ABSTRACT
Dr. Richard Eve describes Patients' Unmet Needs (PUNs) & Dentist's Educational Needs (DENs) as a mechanism by which professionals can identify their educational needs by analysing their activity in clinical practice. Some of the PUNs may be due to the dentist's lack of knowledge or skill, and identifying them allows us to define the DENs. PUNs & DENs offer a snapshot view of our performance that looks quite widely but relatively superficially at what authors do, and this can be complemented by forms of evaluation such as audit, which look more deeply and over a longer timescale at our work. Determining PUNs & DENs not only helps the individual to recognise strengths and weaknesses, but also, if the information is shared, helps a team to build up a profile of the range of knowledge and skills possessed by its members.
