“The future of dentistry in Italy is bright: we will continue to work to assist the patient. The message must be increasingly one of prevention and welfare with an organizational model of the profession that will increasingly decline towards associationism and aggregation. At this moment only 25% of young professionals would aspire to open their own business as a practice owner. In this context, as a union, we are absolutely convinced that very important answers must come from the universities because, especially today, when we are talking about qualifying degrees, the future professional must assume all the theoretical and manual skills that only universities can be able to guarantee”. This was stated by Carlo Ghirlanda, president of the National Association of Italian Dentists (Andi) to Adnkronos during the meeting ‘Dentistry and dental prosthetics: what skills and professionalism today and tomorrow?’, which brought together the top experts in the sector at the Campus Bio-medico University of Rome where a new degree course will start in the coming months.
Many topics emerged during the event. One above all the generational change. According to Andi today, in our country, the average age of dentists exceeds 50 years and it is estimated that about 10 thousand professionals will reach retirement in the next 10 years. The risk of a lack of professionals has therefore been added to the national demographic issue and the access of graduates to the profession, the democratization of care, the modernity and quality of dental practices in perspective, the introduction and use of new technologies in care.
“Dentistry – added Ghirlanda – is a discipline of proximity, therefore, we must be present in every area of the country and not only in urban areas. Only in this way can we allow a relationship of care and prevention of the patient that only a widespread model can exercise. We hope that this new degree course that is born at the Campus Bio-medico can give a new impulse to training, to the creation of awareness and conscience by young professionals in the direction that we hope for – concluded the president Andi – It is a course that could also be a harbinger of a new identity of dentistry in terms of relationship with the territory and with people. Furthermore, it could also be motivating with respect to those generations that perhaps need a little more ambition, compared to those we see today”.
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