The Dumbing Down of Dentistry

Abstract

I have written about this before and I am sure I will write about it again. The dental schools are in trouble and, therefore, dentistry is in trouble. The experts tell us we need more dental schools – especially in rural areas to not only retain, but also attract dentists, to these regions. While an admirable goal, at what cost will this be achieved? The established dental schools in Australia have a solid, sound and proud tradition of academic excellence involving teaching, research and service. Some of the “new-age” dental schools, often with affiliations to less traditional academic institutions, appear to have no such ethos. A recent article published in Campus Review ** Gilling J. Taking dentists to the people. Campus Review. 1 December 2008. quoted one senior Australian academic as advocating the concept of moving away from full-time academic appointments in dental schools to mixed or blended appointments of hiring local dentists to do most, if not all, of the teaching. While on the surface this may seem reasonable, I am concerned over the qualifications and experience of these new wave academics for university teaching and research and service. While local dentists may have considerable clinical experience, how can we be sure they are at the cutting edge of knowledge and expertise we would expect of a “real academic”? I suspect the answer could be debatable but I doubt the majority of these new wave teachers will have been reading current top ranking and high impact journals in their supposed fields of expertise encompassing all fields of clinical and scientific dentistry. I have my reservations as to when some of them may have last attended a serious clinical update course to improve their knowledge base and clinical skills in any of the specialist areas of dentistry. While I suspect I will get “howled down” for such inflammatory statements – the truth hurts and we must accept the simple reality of the situation. These schools are likely to be staffed by technical experts but by no stretch of the imagination true academics at the forefront of the science and art of their specialized field. A more sensible alternative to opening up a plethora of new-age dental schools, as suggested by another senior academic,** Gilling J. Taking dentists to the people. Campus Review. 1 December 2008. would have been to utilize the existing expertise of the existing schools and rotate students to rural settings under the guidance and supervision of mainstream academics. The time has come for the profession at large to consider the real ramifications of the dumbing down of dentistry. The dental schools, both traditional and new age, are suffering from a staffing crisis. There are very few young academics in training and even fewer appropriately qualified individuals available and willing to step into academia. The obvious sequelae to this is that in the not-too-distant future academic positions will be filled by under-trained and under-qualified staff who will not be able to compete and survive in the overall university environment. We run the risk of returning to the apprentice training scheme of eons ago. I strongly believe that a dental school may well be clinically strong but without a strong research base it will be nothing. Think of the “great dental schools” in the world and you will quickly see that their reputation comes from their research not their clinical excellence. The clinical excellence comes as a secondary factor to the research excellence. With the demise of academics capable of undertaking serious research, clinical work at the forefront of each discipline and providing service to the profession by way of postgraduate training and continuing education, it is obvious that this has the potential to lead to the dental schools being sequestered off from traditional universities as they will no longer be able to fulfil their obligations to warrant status as bone fide university departments. Who will take them? The only options available will be to either privatize the dental schools, realign them with the so-called “new-age universities” or see them engulfed by technical training colleges. None of these should be palatable options for our profession. I hope the future proves me wrong. However, if my predictions are correct then the dumbing down of dentistry will be a fact and something that we will all have been responsible for allowing to happen.