Rosettes will be worn, babies will be kissed and a number of us will be glad when it’s all over! I am sure that all of these things will happen; sure with the same certainty that when it does no one will look back on my prediction and consider me psychic, or even that it was a ‘lucky’ guess. Healthcare, and in particular the NHS, will feature heavily in the election build up as all the major parties seek to ally themselves with the institution which is one so important to voters. It will be interesting to see how often dentistry appears in the discussions which take place – but how many votes are there in teeth?
Another subject that is guaranteed to be debated is that of immigration; to some voters it will be the primary reason they go to the polling station. Whether it is disapproval of immigration, or judgment of those who voice disapproval of immigration, it is certainly an issue which people care about. It is not a subject reserved for the stereotypical working class manual labourer though – something highlighted a couple of years ago when it was announced that not all UK dental graduates were able to get foundation training places (one of the reasons for this was increased competition from overseas
graduates).
The discussion of immigration, alongside that of Britain’s place in Europe, is one which has a significant impact on UK dentistry. In last month’s edition Michael Sultan considered the effects of dental tourism, its potential problems as well as the opportunities it has created for patients and practices. Just after going to press with the March issue I was flicking through the TV channels at home when a minor snooker event in Poland, The Gdynia Open, caught my eye. The tournament was sponsored by Kreativ Dental Clinic, who proudly boasted to be the leaders in dental tourism. Whether we like it or not, dental tourism is a fact and something practices have to be aware of.
Continuing with the snooker theme, I have to admit to being surprised by the commentators’ use of the term ‘luck’. Snooker is all about the laws of physics; a player uses a cue to hit a ball at a certain angle and speed - everything that follows is physically certain to happen. If a player misses a pot it is down to a miscalculation or poor execution, luck doesn’t come into it. The word tends to be used when people are absolving themselves of responsibility of something bad happening, and not just in sport. At the start of the year there was great debate over a BBC headline which declared that most cancers were just the result of “bad luck”. The research it quoted apparently showed the effects of an individual’s lifestyle were less important than “chance mutations”. The coverage of the research was in danger of sending out a worrying message to people; potentially undermining efforts encouraging people to quit smoking or eat more healthily. If people can find a reason not to do something, they will (just look at how difficult it is to get people to floss). However, if someone is given ownership of their health they are far more likely to be motivated and engaged in protecting it. In many ways a dental hygienist symbolises this. By not providing
invasive treatment to a patient, instead engaging with them, they can be a fundamental part of a positive oral health regime. Page 76 of this issue sees the start of our hygienist feature, it contains articles explaining how best to utilise them, the positive role they can have in a practice and the benefits they offer to patients.