It was with interest that I read Dr. Marjorie Jeffcoat’s March JADA editorial. I thought she touched on some salient points about the quality of care in recent California legislation allowing foreign-trained dentists to practice in certain nonprofit settings.
She was more than generous in stating that these participating dentists will all be graduates of respected dental schools. I find it difficult to equate "respected" with the equivalent education and training standards that exist with U.S. dental schools. While the project is temporarily on hold, it is more than difficult to think that an evaluation team was sent to assess dental education in Mexico and somehow found comparable standards to dental education in the United States. Have we slipped, or are they that improved?
It was also disturbing to be informed that the large Latino population in California is not reflected in the ethnic composition of dental practitioners. I didn’t realize there was a goal in California to provide sufficient ethnic dentists to treat their ethnic groups. It has been my understanding that the charge of all dental schools was to select the brightest and most competent applicants, regardless of their ethnic backgrounds.
I think the issue is providing dental care to the large number of migrant farm workers here in California. These foreign-trained dentists would be allowed to practice in specific nonprofit settings, primarily Latino. I heartily agree with Dr. Jeffcoat that here the standard of care begins to slip a bit.
There are many underserved communities in California who are in need of a variety of services. So do we fill these needs with "other" foreign trained dentists? Dr. Jeffcoat is correct in that this is not a shoddy piece of legislation; it is a very scary piece of legislation.
Not too many years ago, the Clinton administration made an effort to get into the business of health care. The American Dental Association took a very strong and active stand. We rested our case on "Dentistry, Health Care That Works" [an ADA motto hailing the profession’s successes]. It was predicated on the fact that 80 percent of dentists are general practitioners, while 20 percent fall into the various specialties, and was evidence that dental care is available to the public. It was true then, and it is true now. The California legislators need to focus their attention on the fiscal woes of the state, and not on importing foreign-trained dentists.
