Is it time to ditch the Doctor of Dental Surgery degree?

An interesting article titled “Why 2 dental degrees?: Time for unification of degrees and oral health care providers” written by Donald B. Giddon and William V. Giannobile appears in the March 21, 2023 Journal of the American Dental Association. The article calls into question why dentistry is the only major health care profession that has two equivalent degrees: the Doctor of Medicine in Dentistry (DMD) degree and the Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS) degree. In the article discussion is made of how there is no useful purpose to have two different degrees in dentistry. The authors state that this causes confusion among patients, dentists, and other health care professionals. The authors believe that dentistry should have a single degree, the doctor of dental medicine, which is more accurate to what occurs in dentistry today. The authors say that there are no … Read more

Mark Zuckerberg’s Dad is a Dentist

I am surprised I had not heard of this before, but Mark Zuckerberg yes the guy who is a co-founder and runs Facebook and who has an estimated wealth of many billions, has a dad named Edward Zuckerberg who is a practicing dentist. The American Dental Association (ADA) recently discussed Edward Zuckerberg in their article Websites a “no-brainer’ for dental practices written by Kelly Soderlund appearing September 8, 2011, and located at http://www.ada.org/news/6200.aspx Yes Dr. Zuckerberg has his own dental practice in New York and his website is located at http://painlessdrz.com/ Yes of course Dr. Zuckerberg also has his own facebook page http://www.facebook.com/painlessdrz I am a bit surprised that Mark Zuckerberg’s dad is still practicing dentistry and still works a full schedule since he is over 56 years old and his son is pretty well off financially. I suppose he … Read more

Dentist and Patient Flame War over Reasons People and Dentists Hate Each Other

A recent post was made by a 36 year old female dentist who has recently decided to leave the profession. Of course she couldn’t just leave dentistry, she had to cut her hair http://lolabees.me/2011/11/23/the-big-reveal/ and write a post about the 10 Reasons Your Dentist Probably Hates You Too http://lolabees.me/2011/11/28/10-reasons-your-dentist-probably-hates-you-too/ Reading over the 10 Reasons Your Dentist Probably Hates You Too I totally see where she is coming from. The first on her list is often patients sit down and the first thing they say is “I hate the dentist.” Other issues on her list include patients not brushing their teeth before the appointment, complaining about the size of the bill after the work was completed, failing to get a cavity or filling performed when it is recommended, not showing up or canceling at the last minute for an appointment, and … Read more