Don’t be scared. Dentistry’s come a long way. Can the rest of medicine follow?

Dentistry doesn’t get the recognition and gratitude it deserves.

Lame writers seeking that vivid image of horrors to be avoided will invoke a visit to the dentist, and when they’re reaching all out for literary impact, it’s a root canal. Oh, my.

The reality is that modern dentistry is painless or only briefly painful. But of greater importance, it’s perhaps second only to vaccination as a monumentally successful health technology.

Among the health specialties, dentistry has been so successful that half a dozen dental schools closed down between 1985 and 1995 for lack of students, and since then only three new ones have opened. Complete toothlessness or many missing teeth in the adult years used to be commonplace. Today it is a rarity.

Fluoridation of public water supplies and toothpaste is in large part responsible for this historic improvement in human health; sealants are important, too. Interestingly, these are preventive measure that the dental profession has pushed to its own economic detriment. Better nutrition has also played an important part. But so have early checkups for children and education about good dental-health practices — also strongly backed the by dental profession.

Even so, teeth go bad, and when they do, there’s no substitute for a dentist. You can treat yourself for many health problems — headaches, poison ivy, splinters, constipation, and so on — but you can’t fill a cavity or rebuild a broken tooth.

Treating those afflictions keeps the profession busy, but not busy enough. Cosmetic dentistry is the growth area as the need for drilling and other repair work continues to decline.

Does dentistry offer lessons for fixing our limping health-care system? Yes, though easy public-health fixes like fluoridation are extremely rare. Nonetheless, it should be recognized that prevention and public-health education are second-class activities in American medicine, which dotes on high-tech interventions and exotic drugs. When needed and successfully applied, they’re great.

But dollar for dollar, better health and lower mortality could be had from a greater emphasis on prevention. Comprehensive prenatal care and childhood immunization, dietary education, and other relatively simple public-health measures could bring great advances in health. Obviously, they’re far from neglected, but we have a long way to go before their full potential is realized.

National health insurance would be a great step forward — but it would be even better if it came with strong emphasis on prevention.

(Image from Photobucket)