Survey of dental practice/dental education in Victoria. Part IV. Specialist dental practice.

A survey of dentists registered with the Dental Board and resident in the State of Victoria included two sections, one for specialist/restricted practitioners and the other for practitioners, who had gained a postgraduate degree from the University of Melbourne between December 1982 and 1987. The responses of the former suggested that demand for most specialist services appears to be reasonably healthy at the moment and the majority of the latter indicated that they had been adequately trained for specialist practice. It was suggested that there are several market forces which could influence the number of applicants seeking specialist training in future. Strongest demand was likely to be sustained for oral surgery and orthodontics. This is despite evidence of a decline in demand for specialist orthodontic services in private practice. Attention was drawn to the 1986 Ministerial Review of Dental Services in Victoria, in which concern was expressed for the lack of access to orthodontic services for low income families. It was proposed that more cost-effective methods of deploying orthodontic personnel could be used, as in other countries, to provide this access. Demand for specialist services in endodontics, paediatric dentistry, periodontics and prosthodontics could decline in future as general practitioners steadily broaden their range of services through continuing education courses.