Dental Therapy
I work shoulder-to-shoulder with people whose future occupation Minnesota is calling “Dental Therapist” — essentially what a nurse practitioner is to a physician. Unlike nurse practitioners, however, Minnesota’s Dental Therapists do not enjoy nationwide support. I hadn’t realized how little support the entire occupation has until recently. Take a look at the American Dental Association’s Comment on American Association of Public Health Dentistry Dental Therapist Curriculum Development:
We will continue to work with the AAPHD and all interested stakeholders toward the goal we all share—a healthier more productive nation. But in doing so, the Association will not erode its unequivocal opposition to non-dentists performing surgical/irreversible procedures, or to other proposals that we believe run contrary to the public good.
It is rather odd to be in school alongside someone who is being trained in “unequivocal opposition” to the ADA’s recommendation. The legislature’s idea (which has been, in turn, parroted by the leaders of our school) is that these dental therapists will be expected to serve areas of “need” where it is difficult for patients to easily access dental care. However, since there is absolutely no geographical restriction present (or as far as we can tell, planned) in their licenses that compels them to practice in a certain area, then they are free to practice wherever they’d like.
Thing is: dental therapy students are in a LOT less debt than dental students are. Extrapolation of this concept inevitably produces frustration. We don’t know if the dental therapy program will produce enough graduates to put any sort of pressure on new dentists in the market… but us dental students don’t exactly appreciate the possibility. Something similar has happened before: the UMN dental school admitted something like 50% more students than now in its classes in the 1980s. This created an excess population of dentists that took years to absorb into the market. We seem to be trending toward too many dentists (this time, minting quasi-dentists with an evolving set of legally accepted responsibilities and abilities) once again.