Women - The missing link in dentistry?
By Claudia Salwiczek, DTI (Guest commentary)
I just returned from the Greater New York Dental Meeting where I had the opportunity to conduct a number of interviews with well-known opinion leaders in dentistry.What struck me most about the line-up was that only 1 out of the 30 professionals that I spoke to was a woman.
It is a sad fact that compared to other fields in medicine dentistry is still predominantly a male profession. There are exceptions, of course, such as Dr Catrise Austin, a New York-based dentist, who I recently met to talk about her decision to offer free HIV tests to her patients. Or Dr Bo Chen from Beijing, who I met at the P-I Brånemark symposium in Sweden where she presented a revealing study on patient satisfaction figures with facial and orofacial reconstruction. Unfortunately, though large in impact, these developments and ideas do not usually receive the recognition they deserve.
However, what these examples also demonstrate is that women often tend to develop solutions that are socially applicable and that offer benefits for all members of society; a fact endorsed by a recent World Health Organisation report. In the study on Women and Health, the question was also raised why women generally have to carry much of the health care burden while getting hardly anything back. It may be time for women, especially those working in medical and dental professions, to step up and make their message heard.
It may not happen overnight, but with more and more women overtaking high political and economical positions, it will be difficult for dentistry to hold up to its Boys Club status for much longer. I certainly hope that when I return to New York in 2010, there will be a larger share of female dentists to speak to.
