Societal Expectations and the Profession\u27s Responsibility to Reform the Dental Workforce to Ensure Access to Care for Children

Societal expectations raise the issue of the nature of a profession and a profession\u27s relationship with society. Influential policy leaders want reform of the oral health workforce and delivery system in such a manner as to ensure that improvements are made for accessing care, particularly for vulnerable and disadvantaged populations, especially children. This essay is based on a presentation to the House of Delegates of the California Dental Association on Nov.13, 2009

Developing and Deploying a New Member of the Dental Team: A Pediatric Oral Health Therapist

There are inadequate numbers of dentists able and willing to treat America\u27s children, specifically children from low income and minority populations. This has led to the well-publicized disparities in oral health among children. In the early part of the 20th century New Zealand faced a significant problem with oral disease among its children and introduced a School Dental Service, staffed by allied dental professionals with two years\u27 training in caring for the teeth of children, school dental nurses. A significant number of countries have adopted the model. This article reviews the history of attempts to develop such an approach in the United States. It advocates for the development and deployment of pediatric oral health therapists as a means of addressing the disparities problem that exists in America with such individuals being trained in children\u27s dentistry in a two-year academic program. The article asserts that adding a pediatric oral health therapist to the dental team is one way in which the profession of dentistry can fulfill its moral obligation to care for the oral health of America\u27s children and ensure that all children are treated justly. Recently, the American Association of Public Health Dentistry promulgated a strategic plan that endorsed such an approach

Alfred Owre: Revisiting the Thought of a Distinguished, though Controversial, Early Twentieth-Century Dental Educator

Many in dental education are unfamiliar with the professional life and thought of Dr. Alfred Owre, a distinguished though controversial dental educator in the early twentieth century. Owre served as dean of dentistry at both the University of Minnesota, 1905-27, and Columbia University, 1927-33. He was also a member of the Carnegie Foundation\u27s commission that developed the report Dental Education in the United States and Canada, written by Dr. William J. Gies. Owre was a controversial leader due to his creative and original ideas that challenged dental education and the profession. His assessment and critique of the problems of dental education in his era can readily be applied to contemporary dental education and the profession, just as his vision for transformative change resonates with ideas that continue to be advocated by some individuals today. This article also documents his tumultuous relationship with Gies

Ethics and the \u27Seasons of My Life\u27 as a Dental Educator

Perhaps the first comprehensive ethics program in American dental schools was created in 1990 at the University of Kentucky by then dean David Nash. Nash recounts the emergence of his personal and professional interest in ethics using the structure of Daniel Levinson\u27s book The Seasons of a Man\u27s Life. Each season brings tasks of evolving and deepening ethical engagement. Being ethical is important; helping others to be so is special. Nash still teaches the course

A Larger Sense of Purpose: Dentistry and Society

Dentistry is undergoing a subtle shift away from being a profession to becoming a business. The two cultures of professionalism and business are contrasted. Among the forces driving this change are the emphasis on esthetics in dentistry and the increasing inability of a large class of patients to access dentistry on a business basis. The shift toward dentistry as a business entails the unhealthy transition toward regarding patients as means to satisfy the dentist\u27s ends rather than patients\u27 health being an end in itself. Dentists run the risk of objectivifying rather than humanizing patients. This trend must be overcome with a larger sense of purpose; placing dentist\u27s self-interests within the larger context of enlightened self-interest