[Is there room for improvement in the field of dental ethics?]

Dental ethics, enforced by the Dental Board, are defined in the Code of Conduct for dentists included in the French Public Health Code. Dentist-patient relationships are changing, while scientific progress advances more rapidly than dental ethics. Are dental ethics still adapted to the practice of dentistry?

This study was based on the Institut BVA “The French and patients’ rights” survey conducted in September 2013, together with a systematic review of the literature using the Medline, Legifrance, Lexisnexis, and Elnet.fr databases and the Paris Descartes University medical library website.

Five essential principles were identified and a total of 210 articles were included. The results indicate that there is room for improvement in pain management, respect of human dignity, information and consent concerning healthcare, and free choice of a practitioner.

Dental ethics have evolved, but further improvement is required to adapt the dentist-patient relationship to scientific progress and the patients’ expectations. To ensure a truly informed choice, this article shows that dental ethics cannot vary in response to surveys or fashions, as dental practice must remain essentially based on an ethical approach that cannot be rigidly defined in a code of professional conduct.