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How will COVID-19 alter the future of the dental workforce?

Will it influence a potential medical school applicant to choose dentistry instead? Will it encourage a potential dental school applicant to adopt a nonhealth-related career? Will the pandemic create longstanding changes to practice operations? 

“Even in a post-COVID environment, the future for the dental profession is bright and will remain so,” said Richard Manski DDS. “However, for the next year or two, there will be challenges and troubled waters ahead that we must navigate. While it will be our responsibility to adopt new best practices to ensure the safety of patients, staff and ourselves, we will also need to adapt to changing patient perceptions and concerns.

While the need for dentistry has not changed, we will experience a new equilibrium resulting from pent-up demand offset by patient apprehension. Additional attention to best practice management processes will be needed to optimize each patient encounter and to reassure patients.” 

Researchers will need to continue considering future supply and demand of dental services. But for now, general dentists — both practicing and aspiring — have plenty of challenges and opportunities to keep furthering the profession. Manski is optimistic.

“Even with the difficulties that we currently face, dentistry is a wonderful profession in which our colleagues are able to provide an important needed service, contribute to society in a meaningful way and live a very nice life,” he said.

Analysis in “Projecting the Demand for Dental Care in 2040” by co-authors Richard J. Manski, DDS, MBA, PhD, and Chad D. Meyerhoefer, PhD, provides a more mixed prediction. The authors surmise that: 

Total dental visits will increase from 294 million in 2017 to 319 million in 2040. 

Dental visits per person will decrease from 0.92 in 2017 to 0.84 in 2040. 

The percentage of the population with a dental visit will rise from 41.9% in 2015 to 44.2% in 2040.

(07/16/2020)
by Kelly Rehan

More Information: https://www.agd.org/constituent/news/2020/07/06/demand-for-dentists-forecasting-the-future-of-the-profession

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