Since the beginning of the 20th century, when dentistry began. The intense legal, professional and educational relationship between medicine and dentistry grew, with ups and downs, until in 1944 dentistry became, de facto, a specialty of medicine with the name of Stomatology.
The beginning of the negotiations for the entry of Spain into the EEC meant that from 1987 dentists began to be trained in a professional activity clearly differentiated from medicine. Today, medicine and dentistry are two academic degrees with a common denominator, which is the health of the patient.
It is possible that the technological evolution, the inevitable commodification of a profession like ours, basically dependent on private initiative, and other added factors have been propitiating that, with the As endorsed by current legislation, those dentists of years ago, doctors before dentists, have evolved into the current professionals, with extraordinary dental training but with many insecurities in their medical training. says. That our graduates take courses in medical pathology and applied pharmacology is a fact, but that graduate and postgraduate training focuses above all on teeth and gums, it is also a fact. a fact.
«Medicine, even without being doctors, is a very important part of our activity as dentists»
In my opinion, a significant percentage of the stress generated by, for example, an extraction or endodontics, in novice dentists is due, in many cases, to medical history or pharmacological and to systemic pathologies than to the technique itself that the procedure requires. Dentistry as an integrated part of the global health of our patients requires, without complexes, a solid real training that removes from the dentist the insecurity of dealing with polymedicated or with general diseases. Also a determined vision for It is our part that Medicine, even without being doctors, is a very important part of our daily activity. Surely many of us would like to see a larger Medicine-dentistry interrelation and we would not want, as Cortázar said, to have to close our eyes to see what we want.
We have witnessed, I believe, an excessive identification of dentistry to the detriment of a greater identification with medicine in its broadest sense. The history of the profession attests that both have always gone together or in parallel. Nowadays when the anamnesis and clinical history are not paid, the first no visits either and the diagnosis and treatment plan have lost prominence in favor of the budget, we miss the relationship between doctor and dentist were established during the anamnesis and the collection of data from the history. We will have to get used to, perhaps, that it is the action that predominates, but we cannot give up that the urgent need to carry out treatments is not present. endorsed by the backpack of medical and pharmacological knowledge that dentists need to face our work, without giving up technology, and from a more holistic vision. In short, we are dentists, not dentists. We all, including franchises and mutuals, see with wide open eyes what we want to see although, frankly, I have my doubts about whether we all want to see what I have just explained.
DR. MANUEL RIBERA URIBE
STOMATOLOGIST AT RIBERA DENTAL CLINIC AND MEDICAL DIRECTOR OF PARETS MEDICAL AND DENTAL CENTER
No. CABBAGE. 849