Is dental practice decontextualized social work?

Abstract

Due to the indiscrimination suffered by odontology during the last century and a good part of the present one, this practice developed its knowledge in a kind of "black box", whose basically technological foundation made it undecipherable for laymen and other health practice. This way, discrimination turned into a monopoly, and this monopoly into an operative autonomy that generated the possibility of an authentically professional behavior. However, this circunstance that was historically positive for a professionalization process, proved to be negative as regards the academic or scientific foundation of odontology. The historical withdrawal of the biomedical sciences and of the behavioral and social sciences caused an inadecuate correspondence between the odontology practice and its working object. What can we expect of a professional practice that, as we see, has developed a scientific and technical reference that perturbs itself and its working object? If in spite of the scientific and technical development attained, it has not been possible to produce a significant social and epidemiological impact on the oral component of human health-disease, it can be afirmed that the theoretical and practical basic on which odontology is sustained is not the most appropiate for the context in which its work is done. Therefore, it is a professional practice that is out of context.