REPORTED SHORTAGE OF DENTISTS

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 54, 27 November 1929, Page 10

REPORTED SHORTAGE OF DENTISTS

VIEWS OF WELLINGTON PRACTITIONER “LARGER TOWNS OVERCROWDED”. In a few years’ time, it was reported yesterday from Dunedin, an acute shortage of dentists in New Zealand is probable. A well-known Wellington dental surgeon with many years of practical experience and hard work behind his flourishing practice, smiled wisely when asked for his views on the subject yesterday. “There will always be room for a good fellow at the top,” he said noncommittally, “but at the present time dentists are all so unevenly distributed. They all try to start in the larger towns. There has been a tendency to concentrate like this for a number of years, until to-day there isn't much room left now. The larger towns have too many dentists, in fact. But it is quite different in the smaller towns. There are quite a lot of smaller towns with populations from two to three thousand people without proper dental facilities. Why don’t the newly graduated students go to them? We reckon a population of 2000 is sufficient to provide a living for a dentist. Towns like Feilding, for Instance, with a population of about ten thousand, have four or five dentists. “There is little reason for young dental surgeons crowding into already overcrowded towns, but most certanly prospects are bright in the comparatively small towns of back country districts. It should be possible to find opportunities to build up a good practice there. Besides, if a shrewd choice is made there is every likelihood of the town and its district growing, and, of course, the practice too. Why, then, do they all insist on concentrating on the larger towns where progress must be necessarily slow and costly?”