Subsequent month, the Universiti Malaya (UM) College of Dentistry will rejoice its golden anniversary.
Having produced 46 batches of dental practitioners since 1976, it continues to serve the nation by providing postgraduate coaching in lots of dental specialties.
The formation of the school was first mooted by second prime minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, with the goal of offering oral care to a inhabitants of barely greater than seven million within the Nineteen Seventies.
Assuaging the burden of oral illnesses particularly amongst schoolchildren and the poor, and addressing the scarcity of certified dentists have been prime elements.
On the time, lower than 1,000 educated dentists have been registered with the Malaysian Dental Council (MDC).
Alongside the school’s progress was the emergence of 12 different dental faculties, 5 of that are in public universities, specifically, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia and Universiti Teknologi Mara.
The others have been established by non-public establishments, specifically, AIMST College, Mahsa College, Worldwide Medical College, SEGi College, Lincoln College School, Penang Worldwide Dental School and Melaka-Manipal School (now often called Manipal College School Malaysia).
The latter two started their choices as twinning programmes with dental faculties in India. All these establishments are recognised by the Malaysian {Qualifications} Company (MQA) – beforehand often called the Nationwide Accreditation Board (LAN) – by way of rigorous processes of accreditations and reaccreditations, that are essential to allow their graduates to be registered with the MDC. The Well being Ministry, too, performs checks and balances to make sure graduates from these establishments are clinically and socially competent to practise protected dentistry. So far, there are roughly 11,000 dentists within the nation, with a dentist-population ratio of 1:5,000 in Peninsular Malaysia, and 1:11,000 in Sabah and Sarawak.
However college students, dad and mom, institutional companies and public departments proceed to ask recurring questions comparable to: Do we now have sufficient dentists to serve the nation? Will we now have extra dentists flooding the job market? Ought to we overview the enrolment system?
The truth is that 9 in 10 adults polled in quite a few nationwide surveys nonetheless expertise caries and periodontal illnesses, the 2 commonest infectious oral illnesses; eight to 10 enamel of younger kids aged 5 and beneath are cavitated or contaminated; 40% to 70% of major and secondary schoolchildren have painful cavities; and 94% adults undergo from gum illnesses.
As well as, latest research have proven a hyperlink between lacking enamel and colorectal most cancers.
And there are points comparable to growing circumstances of oral most cancers, jaw and facial bone fractures, in addition to oral-mental well being issues related to trendy residing.
Can the variety of dentists within the nation thus meet the present calls for?
One other issue to contemplate is the prevalence of smoking, which not solely impacts the lungs, however may result in oral most cancers.
There are 4.7 million Malaysian male people who smoke and a few of them are as younger as six years outdated.
Provided that poor oral well being has an impression on persistent illnesses, together with diabetes, and coronary heart and respiratory illnesses, it has resulted in a change within the curriculum of dental training the place dental college students are required to be taught inside drugs and holistic administration of normal illnesses.
Apparently, whereas the norm to calculate dentist-to-population ratio has been based mostly on the entire variety of registered dentists and the entire inhabitants of the yr, a 2016 research utilizing the Geographic Data System (GIS) selected to determine the present variety of dental clinics-to-population ratio within the geographic areas as a substitute.
Utilizing the 2016 census information, the researchers discovered that for each public dental clinic, no less than 38,000 sufferers are catered for, whereas for personal clinics, the ratio is 1:13,000.
Simplistically interpreted, the report indicated that whereas dental public clinics are extra evenly distributed all through Peninsular Malaysia, geographic constraints are boundaries to accessibility in Sabah and Sarawak.
Coupled with that’s the anxiousness to hunt dental care, an space needing optimistic social media assist to quell the general public’s concern of dental visits.
The notion that personal clinics are extra saturated in main cities with larger inhabitants densities could no extra be related sooner or later when Malaysia acquires the developed nation standing, the place the accessibility and affordability hole is predicted to shrink.Certainly, one should be cautious in claiming “there’s greater than sufficient or adequate dentists” to serve the ever-increasing various Malaysian inhabitants.
That the nation will see a rise within the ageing inhabitants needing particular companies by 2030 requires a overview of the dental curriculum.
Because the latest GIS research urged, it’s well timed for related policy-making companies to overview holistically points {of professional} maldistribution and mislocation, to extend services, manpower and accessibility, and to optimise companies, amongst others.
There’s additionally a necessity to take a look at motivating college students to pursue dental training at each fundamental and specialty ranges.
In brief, it’s time “to suppose out of the field” to organize for extra challenges and align with trendy expectations.
PROF DR RAHIMAH ABDUL KADIR
Registered dental public well being specialist Adjunct professor, Universiti Malaya
