GAP Australasian-Dentist-May June 2019

Category 110 AustrAlAsiAn Dentist Introduction i’m a dentist and i have been in practice Victoria since 1973, trained in Adelaide, took various traineeship positions around Melbourne with various practitioners, and also spent two years at the university of Melbourne in the endodontic program. since completing my basic degree, i have operated a general practice in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs and opened and closed practices throughout Victoria all of them succeeding to be viable businesses and providing reliable dentistry. in the early part of the 1970’s i was approached by a major health fund to become part of a preferred provider scheme, something i knew little about but what appeared to be a good idea both for patients and for the practice. shortly after that i began what was known as the very first the union supported dental practice in the city based on a HM0 organisation in united states this achieved great numbers and also provided me with a great education into the business of dentistry . in between times i was invited to study major dental practice business models in Canada and the us, both of which were totally important to what was to come. if you would have told me that the age of 68 i would be writing an article of general interest concerning the future of this wonderful profession i probably would have laughed in your face. However we now see how dentistry has moved sideways and back down and sideways again and back down and now continues to slide back down. We now have way too many dentists for the population, we have way too many dental practices in too many suburban locations supporting and providing dental care to an ever decreasing amount of the population. And if that were not enough we now have a population of graduate dentists who cannot find meaningful work and who, in many cases, lack the basic training afforded to dentists from the 60’s 70’s through to the 90’s. What does all this mean? it means that when a private practice that wants to employ a graduate the opportunity to hire someone with basic skills is either limited at best or impossible. if a busy private practice wants to hire a dentist the first time in as long as i can remember there are dentists available to hire with any reasonable amount of skill. Add the impact of overseas dentistry becoming more and more prevalent – and supported by one of the major health funds; the impact of tourism dentistry; and decreasing supply and demand show that indeed dentistry may have reached some sort of pinnacle or apex. now i realise in writing this article that this may stir up the mindset of many of the established elite. that’s fine, challenging thoughts or The crisis facing dentistry now and in the future First of a three part series By Dr Harry Marget ColuMnIsts challenging given ideals is not a bad thing, however i hope that in so doing some people may sit up and say, “Well what are we going to do about this?” it is my intention to offer some suggestions and some solutions. Change for change’s sake. Before we start pointing fingers at universities or the educational institutions we may want to ask: how did we get to this point? no one is addressing the key problem – other than the call for tough decisions. it is that enough to just say that as the downturn hits we need to reduce our expenditure? Do we spend more time and money advertising and marketing? if as the overseas lecturers will have you believe will change the bottom line. in actual fact a classier website, a more fascinating seO, more time and money spent on add words or any of the other more in vogue techniques don’t seem to make one iota of difference. should we be spending more time and money training ourselves, should we become more proficient at doing crown and bridge, should we be the world’s best implant section? in actual fact the answer is somewhat simpler, more basic and even more ridiculous than all of that. u To be continued next edition.