For candidates
Courses and continuing education in dental care.
Keeping up is no luxury in this profession: registers ask for it, practices select on it, and it is one of the few things that demonstrably push up your salary or rate. This is how the system works — and how to use it.
The registers: KRT, KRM and PE points.
KRT — dentists
The Kwaliteitsregister Tandartsen, the Dutch quality register for dentists, is voluntary. Anyone listed in it demonstrates verifiable continuing education over a five-year period and working to the profession’s guidelines. Practices and patients look at it.
KRM — dental hygienists
The Kwaliteitsregister Mondhygiënisten, the Dutch quality register for dental hygienists, works on the same principle: verifiable professional development over a registration period. For a profession without compulsory BIG registration, this register is the visible mark of quality.
PE points
Continuing education: accredited courses earn points or hours that count towards your register. Check before you book whether a course is accredited — not every course counts.
The exact points requirements differ per register and get adjusted; the current standards are on the registers’ own websites. BIG re-registration for dentists has its own hours requirement — that is on the BIG page.
Which direction to grow in.
Continuing education is more than collecting points. The directions practices explicitly ask for in vacancies and interviews:
Prevention and perio
For assistants the best-known route: from dental assistant to prevention or periodontal prevention assistant, with your own schedule time and a higher salary band.
Radiography and safety
Radiation protection, hygiene and safe working: the basic courses practices ask for as standard. No glamour, but immediately usable.
Specialisation for clinicians
Implantology, endodontics, periodontology, gnathology: differentiations practices actively search for. What that market looks like is on the dentists page (in Dutch).
Who pays for the training?
There is no legal rule for this — it is an agreement. In salaried employment many practices pay for courses and give time for them, but nothing is a given: put budget and study time explicitly in your contract. Self-employed, you pay for everything yourself, out of your rate — so factor it in when you set that rate. And with secondment, training is often precisely part of the package of the secondment agency; ask about it.
Honestly: “we value development” in a job advert does not yet mean a budget. Ask for the amount, the study time and who chooses the course. A practice that makes that concrete means it.
Training as a negotiating point.
Two sides of the same coin. A well-filled register and recent courses are hard evidence in a salary or rate conversation — you show what you keep up and what you can do. And when you move, a training budget with study time is just as much a term of employment as the salary itself. We include it as standard in the conversations we conduct for candidates; what you can do now is keep track of what you have done in recent years — that overview is worth gold the moment it matters.
Frequently asked questions.
Is KRT or KRM registration compulsory?
No, they are voluntary quality registers. BIG registration is compulsory for dentists. But voluntary is not without obligation: practices and patients look at it, and being in the register shows your continuing education is in order. See also the BIG page.
Who pays for my training in salaried employment?
There is no legal rule for this — it is an agreement between you and the practice. Many practices pay for courses and give time for them, but nothing is a given. Put budget and study time explicitly in your contract, not just the salary.
Do all courses count towards my register?
No. Registers work with accredited continuing education; check before you book whether the course is accredited and how many points or hours it earns. The registers themselves publish which training counts.
How do I use my training in a salary conversation?
As evidence and as a condition. Evidence: a well-filled register and recent courses substantiate a higher salary or rate. Condition: with a new employer a training budget with study time is just as much a term of employment as pay — ask for it before you sign.
You have invested in yourself — cash it in.
Create your anonymous profile. We put your courses and registrations next to what practices pay — and your name stays with us until you say yes.