[How the dental treatment for medically complicated patients can be improved]

This article is primarily an adapted translation in Dutch of an editorial paper in the journal Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology, Oral Radiology, and Endodontology. The editorial paper described the increasing need to prepare future practitioners for a more medical-based mode of oral health care and medically complicated patients. The current dental education in the United States has some shortcomings in this respect. Several steps are necessary to start improving dental treatment for patients with medical disorders. Second part of this article describes the current dental education regarding this topic in the Netherlands and how to improve this. Besides optimizing the dental-1 medical education of future dentist, also the mutual need of optimizing the medico-dental training of physicians is mentioned as, at least in the Netherlands, many patients visit their physician instead of their dentist with a non-teeth related oral problem.