The changing face of dentistry?

Your recent prescient Editorial: ‘The changing face of dentistry?,’ in my view will stir much interest. It makes me think that sometimes we underplay our key role as physicians, perhaps this is because in general dental practice, and in dental hospitals, so much of our time is of necessity devoted to dealing with those two most widespread of human diseases, dental caries and the chronic inflammatory periodontal diseases.

In this context, your editorial reminds me of Barnett's editorial some years ago1 in which he observed that, in dealing with those common diseases, we were moving from a mechanical/surgical paradigm (model) to a pharmacological/regenerative one. More than that, we have to deal with as wide a range of conditions as those affecting any other part of the body, obscured as that fact may be by those so common ones. Further, the evidence is increasing concerning links between mouth and general health and disease, and how each may influence the other. Even in relation to periodontology, the concept of periodontal medicine is now widely accepted, hardly surprising given those systemic links. And there are many other periodontal diseases besides the common ones.