THE DENTAL SCHOOL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18768, 23 January 1923, Page 3

THE DENTAL SCHOOL

TO THE BDITOB. Sir, —The progress of New Zealand is regulated by the results of its educational system. Therefore no scandal should be tolerated in any University College. The Dental dchool can only be classed as a scandal. Built to accommodate 25 students, it has been patched and patched, and now nearly four times that number of students are herded within its walls. The Dentists’ Act of last year provides three qualifications to practise dentistry: (1) After graduation at the New Zealand University or at one of similar standing; (2) 150 odd persons who have been practising dentistry, but not been on the Dentists’ Registrar, are entitled to a University examination, without a University training, on a Public Health Department’s certificate of general education; (3) the product of the Dental School in Wellington, whose women, after a two years’ training, may perform dental work in any public dental service. The Act enjoins, under stringent penalties, that only those entitled to practise shall give even very minor dental attention. The dentist is most adequately protected, 'mo Homo authorities have so broadened dental training that oven a rearrangement of our secondary schools’ syllabus will hardly enable a student to complete his training in four years. Dr Mayo, in America, lays it down: “It is more important for the dentists to have ■a good foundation in medicine and anatomy than for the oculist to have it, because in the mouth will bo found evidence of more diseases than in any other region of the body. I believe the doctor, the veterinarian, and the dentist should all take the same course for the first two years of their college work, and after that take separate courses in the study of their professions. There is Ho use trying to better the practice of dentistry and have persons go into it without any idea of it except the mechanical side.” 'the medical man has had no special training in dentistry, while the dentist’s training has been too narrow to enable him to specialise successfully on the mouth. Hence the wholesale extractions in the endeavour to eliminate focal infection. An Act like the Dentists’ Act should be for the protection c£ the people. From a public health standpoint dentists must be trained, and well trained. Our Dental School from its staffing is in a position to_ turn out well-trained dentists. Two of its former students are University professors. It is a blot, and a bad blot, that the public purse can afford a Dental School for 30 women in Wellington, yet for the University training of three times this number—a training that really protects the public, the staff, the students, and the public (i.e., the patients) are housed under conditions that constitute a scandal. — I am, etc., Frank Armstrong.