Workshop 2: “Special Care Dentistry in the Undergraduate Dental Curriculum” by Professor Raman Bedi and Dr. Jacob John

Special care dentistry (SCD) is a relatively new discipline that incorporates the treatment provided to people with conditions or a combination of conditions such as mental and physical impairment, emotional and social disorders, and medical conditions that impact their oral health either due to an aspect of their condition or because of barriers to accessing dental care. Sometimes called Special Needs Dentistry, the discipline was first added to the list of specialist practices of the General Dental Council (GDC) in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2008 and is also officially recognized in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Brazil.
In 2017, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASE- AN) Joint Coordinating Committee on Dental Practitioners (AJCCD) endorsed a list of competencies for general dental practitioners that are designed to raise the standard of oral health care and to assist in curriculum development and education strategies. The ability to recognize and manage patients requiring special care was one of the competencies. However, SCD is under-represented in undergraduate curricula across Southeast Asia, leading to many dentists being ill equipped and lacking confidence to provide appropriate care for this group of patients.
The aim of this workshop is to highlight an initiative to develop a e-special dental care undergraduate curriculum that has been designed for dental undergraduates in Asia.