Primary care in dentistry - An untapped potential

Dentistry is neither an allied health profession nor a paramedical profession. It is the only anatomically focused health care profession that is university-based and for which primary care responsibility is maintained by the profession. Dentists must have a reliable knowledge of basic clinical medicine for safely and effectively treating individuals with chronic and other diseases, which make them biologically and pharmacologically compromised. With changes in the life expectancy of people and lifestyles, as well as rapid advancement in biomedical sciences, dentists should have similar knowledge like a physician in any other fields of medicine. There are number of primary care activities that can be conducted in the dental office like screening of diabetics, managing hypertension etc., The present review was conducted after doing extensive literature search of peer-reviewed journals. The review throws a spotlight on these activities and also suggests some the measures that can be adopted to modify dental education to turn dentists to oral physicians.