Dental As Anything

New dental workforce modelling projects another oversupply. But we have heard that before. The Department of Health has just released new dental workforce modelling that projects out to 2038, highlighting what they say is a stark maldistribution with an apparent surplus of dentists overall (particularly in the private sector) alongside persistent and growing shortages in the public sector. In this...

Seemingly neutral prerequisite subjects and admissions settings systematically disadvantage rural and low socioeconomic status students - a question of fairness that has workforce implications. Have you ever thought about how you were selected into dental school, and whether that process was the best way to select future dentists? Or perhaps more importantly, how that selection process shapes the...

In a country gripped by an affordability crisis, what are we doing to ensure that all Australians can access the dental care that they need? Recent news stories have shone a light on dental affordability, with many Australians flocking overseas for major dental treatment. For many Australians, dental care has quietly become a luxury — not a routine service but a decision weighed against rent, food...

Discussion on the future of dentistry invariably converges on advances in technology - whether it is new materials or equipment, or the holy grail of growing a new tooth. Things that are designed to make our lives as dentists easier, simpler, faster or more profitable. And obviously deliver better outcomes to patients. One thing that they tend to have in common is that they perpetuate the treatmen...

This podcast discusses suicide and topics that some people may find distressing. If this raises any issues for you crisis support services like Lifeline can be reached 24 hours a day on 13 11 14 A new paper just published in the Journal of the American Dental Association looked at suicide mortality amongst US dentists between 1979 and 2018. It found that dentists experienced a higher suicide morta...

In 2014 Health Workforce Australia (HWA) released a report on the future oral health workforce. It came amidst claims from the dental profession that we were facing an oversupply of dentists and calls to cap the number of dental schools and domestic dental graduates, as well as removing dentists from the Skilled Occupation List. The HWA report predicted a persistent workforce oversupply until at l...

Dental caries continues to be one of the most important public health problems in Australia, and particularly for Australian children. One in three children experience tooth decay in their baby teeth by the age of 5-6 years and 40% in their adult teeth by the age of 12-14 year, and it is the leading cause of preventable hospitalisations amongst Australian children. So early detection and preventio...

Advocacy is an important part of our role in the dental profession, but often feels like a thankless task. I recently spent the day in Canberra courtesy of the  Australian Dental Industry Association  who hosted a parliamentary roundtable on the dental industry. This week on the  Dental As Anything  podcast I give you a peak behind the curtains to hopefully gain some insight into what actually hap...

With recent talk about expanding Medicare to include more dental services, it’s worth revisiting the last time that this was done with the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme, which ran from 2008 to 2013. The scheme delivered nearly $2.8 billion in dental treatment, highlighting the value of the scheme in improving access for necessary dental care as well as evidence of pent-up demand. However, the Chro...

Opioid prescribing by Australian dentists has increased over the past decade, although the quantity dispensed has reduced. New research highlights some concerning trends with significant implications. In this episode of the  Dental As Anything  podcast I speak to Associate Professor Leanne Teoh about her latest study and the implications for the dental profession. Leanne is a pharmacist, practisin...

We make snap judgements about people based solely on their appearance, and draw negative assumptions about people with visibly poor oral health, contributing to shame, stigma and even bullying. The face is the window to the soul. Our physical appearance,particularly that of our smile, often dictates people’s first impressions of us. And first impressions flow through to behaviours – to how people...

The biggest issue with artificial intelligence isn’t that it makes mistakes, it’s that it has the potential to make mistakes at scale at the same time that people are trusting it to be infallible. Technology usually progresses at a speed that outpaces existing regulation and legislation, and we are then forced to play catch up when the cat is already out of the bag. This is complicated by a tech s...

A new study has looked at the media coverage and the implications for the dentistry, particularly in terms of societal attitudes towards dental health and the dental profession. The recent trend of dental practices promoting the use of superannuation for dental treatment has become a hot topic issue in the dental profession over the past few years. From $108 million in 2020-21 to $526 million last...

How much did you pay for your dental degree? Were you one of the lucky ones who received a free education? Did you come in during the early days of student fees in the early 1990s when $10,000 was enough to cover the tuition fees for dental school? Or are you a recent graduate or current student at a graduate entry school in a full fee paying place, paying more than $80,000 per year for your denta...

What does the Australian constitution say about the powers of the Commonwealth to provide dental services and what impact might that have on the dental profession in the context of expanding Medicare? Medicare and dentistry is in the news again now that the new Commonwealth parliament has commenced, with the Greens vowing to use their balance of power in the Senate to pressure the government to ad...

Dentistry is a $12 billion a year industry and growing, making it a valuable target for private equity investment. But what are the implications for patients when others seek to profit from healthcare? A recent article in the Australian Financial Review reported large dental chain Dental Boutique had appointed Morgan Stanley and Gilbert + Tobin to sell their business. It is part of a growing trend...

Trust is essential to the normal function of society, yet it is perhaps not something that we spend a lot of time thinking about until it’s gone. Long term data on trusted professions shows that dentists rank in the top 5 – behind nurses, doctors, pharmacists and teachers, although trust has been declining since peaking in 2017. In this episode of the Dental As Anything podcast, we discuss the imp...

In this episode of the Dental as Anything podcast I talk about our new paper Oral Health Meets Commercial Determinants: An Opportunity to Bridge Individual and Structural Approaches published this week in the Australian Dental Journal with colleagues from the University of Sydney and Deakin University . We highlight the role of structural and commercial factors, operating outside an individual's c...

New guidelines on cosmetic procedures and a statement on the use of superannuation for dental treatment have again shone the light on ethical conduct and the tension between business and healthcare. In the past week Ahpra has released two guidelines and a joint statement with the Dental and Medical boards which highlight some ethical challenges facing the dental profession. They come off the back...

What do we do when a dental practitioner breaks the trust of patients? Should we discuss that within the profession? What happens when those cases are picked up by the media and talked about in the public sphere? Should we engage in the discussion or try and shut it down. In this episode of the Dental as Anything podcast I talk about the vexed issue of the early release of superannuation, over-ser...

Health is inherently political . Like any resource or commodity in our neo-liberal economic system, some social groups have more of it than others. We also know that the social and commercial determinants of health – more than just individual behaviours – are amendable to political interventions. In this episode of the Dental as Anything podcast I talk about the history of expanding Medicare to in...

We often talk about the pros and cons of water fluoridation through the lens of benefits versus the risk of harm. But it's also important to understand the broader public health ethical considerations. Last month, Utah became the first state in the USA to ban fluoride in public drinking water and just last week a local mayor in Florida vetoed a county decision to remove fluoride, pushing back a li...

In this episode of the Dental As Anything podcast I talk to Dr Brooke Nickel , an NHMRC Emerging Leader Research Fellow at the University of Sydney School of Public Health. Brooke is an expert in evidence-based healthcare communication and decision making, with a particular focus on the issue of overdiagnosis. She recently led a study reporting on how social media posts have the ability to influen...

Medicare is meant to help all Australians access affordable healthcare guaranteeing them access to a wide range of health and hospital services at low or no cost. Except if you have a dental problem. Today is World Oral Health Day, a chance for the dental profession to steal the spotlight for 24 hours and shine a light on the importance of oral health. I’m using it to call for a seismic shift that...

Dentists. What makes us tick? For many people, a trip to the dentist at the top of the list of things they would prefer not to do. Makes you wonder why anyone would decide to be a dentist at all. In this episode of the Dental As Anything podcast we talk to dentist and author Max Lee about his new book ‘ Why am I a dentist? A search for clarity and meaning. ’ Max is a general practitioner who works...