Editorial - Saudi Dental Journal

ISSN (Print) 1013-9052
EISSN 1658-3558

The Saudi Dental Journal,
P.O. Box 52500,
Riyadh 11563,
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Tel.	966-1-467-7328
Fax.	933-1-467-7308 / 966-1-467-7534
Email	saudidj@ksu.edu.sa

Editorial

Looking Far Into Future Of Dentistry

In 1945, at a dinner of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, England, the well known English statesman late Sir Winston Churchill was credited with the statement *... the longer one looks back, the farther one sees into the future". Put simply, the statement could mean "Learn from history so that you may be a visionary". Applying this vignette to dentistry, there is a whole lot to expect or hope for as we prepare for the next millennium.
In 1992, the FD1 decided to declare 1994 the World Year of Oral Health and, most appropriately, the World Health Organization (WHO) resolved to dedicate the World Health Day, 7th April 1994, to Oral Health. These resolutions are open affirmation that Oral Health is an integral part of general health care. Needless to emphasize, the universally declared WHO goal of "Health for all by the year 2000" includes dental health in all its aspects.
The question that may then be put is: How would past events shape the future of dentistry? By past events one must include the ever increasing expectation of informed patients, government and public health policies, curricula of undergraduate and postgraduate dental education, professional remunerations, changing patterns of oral diseases, the cutting edge of health care technologies, primary health care philosophy, disease prevention and health promotion. These are broad aspects of health in general and dental health, in particular about which we have learned so much in the past and on which volumes have been written.
Despite these events, the question could still be validly asked: What is the future of dentistry in Saudi Arabia? A reasonable answer would be that the future is brighter. How can this be accomplished? Most probably by the profession accepting philosophically that prevention of disease is the highest quality of care that health providers could give because it offers the greatest protection to all patients. The condition for achieving this is that the undergraduate and postgraduate dental education in Saudi Arabia would need to adapt their curricula to address more efficiently the integration of the dental team into the primary care team. There must be enhanced coordination and collaboration between dentistry and primary care in clearly identified areas - education, training and research, disease prevention, health promotion, curative treatment, comprehensive patients records, and integrated health care conferences, symposia and workshops. The attraction of creating and sustaining more dental specialties must be questioned and preferably replaced by a smaller number of specialties which are grouped together because
they are cognate. More and more specialties (and the so-called subspecialties), although certainly glamorous, should not be the preferred solution to a more relevant future of dentistry.
A greater and committed attention should be paid to health care management, health technology and informatics in both undergraduate and graduate dental education. Today in Saudi Arabia, dentists (men and women) are being successfully trained in what appears to be a geometrically increasing numbers to meet the perceived needs of the country. Many of these professionals especially those with postgraduate qualifications are bound to occupy academic, government and quasi-government positions where they will influence public policies on oral diseases prevention, curative, as well as continuing care. A unifying action philosophy, tied up with primary health care, will facilitate executing these policies.
If the dental profession is not afraid to look back and learn from its past deficiencies, mistaken assumptions, exaggerated claims and questionable contrived needs, the profession may see the future more clearly and thereby prepare better strategies to achieve its goal in the next millennium.

Hezekiah A. Mosadomi,
DMD, DABOP, FAAOP, MS, BS
Editorial Board Member