....on till thy kingdom come dental curriculum.

The convention in the fabrication of dental appliances is to make appliances first in wax pattern then the wax pattern could be further processed into either acrylic, porcelain or metallic material and a host of other materials. In the present digital age we are moving away from this sequence to digital production that eliminates physical impression of the mouth, physical replica of the oral cavity (dental model) and all that happens in the Plaster room. This paradigm shift is definitely going to speed production and create new challenges. What does this mean for the entire dental professionals worldwide and especially in Africa? Dental technology students seen in the picture below are fabricating dental appliances in wax and happily doing so but how much of what the future holds in their profession do they know? Even undergraduate dental surgery students who happily returned to the lab with an alginate impression have not realised the enormous changes that await him in the nearest future. The future is definitely very bright but how fast are we responding to the imminent paradigm shift. Whether we like it or not change has come, it is not business as usual both in the dental clinic and the lab. In this century it is archaic to graduate students without them ever seeing or handling oral scanner, milling machine, model scanner, and virtual impression. It may sound ambitious to think this way but it is because we are in a system that is reluctant to change its ways of doing things. Till thy kingdom come curriculum will produce till thy kingdom come professionals and practice. Come to think of it dental patients are not going to remain 'ignorant' forever so the earlier we in the dental profession respond to the present development the better. Students are travelling to take elective courses and on return what impression of their teachers and institutions will they continue to hold when they see the wide differences between what a teacher there could do and what the teacher here is capable of doing. Please no excuses we must rise for a change.
We cannot continue to lag behind, we must make a change so that the coming generation of dentists and dental technologists will not blame their teachers for not responding fast enough to give them the best that this century offer them.