Basic Medical degrees (MBBS in India) are comprehensive medical training for the entire human's body and skill of diagnosis and managements of any derangements. Basic medical degrees teach simple oral examination for dental care and also give clue to the health of other systems. Dentistry does not need much of the rest of the body. Attention of teeth is needed throughout the life time, but more so in childhood & advancing age (say after 40 yrs). There are countries which give basic degrees based on the human systems or age of the clients eg. Pediatric, Geriatrics, Adolescence health etc. after an initial 2 years of learning basic medical sciences like Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, Biochemistry and Microbiology etc. Basic Dental care does not need more details of functioning and sicknesses of all other systems, therefore, clinical skills of diagnosing and managing other function of the body are not required.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that dentistry should be a subspecialty of medicine (just like nephrologists specialize in the kidney, cardiologists specialize in the heart, etc.). But dentists have to be both diagnosticians and surgeons. They see men and women. They deal with the very young and the very old and everything in between. They see acute emergencies and routine check-ups. They may deal with infections, pain, bleeding issues, and they may encounter relevant medical conditions that involve things other than the mouth (i.e., heart valve replacement, etc.). They have to interpret X-rays without the assistance of a radiologist. And so on and so forth.

For that reason, dentistry is not only historically, but practically, more than a subspecialty of medicine. It is its own independent discipline. No physician — not even a general practitioner — would ever have to deal with such a breadth of patients on a daily basis, acting in so many different roles and with such a wide variety of problems. It really does take a specialized training to prepare them for all of this.

Opthalmology, with its quite separate eyeball, lens, refractive error with related physics of light, photo-coagulation, topical therapy etc, appears to be a more separate and confined branch than dental medicine. But the dental field is treated quite separately.

Is it just because it has been traditionally like that? Considering the increased emphasis on quality and safety for consumers of health services, the tradition may need changing. If one fears it increases the duration of training, the same consideration may be applicable to many other medical branches.

With the increasingly stringent requirement of proper specialist training and revalidation, education and training have become a more continuous process, lasting almost to retirement in any medical field.

Dental students must first learn to consider the whole person, before they concentrate on their speciality. I see no reason why dental education should not be a specialization, like any other medical specialization, after basic medical graduation only. I feel the issue deserves further discussion.