The Need for Dental Ethicists and the Promise of Universal Patient Acceptance: Response to Richard Masella's “Renewing Professionalism in Dental Education”

Abstract

Richard Masella's "Renewing Professionalism in Dental Education: Overcoming the Market Environment" reveals why professionalism is nearly dead in America; it also shows the good of commerce and the excesses of commercialism in the market. More importantly, it collects and summarizes most of the relevant forms of education currently available to teach professionalism and professional ethics in dentistry; it then briefly examines whether those forms of education are used and if they are effective. Masella also asks some key challenging questions. His select and limited references lead to deeper studies about the nature and definition of professionalism and how it might be learned and presented. His suggestions for renewing professionalism are minimal; this sets the stage for proposing and selecting other ideas that need attention and development. Some of those ideas and suggestions, such as competition and collaboration, four types of dentistry, understanding two conflicting meanings of desire and need, and universal patient acceptance were recently explored in a workshop, "

Consumed by prestige: the mouth, consumerism and the dental profession

“…(Lyons 1983, p. 16) The concern that professionalism in dentistry is being eroded by commercialism has been echoed since by many others. Notable contributions include Masella's (Masella 2007) statement on the need to overcome the market environment of practice, Botto's (Botto 2007) anxieties around the proliferation of the market mentality within dental practice, and Patthoff's (Patthoff 2007) statement of a need for more ethical discussion within the profession to combat excesses of commercialism. Chambers (2006) considers that commercialism may have brought positive advances to the practice of dentistry.…”

Association between emotional intelligence and professionalism among dental hygiene students

“…For dental educators, professionalism includes the often implied values, virtues, and characteristics that guide the practice of dentistry in the promotion of oral health. [2][3][4][5] For patients, professionalism is defined by the demonstration of excellence and effective communication skills, commitment to humanism and service, and perceived clinical competence in the form of effective management of duties, and skills. 6 For dental hygiene students in Japan, professionalism was perceived, in their cultural context, as a multifaceted judgment of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and public professionalism.…”

Overtreatment as an ethical dilemma in Australian private dentistry: A qualitative exploration

“…An examination of how the academic literature in dentistry reconciles this relationship between professional and commercial obligations exposed a lack of empirical exploration of this tension 2 . Commentaries on commercialism in dentistry have suggested that commercialism is a negative influence, citing issues such as predatory advertising, 3 increased professional competition 4,5 and a transactional attitude to care 6 as chief concerns. A transactional attitude to the provision of care differs from the dynamic of the accepted professional paradigm established within the dentist‐patient relationship.…”