Dentistry webinar puts perimenopause support into workplace focus
Perimenopause is often managed in silence, but the impact rarely stays private for long. In a dental team, symptoms can affect concentration, confidence, sleep, mood, stamina and communication, all while the individual is expected to keep pace with patients, appointments and the pressure of a busy clinical day. A forthcoming Dentistry.co.uk webinar, No more ‘grin and bear it’: celebrating perimenopausal colleagues, is set to tackle that reality head-on by reframing perimenopause as a workplace issue as much as a personal one.
The session, led by writer, speaker and facilitator Kate Codrington, is designed to normalise and validate the experience of perimenopause across its physical, emotional and cognitive dimensions. Rather than treating symptoms as a source of embarrassment or disruption, the webinar aims to position perimenopausal colleagues as professionals whose experience, judgement and patient-facing skills remain valuable to dentistry. That approach matters in a workforce where performance is often measured by steadiness and composure, even when underlying symptoms are making both more difficult to sustain.
Perimenopause is not a single pattern with a single trajectory. Symptoms vary widely, and the same person may move from manageable periods to disruptive cognitive fog, poor sleep, mood changes or physical discomfort without warning. In a clinical setting, those fluctuations can alter how a staff member experiences the day: time pressure feels sharper, noise feels louder, multitasking becomes harder, and emotional resilience can feel depleted by the afternoon. The webinar’s emphasis on there being no “normal” experience is clinically important because it challenges the false expectation that colleagues should simply absorb symptoms and continue unchanged.
Workplace culture often decides whether those symptoms remain hidden or are addressed early. In many teams, especially in settings built around efficiency and patient flow, a capable colleague may continue working while quietly compensating for sleep disruption, memory lapses or anxiety. The cost of that silence is cumulative. Missed opportunities for support can lead to unnecessary strain, reduced confidence and avoidable attrition from teams that rely on experienced staff to keep care safe and coordinated.
Cognitive and emotional symptoms can alter daily dental work
The webinar’s learning outcomes point directly to symptoms that can be misread at work. Fatigue may be mistaken for disengagement. Irritability may be read as impatience. Forgetfulness may be unfairly interpreted as poor attention or declining competence. In reality, perimenopausal symptoms can affect cognition, concentration and emotional regulation in ways that are entirely compatible with continued professionalism, but not always compatible with a workplace culture that expects people to push through without discussion.
In dentistry, where precision and interpersonal communication matter at every stage, those shifts can have practical effects. A clinician or team member may need more deliberate systems, clearer handovers or more flexibility around scheduling. A practice that understands this is better placed to retain experienced colleagues and preserve continuity for patients. A practice that dismisses symptoms risks losing staff whose institutional knowledge, judgement and patient relationships are not easily replaced.
The session also aims to reframe traits often treated as negative as assets to a business. What appears as caution may reflect hard-earned perspective. What looks like reluctance may be the result of carefully weighing competing demands. What some managers interpret as reduced tolerance may, in context, represent a professional who is operating under a physiological burden while still delivering care. That shift in interpretation can change the entire tone of a workplace conversation.
Open conversation can reduce the cost of silence
One of the most practical elements of the webinar is its emphasis on confidence to start a conversation about perimenopause at work. That is not a small administrative skill. It is often the difference between a colleague quietly struggling and a team responding with adjustments that preserve performance and dignity. A direct conversation can open the door to support, whether through workload review, schedule changes, informal check-ins or simply a more informed understanding among managers and peers.
History matters here too. Attitudes to menstrual and menopause health have changed over time, but slowly and unevenly. For years, many symptoms were expected to remain private, despite their obvious effect on daily functioning. Bringing this subject into a professional forum acknowledges a broader truth: workforce wellbeing is not separate from clinical quality. Staff who feel able to speak openly about perimenopause are more likely to remain engaged, supported and effective.
Kate Codrington’s background gives the webinar a wider psychosocial frame. As a writer, speaker and facilitator who specialises in menopause and ageing, she brings experience shaped by years of clinical-adjacent support work, including authorship of Second Spring: The Self-Care Guide to Menopause and The Perimenopause Journal. Her practice also extends beyond the page, with work as a nature-based Yoga Nidra meditation guide, hosting the Life – An Inside Job podcast, and more than 30 years of experience as a therapist. That combination suggests a session grounded not just in language, but in the lived and emotional realities of transition.
Why retention and respect are tied together in dental teams
The webinar’s central message reaches beyond awareness. It points toward retention, morale and the practical costs of losing experienced staff. Dentistry depends on team continuity, on colleagues who know the rhythm of the practice, the expectations of patients and the small adjustments that keep a busy day moving. When perimenopausal colleagues leave because their symptoms are ignored or their needs are treated as inconvenient, teams lose more than staffing numbers. They lose memory, skill and stability.
The focus on “what it would cost to lose them” is a useful way to frame the issue for employers. Experienced colleagues often carry informal leadership, calm under pressure and the trust of patients and co-workers. Those qualities are easy to overlook because they are not always captured in formal role descriptions. Yet they are often what keeps a practice running smoothly when pressure rises.
The webinar has also been set up as a CPD activity meeting General Dental Council requirements, with one hour of enhanced CPD and development outcome B. In practical terms, that places perimenopause within the same professional learning framework as other workplace competencies, not as a side topic to be handled privately or informally. For dentistry, that is a meaningful signal. Support for perimenopausal colleagues is not merely an act of goodwill; it is part of sustaining a competent, resilient and respectful clinical environment.
The session leaves one question in sharp relief: how many talented dental professionals are still working through perimenopause without meaningful support because the conversation has never been opened?