[Contemplations on responsibility for oral healthcare].

Abstract

The academic dental education in The Netherlands has been extended to 6 years, among other reasons in order to make it possible for responsibility for oral healthcare to be borne in a wide medical context. It is the job of the 3 national dental schools to make this happen. The new dentist should know and recognize all (peri-)oral disorders and oral symptoms of systemic diseases, and he should be able to deliver oral healthcare to medically compromised patients. Accepting this responsibility is required for dentistry to be transformed into medical oral healthcare and for dentists to be upgraded to oral physicians.