Our e-newsletter last week on “purpose” generated a lot of feedback — some good, some bad, some scathing. I frequently receive feedback all along the spectrum — from “thanks for telling the unvarnished truth,” to “you are a scum-sucker trashing dentists.” But one of my jobs is to point out the obvious.
What I wrote in the e-NL was not an accusation. It was an assertion. An assertion is defined as a confident and forceful statement of fact or belief. The fact is that more than 7 million kids don’t receive dental care, and the caries rate continues to accelerate in an untreated population. Over 133 million people in the U.S. do not have access to dental care. It’s not that dentists are bad — in fact, just the opposite. Nearly all dentists are good people, and most are value-driven: trying diligently to contribute to their community and committed to doing the best dental work possible. But the fact remains: As a profession, there is not a driving force to eradicate caries as a disease that affects millions and millions of people.
In medicine, there is a strong drive to reduce the cost of care and frequency of visits, particularly for chronic diseases. Healthcare costs are eating up our GDP. Medicine is beginning to align its financial incentives to reduce the number of visits and costs per visit. This can be seen in the way the medical community has restructured their payment system, compensating stakeholders on outcomes and value rather than pay-per-procedure delivered. Reducing the severity of disease so it costs less overall is the goal. Dentistry is not following this model.
Is there a similar driving purpose to reduce the cost and frequency of dental disease? I say no, which supports my assertion about the true purpose of dentistry. My assertion, based on the obvious evidence, is that the purpose of dentistry to “repair dental disease for money.” Directed by this purpose there is no incentive, no commitment to eradicate the disease. This is neither good nor bad, it’s just the way it is.
There are, however, exceptions that exist in dentistry. Here is one dentist whose purpose is to address dental caries globally. Check it out. It’s obvious what his purpose is.
S. Duffin <[email protected]>
Marc:
How do you treat 7,000,000 kids in the U.S.?
Here is a new idea, visit www.nodk.com
Best wishes,
Steve Duffin
Dental Director
NoDK, LLC
Oral Health Outreach, LLC
— Marc
