Interim report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Dentistry.

  • Great Britain. Inter-Departmental Committee on Dentistry.
Date:
1944
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Interim report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Dentistry. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    190 The career of dentistry Ar. It will hardly be contested that at the present time the career of dentistry is relatively unattractive to boys and girls in comparison with other professional careers, especially medicine. We have been told that not a few who take it up do so because there is no room for them in the medical schools. The work itself is apt to appear unpleasant and of restricted scope until its scientific interest begins to be appreciated; and there is, of necessity, little scope for specialisation. Practising dentists feel that their work has not an important enough place in the mind of the public, and in the local authority dental services they complain in many cases of lack of access to the responsible committee of the authority. Many local authorities have no chief dental officer responsible for the organisation and working of their dental services. The opportunities which do exist in the career are not, it is generally felt, made as widely known as they might be, either to parents or to boys and girls when choosing their future vocation. Finally, the training is long and expensive and many parents cannot afford it for their children. 42. We have given a brief account of the profession of dentistry—a pro- fession in an early stage of its evolution, partly governed by the medical authorities, with a prospective shortage of members, and at present without great powers of attraction as a career for the majority of young people; a profession on the other hand which has, we are convinced, a great future before it if it is enabled and encouraged to progress on the right lines, and a profession whose expanded services must be fully utilised in any measures for the improvement of the national health. (ii) THE EXISTING PUBLIC DENTAL SERVICES AND THE PUBLIC ATTITUDE TO THEM The School Dental Service 43. In England and Wales there were, on 31st March, 1938, 5,091,975 children on the registers of public elementary schools and 470,003 pupils on the registers of grant-aided secondary schools. At that date local education authorities were, by the effect of the Education Act and the Board of Education’s Grant Regulations, under an obligation to provide dental treatment for public elementary school-children: they were empowered but not obliged to provide it for pupils attending secondary schools and other institutions for higher education*. At the end of 1938 the school dental staff consisting of whole-time and part-time officers was equal to 783 whole-time dentists—an average of one dentist to each 5,780 public elementary school-children in average attendance. In 1928 the corresponding figure was I to 11,300 children—a fact not irrelevant to the dental ill-health of the population, as described in paragraphs 59, 62 and 63 below. Progress towards a satisfactory staffing standard has been fairly steady but very slow and it was not until after the commencement of this war that it was possible to record that every local education authority had a school dental scheme. 44. In 1938 about 34 million elementary school-children were dentally inspected: some 23 million were recorded as requiring treatment and about 1,600,000 received treatment, though not all the treatment given was complete. Expressed in another form, 70 per cent. of the 5 million children were inspected: 50 per cent. were recorded as requiring treatment, and 33 per cent. received treatment. The acceptance rate (i.e., the proportion of those requiring treatment who received it) was 65.5 per cent. and each dentist treated on average 2,137 children. SuSE es Te St * The effect of the Education Act, 1944, is referred to in paragraph 85.