A dental professional can be generally deemed as someone who is equipped with the relevant skills to carry out the job within the dental field proficiently. However, this fails to provide a thorough explanation of the profession. Hence, Trathen and Gallagher have suggested a more comprehensive denotation based on the assumption that dental professionalism is a moral contract between the profession and society that is dependent on a set of values, behaviours and relationships.
The need to be professional is reiterated throughout a dental professional’s undergraduate degree, however, an accurate term of this profession is hardly furnished. It is therefore argued that without an authenticated definition on professionalism, any valuation of professionalism within dental education will be jeopardised.
Therefore, it is fundamental to define what it means to be a ‘dental professional’. This paper is set to look into the concept of professionalism within dentistry, segregating the discussion into four main competencies of the professionalism domain: ethics, and professionalism with regard to patient, self and peers.
Participate in the upcoming QS Subject Focus Summit – Dentistry under the theme of “Changing Paradigm in Dental Education for Future Excellence” from 4-6 April 2019 in Seoul, South Korea.