SHORTAGE OF DENTAL SURGEONS AND PHARMACEUTICAL CHEMISTS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2987, 26 January 1917, Page 6

SHORTAGE OF DENTAL SURGEONS AND PHARMACEUTICAL CHEMISTS

Sir, —I notice that "shortage of dental surgeons" is agitating the University Sonate, sitting at Auckland. This shortage could easily have been foreseen when the late Dental Act waa brought into force. The qualified dentists of this country arc mostly comjxised of dentists of the old school, and , are, taken on tho whole, as good if not better than tho ones who have to graduate from the Dunedin University. A student who is taking up. dentistry as a profession might as well take a medical degree. Doesn't it seem absurd to expect a student who has to pull teeth and make a denture to go through as formidable a coureo of study as a student going in for his M.8., Ch.B. The whole filing resolves itself into a close corporation as far as the Dental Society is concerned. The same can be said of chemists. The incentive to take up pharmacy is not good enough for the'young men when the- amount of study is taken . into consideration. This also is.becoming a closo corporation. This absurd education will react on the respective societies, as assistants will bo unprocurable as time_ goes on. I am pleased that some action is likely to take place.—l am, etc., OBSERVER.