- Posted by D_MARKETING
- Date MAY 16, 2022
Today, we as individuals stand at the crossroads where our lives have transformed with a significant level of uncertainty in the future. Schools and Educational Institutes are shut down for students to pursue their studies physically. People are living in fear of contracting the dreaded disease, which shows possible extremist consequences for the well being of an individual and, on the other hand, has shown an asymptomatic appearance wherein the person is unaware of having been turned into a COVID carrier.
Dental Care, a high-end specialised form of health care, has been an under utilised service by society due to its reasons. But today, it bears the added burden of being a high transmission means of this dreaded disease due to the technology of aerosol production, which is used to impart the best possible smiles to an individual.
Also Read: Diabetes Can Make Tooth Extraction Troublesome, But Not Impossible
Neither the Dental practitioners are sure of the safest way to avoid this transmission, nor are the patients certain if they would contract the disease due to other patients being treated in the same environment.
Ironically, the dental fraternity celebrates its centenary year in 2020, of its existence in India since its inception in 1920 at Dr R. Ahmed Dental College and Hospital, Kolkata. The year which should have been the year of celebrations has turned out to be a year of reinvention, where we are searching for the Nova Eureka moment which can take this prolific profession of Dentistry forward.
Oral Health is often considered a mirror of the General Health of the Human body. Compared to the global scenario, dental care in India has always been a need or cure based form of health care. The fact that COVID 19 reiterates is not that prevention is better than cure. Instead, it redefines it as prevention as the only cure.
Thus, the time has come to promote dental public health. It is imperative to introduce the basic home-based measures of Oral Health hygiene to make people’ Atmanirbhar’ or responsible for their oral health.
This would mean that they would need dentists to provide dental care for advanced dental care needs in the years to come. In other words, it would organise an individual’s oral health care needs in a better manner. This form of organised dentistry would require individuals to visit their dentist every six months to keep track of their home-based oral hygiene care methods.
The concepts of dental public health will incorporate a life-course approach, wherein all ages of humankind, from infants to the elderly, will have an advised protocol for home-based and dentist assisted oral care regimes.
Hopefully, in this year of reinvention of Dentistry, due to COVID 19, we can also add this holistic operational need of dental public health, which will, in a way, help reduce the burden of oral disease in this grand county ‘India’.
The Faculty of Dental Sciences, SGT University, Gurugram, started as SGT Dental College Hospital & Research Institute in 2002 and is now among the best dental colleges in Delhi NCR. The faculty has nine departments, which have highly experienced and energetic faculty members with ethical and scientific mindsets to carry forward the science of Dentistry, laying focus on research & innovation in Dentistry and Applied Sciences.
Written By:-
Dr Shourya Tandon
Associate Dean and Professor & Head of Public Health Dentistry
Faculty of Dental Sciences
Tag:Dental Care, dental college, Nova Eureka, Novel Coronavirus