EC Dental Science

Professionalization is the process of obtaining a social position by individuals in a group exercising a given occupation operating under a social contract based on self-obligation to follow moral, legal, and practical commitments stated in a code of ethics, established upon professional standards, system of licensing and registration regimes. Professional autonomy is the key pillar of the social status of professional people.

 Professionalization of dentistry dated about the second half of the 19th century when, thanks to the starting of academic dental education and the foundation of dental professional societies, achieved social and legal recognition. Professional standards of dentistry, regulated by the dental professional body, include a set of competencies in providing oral healthcare services, acquired during a formal course of higher education and continuing education and a set of ethical norms of relationship with patients and society and within the professional community.

 Autonomy in decision-making gives to dentists social authority while requiring from them to take responsibility for diagnostic, planning and treatment, follow up and prevention of autonomous individuals at different stage of physical and social vulnerability in a fast changing social, political, and technological environment.

 Dentistry today is still characteristic by autonomous professional regulation, evolving global market of services, and inclusion in the National Health Systems. What changed for the profession and the professionals now? The profound social impact of technologies on the people relationship is visible. There is unlimited choice and boundless freedom to reach information by oneself.

 What is the problem with the easy access and the autonomous use of information? There is a paradox: The decision making process seems to become more individually based as the professional and the patient have their autonomy to make individual choices, while in reality the dentists’ and the patients’ decisions are based on a multitude of experts’ experience and evolving theoretical and technical knowledge shared through AI tools. Are we thinking about? Are we able to verify all the sources and take reasonable choice? What about the traditional ethical foundation of the dentist/patient relationship? What about the responsibility of the healer for the healing of the patient? All these questions and many more can arise in the context of the professionalization process.

 Therefore, the traditional paradigm of the professionalization of dentists requires a new reading. The paradox of “collective individual decision” should be addressed by the paradox of the “individual collective responsibility”. Rethinking the social contract between the profession and the society based on enhanced regulations in regards of AI assisted clinical decision and responsibilities of oral healthcare providers on one hand and going beyond the normative ethics and foster the conceptualization of the patient focused professional conduct considering social and cultural diversity of AI competent patients on the other.

 Observing the features of the dental profession and the elements of the professionalization of dentists shaped by the implementation of AI in oral healthcare and overall social life we can see that human values and technologies can be perceived as the two faces of the same phenomenon. The perspectives of the professional identity and professional status of individual dentists are bright if considering AI as a tool to build adequate professional standards and develop adequate human relationship. Keeping balance between technical performance and human touch requires deep philosophical and sociological knowledge as well as effective communication [1-12].

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