Lessons for dentistry from the flightdeck?

I first met Professor Trevor Burke in our local French restaurant, when we happened to be dining at adjacent tables. The conversation took off that evening, prompted, as I recall, by a natural interest in what each of us do for a living; pilot and dentist. There have been many equally lively and thought-provoking conversations over the past few years.

Trevor recently reminded me of another occasion at the same restaurant. We got into a conversation around whether any of the lessons aviation has learnt, regarding the management of safety and the development of training, could be read across to the world of dentistry. We even went so far as to make some notes of our thoughts on a napkin, aware of the fact that, like so many things, they might well evaporate unless written down. Having deciphered some of what we wrote that evening, Trevor has asked me to expand on some of the topics that we covered, with the intention of seeing whether there is value in looking deeper into some, or all, of these areas.