubt ourselves, we feel that we’re not worthy of private we’re not good enough, so it’s just it feels safer to go to nhs I think this is what’s happening.

But there’s also another difficulty like even like going to nhs like doing the door it will take you maybe two years at least sometimes three four years like in my situation yes for going through the whole process maybe took one year and a half till I passed not till I finished my paperwork but maybe two years with the paperworks but before that I had to come here to the okay I had to settle, I had to earn some money, some income to be able to go through the ORE so basically this whole process took me around four years so this means that I have four years gap, four years of not touching a patient.

So it’s really difficult for employers to employ you in a private practice where you have this lengthy gap. So that’s also another factor and even yourself like you feel that yes I have good hand skills now. I worked in Dominican for several months but I haven’t touched a patient in several years and it’s difficult. But my advice is don’t really doubt yourself it’s fine you are a dentist you have experience yes you might do stupid things at the beginning like yes for me the first patient that I touched I was just retracting the jig so hard because I’m used to the mannequin cheek and it’s rubber and I need to drive to dreary heart so it’s like the lady just told me like you’re attracting my cheek so hard I just realized that I said oh sorry but that was it you know yes it’s fine we’re humans we make simply click exactly right? Not a big deal. So wow this is in terms of the private.

Now the other option is to go to the nhs but to do the what is called the VTE or vocational training or now it’s called PLVE they keep changing the names but now there’s a new rule that if you want to go and do that well if you want to work in nhs you need to do the plve or the vte but in order to do that you should have at least three months experience in the past two years.

​​[Jaz]
That doesn’t make sense because you just told me that the average person will take two years maybe longer to even get the damn exam passed, paperwork and stuff and you’re not allowed to work as a dentist during that time but then they suddenly say hey you know what we also want you to have experience how?

​​[Yazan]
Well yeah many of my friends finish the exams and they wanted to go to nhs but so far I think nobody was able to do that since they passed this new law it’s just becoming impossible so the what some people are suggesting I saw that on WhatsApp group is to go back to your home country and spend their three months practicing dentistry and then come back. But first this is like after going through all of this you need us to go back to our country and to practice. Second this option is not really available for everyone my personal estimation is half of the people doing the ORE refugees. So for me like I can’t go back to Syria of course.

​​[Jaz]
Oh my goodness please don’t. I’ll let you take a tooth out of me. I’d rather you do that than to go back to Syria, my friend.

​​[Yazan]
Yeah exactly this is not an option actually for many of us so for me it was like impossible to go to the nation. So I had to go work in private but after working in private for three months like I mean yeah I have a job why would I leave it to go and work in NHS like yes it would be great but I already have a job I’ve committed I signed a contract so it’s like it’s a bit weird and the reason behind it is that it’s about the safety of the nhs patients which is also doesn’t really make sense how about the safety of the private patients and also does it mean that the ore is not good enough like why did we have to do it then like it the whole thing it really doesn’t make any sense.

​​[Jaz]
You raised a fantastic point there. When did this law come in or when did this rule come in that you had to have this, do you know when it came in?

​​[Yazan]
I think 2019, maybe 2019 like 2019. No I think it’s yeah late 2019 or beginning 2020.

​​[Jaz]
2020 has everything bad that can happen even to ORE people 2020, covid throw in this three-month rule everything oh my goodness. So are you also subject to this three-month rule or not?

​​[Yazan]
Yes of course but for me I wasn’t seriously considering the nhs but I did think about it but it wasn’t really an option so I just rolled it out but even if you have this the the process to apply for the plve/vte position it’s very lengthy. It’s very tedious process it takes between six to 12 months to apply it for to start working so what happens to people that they finish the ORE and they spent another year just either paper works or applying for vte position and like we need money we need livelihood, we have families and it’s just horrible. What most people do is they work as hygienists which is rewarding financially but after having gone through all of this tedious process is just yeah it’s just another unjustifiable hurdle.

​​[Jaz]
I’m completely with you. I just want to say wow like just wow just hearing that I mean the reason I got you on and the reason I’m choosing to shout about this topic and help people is because I know people like you and shout out to my good buddy Chanted who’s now working in the northeast he’s been through this grueling process. So I’ve always appreciated how difficult it must be but you know what you told me today has just increased my level of respect for you guys like even more like it’s just amazing I salute you. So well done. But just so I think people are listening to this and people maybe if you’ve listened all the way this far into the episode you’re probably about to do your ORE or you’re doing your ORE or you’re going to do your ORE. They want to know what’s on everyone’s mind at the moment is how did you get a private job?

​​[Yazan]
I don’t know. I think I was lucky. And seriously, I was lucky. And I was a bit bold. I think I just applied to jobs while I was preparing my paperwork and I actually got an interview and I was like I almost didn’t go because I seriously didn’t think that I would get it but the reason that I went I hope my employer doesn’t listen to this. The reason that I went is that I wanted to practice interviews. I never ever thought that they would grant me the job so it’s so yeah I was lucky enough to get this job. The thing is it was a practice that was newly opened so this is also a small tip for new practices there. There usually aren’t many patients, they’re not usually fully booked so that would be an easier access for us who finished ORE and it’s also give us time to get back to work like you get to take extra time dealing with patients. So that’s a really good start.

​​[Jaz]
I would say I agree that sounds like a good scenario so it’s a win-win. You said you were lucky. I disagree with you. I mean you make your own luck right? You made the decision to be bold enough and being brave enough to apply. Yes you went for the interview experience but they obviously liked you for who you were competitive delegates so I wanted to say it’s not luck it’s you but I think the take-home point from that is don’t. Stop doubting yourself, stop doubting yourself apply for the private positions if you can do and a great pearl you shared is to maybe go for a squat practice a brand new practice that maybe your income will not be so high initially or because your patients will not be there but that suits you perfectly because you can spend a bit more time extra 15 20 minutes here and there will mean so much when you’re coming out of ORE and you’re practicing on patience again.

​​[Yazan]
Exactly, it helps a lot.

​​[Jaz]
Amazing I think we’ve covered. I didn’t have to look at my questions even once because it was just a flowing conversation and I didn’t have to look at my questions at all. So wow you did everything in which case my last thing to ask you is the microphone is yours my friend. What do you want to say to the people who are obviously very interested in this topic because they’ve listened all the way to this point, what do you want to say to them?

​​[Yazan]
And if you are preparing for the ORE. It’s very doable. It’s very difficult but again it’s very doable just know how much commitment it needs in terms of finance, in terms of money, in terms of even like mentally and psychologically. It’s not easy for example not to be able to the exam or to fail the exam that for me that was the first thing I ever failed in my life but it made me stronger in a way and it’s fine to fail like many people don’t really pass it from the first time it’s completely fine and don’t over stress about passing from the first time and except that it is what it is and just do it and advice for.. sorry you wanted to comment?

​​[Jaz]
I just wanted to say what so I never asked you what’s the percentage pass rate?

​​[Yazan]
For part one I would say it’s relatively high. I think it’s maybe 60-70 percent. I forgot exactly how much but also take into consideration that many people, not many people but some people who apply for part one they’re not really preparing for it so it’s actually for those who prepare I would say it’s much higher if you prepare really well. Your chances are almost certain in passing the part one.

The part two ranges between it’s different from exam to exam but it’s around I think 35 to 50% so not as high but if you take the higher number 50 percent it’s not horrible. It was in certain years maybe 10 years ago because I looked at the statistics and it was as low as nine percent. One year it was 90% and I think at that time the highest passing rate was 20 percent. So now people are able to pass but maybe 10 years from 10 years ago it was much even more difficult so it is becoming more and more doable.

​​[Jaz]
Fantastic. Brilliant. One more thing. Please share with us.

​​[Yazan]
Yeah my other thing is for those who are listening to us and who haven’t gone through the ORE, if you are in an employer or if even if you’re not an employer don’t look down for those who have done the ORE like I might sometimes say stupid things I might forget some things like for example I studied dentistry in Arabic so sometimes I just forget the names of things and I just say like you know calcium hydroxide but I don’t really remember the brand name that is used in this country.

​​[Jaz]
Yes I did the same thing today. Listen, I’m UK trained. You know what I did okay I can’t believe you’re saying this because the same thing happened to me today. So my nurse Zoe she’s probably watching this actually if it comes up on instagram hi Zoe. So Zoe, what I did today was I was about to fill the canal with the non-setting calcium hydroxide I said can I get some non-setting calcium hydroxide and she looked at me blank and I was like crap are we finished? I was like okay I have to use Ledermix then right? I’ll say if you don’t have that. Can I have ledermix. She goes do you mean Hypo-cal? Yes I mean hypo-cal yes and even I did the same thing my friend. So don’t worry man.

​​[Yazan]
Yeah so it happens and we’re not perfect but we are like colleagues, we are dentists and we’re not listed. We might not know certain things in this country, we might not fully know all the regulations but we are good enough to hire.

​​[Jaz]
You 100% are and you guys are you know you are human you are you’ve been through such a grueling process I mean it’d be interesting to experiment one day like imagine we took a dentist the average dentist in UK and we just said hey you’re going to sit ore exam today I would be fascinated to know how many of us would even pass because it’s a serious examination I mean you go to labs and look at the preps that go in you can look at my own prep they’re not amazing to be honest with you. I bet your preps are better than mine she wants to do because of the practice that you get so I think it’s a grueling exam and I definitely echo your sentiments that if you’re listening somehow and you are in a position to hire someone don’t look down on the ORE grad give them kudos for passing such a crazy exam and help them out in that way. If you feel as though they are good enough don’t say that hey they’re the best candidate but I’d rather take someone with BDS or whatever look at them as an individual.

​​[Yazan]
Yeah and also if you can’t think of anything else to support I know some people are considering some training programs or whatever anything that you can support it would be greatly appreciated and it is much needed because there isn’t much support out there.

​​[Jaz]
That was very useful, yes and I hope you feel that as well that the information that you shared today had you had access to this two years ago I’m hoping that you would have gained from that. So thank you for spending time away from your wife and from Hasan to spend this evening with me to help people. I really do think you’ve helped people a lot so keep doing what you’re doing I wish you all the best success in our country and you are one of us and we are grateful that you came and you can now share your expertise and look after the patients in the best way you can so thank you so so so much, Yazan.

​​[Yazan]
Thank you for hosting me. It’s been a pleasure.

Jaz’s Outro:
Well there we have it such a fantastic guy Yazan is such a sweet guy I mean he was a joy to interview and joy to speak to I really loved his story and his drive and I’m so happy he was able to find a private job like wow I mean I’m so pleased for him so well done Yazan. You really gave so much knowledge away I’m sure you’re going to help hundreds if not thousands of dentists who may be sitting registration exams for other registration bodies around the world.

If you want to download any of the resources or find out the different Facebook groups or different courses there are supporting people who want to see the ore exam then just go to the show notes on protrusive.co.uk/ore and you would find everything there and again subscribe to the newsletter if you found value from this share it to someone who may be sitting the ore or is even thinking about it let them learn the journey the best thing to do is share this episode with them so I really appreciate all your support guys thank you for listening again all the way to the end I’ll catch you in the next one.