School Dentistry.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 17017, 14 December 1920, Page 6

School Dentistry.

A good deal of tho opposition which has been displayed, towards . the Government's scheme "of dental treatment for the younger children in tho primary schools of the X>omraion Should be removed by the statement by Mr T. A. Hunter, Chief Dental Officer, which wo publish to-day. In pnrt, the criticism to which the sdheme lu? been- subjected

has arisen from imperfect knowledge o all its details, while in other direction; it has rested on a firm belief that i will bo inefficient, and thereFoxe no' economical. This belief seems to hav< been based very largely on tJhe fact thai the women who aro to undertake th( work will receive only two years' train ing instead of the four years requiret of students at the Dental School attached to Otago University. Dt. Emib Siedeberg, in an article on this subjectexpressed the belief that "these denta " nurses will not be required to do mon " t>han pass the Sixth Standard of i "public school. The result will b( " that, having once passed their denta " examinations, they will never oper "another book except a novel." Thi; criticism takes a good deal too much foi granted, and strikes one as undeservedly harsh and contemptuous. As w< understand ftho position, tho work re quired of these women will not be sue! as highly-qualified dentists aro callec upon to perform on adult patients. II ■will be much more elementary in character, since tho patients will bo, as Mi Hunter says, "tho children of the "primer classes of the public sdhools,' and therefore not burdened by th< troubles accruing from long-standinp dental neglect. The work will, indeed one imagines, be more preventive thnr curative. There seems no roason whj registered trained nurses, for such these women school dentists *■ will be, with the special knowledge gained in twe years' intensive training in dentistry, should not be fully capablo of carrying out their duties satisfactorily, that is, if these aro to be restricted to the children in tho classes mentioned. On this point Mr Hunter seems sufficiently definite, but the Wanganui Dental Association has stated that wlhen in conference w-ith the members somo twe months ago, Mr Hunter said that nurses would treat permanent molarsj and also that tho nurses' treatment would commence with five-yenr-old children, when entering tdie primers, and would continue to any age, but that septic teeth would bo treated by qualified men. This is a point upon which very much depends, and the Department's spokesman should make quite clear tho extent and nature of the dental nurses' work. Somo of tfiie rather bitter discussion that has arisen over the scheme may bo due to insufficient explanation of the Department's considered proposals. Tho discussion has been to some extent complicated, from tho viewpoint of t,he public, by the fact that the Denial Conference at Wellington decided to .support the scheme, when it 'was placed before them, by 16 votes to 7, and that subsequently the dentists in a dozen centres have asked that the matter bo reopened. It is difficult to account for this, except on the alternative ground that the Conference did not truly represent the dentists of tho Dominion, or that somo fresh features of the scheme, not presented to tho Conference, have aroused opposition. * Even Professor Piekerill, head of the Dental School, seorris to have changed his mind on tho subject, for Mr Hunter declares emphatically that tho Professor promised to support tho Department in carrying out the scheme of which he now appears to be one of the chief opponents. Further, if the Department is criticised on account of tho comparatively short term of training, two years, to bo undergone*by the dental nurses, it can point to Professor Pickerill's statement that eighteen months would l>o sufficient. At that time, apparently it was believed by tho Professor that the women would bo trained at the Dontal and Mr Hunter suggests that his changed attitude "dates " from the time when it was decided " that the training of these women "would be undertaken by tho Depart- '" ment in Wellington." That may or mny not be tho case—Dunedin, as we all know, has developed civic patriotism to a high degree, and is correspondingly jealous of any attempt to diminish the importance of its University. It is a laudable trait, bufc the rest of the Dominion must not allo-w it to interfere with tho carrying out of any scheme that is for tho benefit of tho whole community. So much has been ' said and written of this particular I schomo that tho public may be cxI cfisod if it is .a little- bewildered, i We tdiereforo suggest that tho Government should, as concisely,as possible,! make plain 'exactly what its proposals regarding tho duties of these dental nurses aro, and tho grounds on which it regards their employment as preferable to that of regularly trained dentists. Tho need for supervision of the teeth of New Zealand children is so genornlly recognised that the public, we believe, will readily endorse tho Government's scheme if satisfied of its efficiency, a point which it rightly thinks is more important than tho possible effect of the .dental nurses' work on the -practice of the average dentist, who is genorally thought to be quite capable of looking after himself. 1