Basic Dentistry Research Articles

Dentistry on the Burma Railway - the story of Captain David Arkush.

This article tells the story of Captain David Arkush who was a dental officer in the Army Dental Corps during World War II. He was posted to Singapore in 1941 and was present at the fall of Singapore when he was subsequently captured by the Japanese and became a prisoner of war on the Burmese Railway. Living conditions were horrific but he was able to provide basic dentistry during this difficult time. The following is a first-hand account of Arkush's story, as told in his own words. The material came from recordings of an interview with Arkush in 2011 when he was 96 years old. Some of the dates have been altered to allow for historical accuracy, but all other details have been reported as told.

The contrastive analysis of the characteristics of dental education in Australia and China

The dental education system and the training mode of dentists have a crucial influence on the quality of national dentists. Since 1960s, Australia has been constantly developing its dental education system, and now a mature and efficient mode of cultivating dentists has been formed, that is, bachelor degree of science being the prerequisite, four-year doctorate courses in dental medicine to produce general practice, two-year clinical experience and three-year doctorate courses in clinical dentistry to produce specialists. The dental courses in Australia are mainly composed of four parts: basic dentistry, life science, clinical dentistry model and research. The courses are characterized by a larger proportion for professional courses and an earlier time point for students to step in clinics, the co-culture of clinical and research skills, etc. The assessing method is case report, which means they put greater emphasis on intersection of clinics and lectures. We can learn a lot from their education system. The author compared and analyzed the dental education system of the two countries from background, course length and inclusion criteria, course design and etc, and came up with advice on dental education system of our own, hoping to provide Chinese dental educators with inspiration. Key words: Australian dental education; Chinese education of stomatology; Comparison

Establishment of a dental license regulation authority is required in Korea: results of the Delphi technique.

PurposeIn addition to dental education, a system for the evaluation and management of dental licensing and certification is required to meet the growing societal demand for more competent dentists. In this study, the Delphi technique was used to gather opinions from a variety of professionals on the problems of and remedies for the dental license management system in Korea. MethodsDelphi surveys were conducted from April 2016 to October 2016 in South Korea. A variety of dental professionals were included and categorized into 3 groups according to their expertise as follows: the basic dentistry group, the clinical dentistry group, and the policy group. The Delphi technique was conducted in 3 rounds of e-mail surveys, each with different questions that probed with increasing depth on the dental license management system. In each successive round, the responses were categorized, scored on a Likert scale, and statistically analyzed. ResultsAfter categorizing the results of the first survey and ranking the results of the second survey using the Delphi technique, regulation by a licensing authority was found to be the most critical issue. This was followed by the license renewal system, continuing education, a tiered licensure system, improvement of foreign license approval, and utilization of retirees, in decreasing order of importance. The third Delphi survey showed a similar ranking, with regulation by a licensing authority being the major concern. Opinions regarding the dental license management system were provided as open-ended responses. The responses of the 3 groups showed statistically significant differences in the scores for the issue of regulation by a licensing authority. After re-grouping into the dentistry group and the policy group, the issue received a significantly higher score in the dentistry group. ConclusionThe quality of dental treatment should be managed to protect patients and dental professionals. For this purpose, the establishment of an independent license regulation authority along with legislative changes is required.

An epidemiological study to assess the knowledge of dentists, general medical practitioners, and non-medical graduates on oral hygiene aids and the availability of such products in Pune City

Background: Oral hygiene is a highly individualized concept, the perception of which is very much affected by an individual's knowledge. Oral hygiene is the single most significant factor when it comes to the prevention of periodontal diseases. This greatly depends on the proper selection and use of home care oral hygiene aids. The concept, importance, and practice of different home care aids in oral hygiene maintenance is expected to be easily understood by all literate members of a population, irrespective of their profession being medical or non-medical. If non-dental health care providers were to play a role in oral health promotion, it is necessary that they demonstrate good knowledge in basic dentistry and practice good oral care behavior. Aims and Objectives: The aim of this study is to assess the knowledge of dentists, general medical practitioners, and non-medical graduates on home care oral hygiene aids and the sources of their knowledge. The study also aims to assess the availability of the different oral hygiene products in the pharmacy stores. Materials and Methods: For the first part, the study population consisted of three groups in Pune city, which are as follows: Group I: 200 registered dentists Group II: 200 registered medical graduates Group III: 200 non-medical graduates For the second part, the study population consisted of randomly selected 200 registered pharmacy stores in Pune city. The questionnaire was chosen as an appropriate methodology as it can be used to obtain standardized information. Results and Conclusions: The dentists had the maximum knowledge of oral hygiene and oral hygiene aids. They not only practiced the oral hygiene methods but also encouraged others to do so. Oral hygiene aids are much in demand among the population, but aids that are deleterious to the oral health are also available over the counter.

Family dental health care service

The Family Dental Health Care Service is a new approach that includes efforts to serve oral and dental patients that focuses on maintenance, improvement and protection. This oral and dental health approach uses basic dentistry science and technology. The vision of the Family Dental Health Care Service is the family independences in the effort of dental health maintenance and to achieve the highest oral and dental health degree as possible through family dentist care that is efficient, effective, fair, evenly distributed, safe and has a good quality. To support this effort, the Ministry of Health has issued Health Care Policy and Implementation Guideline as well as the licensing standard for family dentist practice.

A study of the structure of specialties in medicine, dentistry and pharmacology

In order to clarify the structure of the specialties of medicine in a broad sense, this study was conducted through counting “Se” items in “Directory of University Professors and Researchers in Japan 1984”. The findings are arranged as follows. 1) As a measure showing the compound of specialty, “hybridity” is defined by the rate of the number of the researchers who minor in the specialty (i.e. the rate of “Se” items) and its varieties, and then represented graphically. 2) By analogy with citation analysis, the relation among specialties is diagramed by 2 step mapping method.As a result, the specialties of medicine in a broad sense can be divided into following three groups; high-hybridity group mainly composed of the specialties of basic medicine from immunology down mid-hybridity group composed of the specialties of internal medicine, surgery, basic dentistry and pharmacology, and low-hybridity group composed of the specialties of other clinical medicine and clinical dentistry. Furthermore one-way or two-way allows and the strength of the links in 2 step map indicate to which and in what matter a certain specialty is related.In spite of some methodological restrictions, these results will give us a lot of knowledge on elucidating the structure of specialties of medicine.