Navigating a complex system: understanding the unique challenges of transitions for UK dental graduates during Covid through a multiple and multi-dimensional transitions theory's lens

Al-Yaseen, Waraf and Innes, Nicola ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9984-0012 2026. Navigating a complex system: understanding the unique challenges of transitions for UK dental graduates during Covid through a multiple and multi-dimensional transitions theory's lens. Jindal-Snape, D., ed. The Palgrave International Handbook of Multiple and Multi-Dimensional Educational and Life Transitions, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 421-443. (10.1007/978-3-032-11145-6_21)

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Abstract

Moving from dental school to professional practice is a pivotal and multifaceted journey, leading to multiple transitions. This chapter explores the experiences of UK dental graduates as they move from the structured environment of dental school into the realities of clinical practice. Framed through the lens of the Multiple and Multi-dimensional Transitions (MMT) Theory, the study investigates how various transitions—professional, personal, organisational, and cultural—interact to shape graduates’ identities, behaviours, and confidence. This is one of the first studies to apply the MMT framework to dental education, using qualitative longitudinal methods, including semi-structured interviews and Longitudinal Audio Diaries (LADs) with two graduate cohorts. The findings offer insight into how these concurrent transitions unfold and influence one another during the early months of practice. The study found that transitions are not experienced in isolation. Instead, they interact in complex and reinforcing ways. For example, organisational transitions—such as entering different types of NHS practices with variable levels of support—affected how graduates experienced their professional transitions into autonomous decision-making. In turn, uncertainty in clinical settings intensified personal transitions, such as managing anxiety, imposter syndrome, and identity formation. Cultural transitions—such as adapting to practice norms that prioritise targets over evidence-based care—often clashed with the professional values instilled during training, leading to moral tension and disillusionment. The COVID-19 pandemic further compounded these dynamics by disrupting continuity in training and early clinical experience, accelerating changes in delivery models (e.g. teledentistry), and heightening feelings of isolation. These overlapping pressures created a fragile environment where one poorly supported transition could undermine progress in another.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Dentistry
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN:	9783032111449
Last Modified:	08 Jul 2026 11:04
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/188029

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