In orthodontics a complaint hits professional identity, not just mood
British orthodontist Farnaz Parvizi, in the fourth year of her doctorate, finds that a formal complaint strikes the clinician at the level of professional identity and the right to practise, not merely mood. How hard it lands depends on the culture of the institution they work in.
A complaint as a blow to professional identity
Farnaz Parvizi, a specialist orthodontist at the Royal United Hospitals in Bath and honorary senior lecturer at the University of Bristol, is in the fourth year of a doctorate on what a formal patient complaint actually does to a clinician. The research is funded by the British Orthodontic Society foundation, and the findings will be presented at BOC 2026 in Brighton from 24 to 26 September.
Her thesis is that in regulated professions a complaint cannot be reduced to an unpleasant experience. When the objection is backed by a regulator that can remove the right to practise, in Britain the General Dental Council, the clinician is defending not only a procedure but their own credibility and their image of themselves as a good doctor.
From the in-depth interviews already carried out she has identified six domains that together describe the experience of a complaint. Three have been published: the cognitive load of carrying the case regardless of its seriousness, the spill-over of consequences into other areas of life, and the challenge to professional identity and moral standards. Alongside these she follows two conditions in the institution in particular. The first is psychological safety, that is, whether a mistake can be admitted out loud among colleagues. The second is organisational justice, that is, whether the clinician is treated fairly and transparently while the case runs. Parvizi sums it up this way:
If a clinician's psychological needs are frustrated in the institution, a complaint will hit their wellbeing harder.
A quantitative phase follows, a large survey intended to test those findings on a large sample.
Context
The British regulatory framework is not the Croatian one, but the mechanism is the same: where an external body decides on the licence, a complaint carries existential weight, and the team around the clinician decides whether it passes without a trace.
For the practice
- When a complaint reaches the practice, the first move is organisational rather than legal: the colleague handling the case should not be left alone with it.
- Transferable to Croatian conditions: an internal protocol for complaints, who takes over communication, within what deadline and who informs the team, takes part of the burden off the individual.
- Not transferable: the specific procedures and deadlines of the General Dental Council. Here the framework is set by the competent chamber, so the protocol has to follow its rules.