Promoting access to oral health care: More than professional ethics is needed

I suggest that an appeal to professional ethics alone is inadequate to leverage significant behavioral change among dentists to provide or to promote access to oral health care for all regardless of the ability to pay. Presuming that access to oral health care is desired, however, then efforts in professional ethics must be complemented by strategic appeals to the personal values and even to the self-interest of dentists. In addition, if dentists as a professional group publicly elect or decide to value access to oral health care in a manner similar to how a health care organization can choose its values, then lessons can be drawn from organizational strategies to assist in cultivating and fostering among dentists the commitment to and implementation of this value. I believe that a combination of these and undoubtedly many other approaches is needed if there will ever be a professional commitment by dentists as a professional group to value access to oral health care.