Pemphigus Vulgaris (PV) is an autoimmune intraepithelial blistering disease involving the skin and mucous membranes. Oral mucosa is frequently affected in patients with PV, and oral lesions may be the first sign of the disease in majority of patients. In some patients, oral lesions may also be followed by skin involvement. Therefore, timely recognition and therapy of oral lesions is critical as it may prevent skin involvement. Early oral lesions of PV are, however, often regarded as difficult to diagnose, since the initial oral lesions may be relatively nonspecific, manifesting as superficial erosions or ulcerations, and rarely presenting with the formation of intact bullae. Lesions may occur anywhere on the oral mucosa including gingiva; however; desquamtive gingivitis is less common with PV than other mucocutaneous conditions such as pemphigoid or lichen planus. This paper describes the case of a patient presenting with a one-year history of painful gingival, who is finally diagnosed as having PV.

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Multi-observer assessment involves the assessment of a personʼs work behavior by more than one colleague at the same time for the purpose of human resource development and capacity building. In the medical field, multi-observer assessment is employed to provide formative feedback during regular one-on-one meetings in order to increase the professional competence of medical residents, but it is rarely used in dental medicine. This report describes multi-observer assessment of the performance of trainee dentists at cooperative-type facilities. A total of 70 trainee dentists were assessed in the present study.For method of an investigation, a supervising dentist, a dental hygienist, and a receptionist assessed the professionalism and communication skills of the trainee dentists. There were significant differences of the average scores of assessment about the professionalism of the trainee dentist by all reviewers (p < 0.01, p < 0.05). There was a positive correlation between the average scores assigned by the supervising dentist and the dental hygienist (r = 0.62, p < 0.001,), as well as between the scores assigned by the dentist and receptionist (r = 0.53, p < 0.001,) or the dental hygienist and receptionist (r = 0.78, p < 0.001). These results suggest that there is a strong correlation between assessment by dentists, dental hygienists, and receptionists. The assessment that includes the perspective of the healthcare service recipients (patients) is needed in the future.

Maintaining oral health and hygiene from infancy to old age is an important part of extending healthy life expectancy as the teeth and mouth are used to chew and swallow food. To this end, following the law on the promotion of dental and oral health that was passed in 2011, the

There has been an increasing shortage of dental hygienists in local medical institutions in the recent years. Several studies have investigated the regional distribution of dental hygienists; however, no studies have compared their distribution with those of nurses. In this report, we present the regional distribution of dental hygienists in the communitybased medical care setting and draw comparisons with the distribution of nurses and training schools. The examination numbers for dental hygienists, dental technicians, nurses, public health nurses, midwives, and assistant nurses were analyzed.We observed different trends of change in the number of workers by occupation over the last 20 years (1998 -2018) . The number of dental hygienists and nurses more than doubled during this period, whereas the number of public health nurses and midwives increased by approximately 1.5 times. There was a concomitant decrease in the number of assistant nurses and dental technicians during this period. The numbers of nurses and assistant nurses in a prefecture showed a strong correlation, with the enrolment capacity of local training facilities. This correlation was stronger than that observed between the number of dental hygienists/dental technicians and dental training school capacity. However, no corresponding significant correlation was observed for public health nurses and midwives. The ratio of the number of employees to the number of license holders showed an increase for dental hygienists; however, the corresponding ratio decreased for dental technicians.