Bioethics and Canadian dentistry

Formal ethical reflection and analysis have become expected components of clinical decision making for all health professionals. The implicit acceptance of professional ethics as the sole determinant of "the right and the good" has been replaced by an expectation for more broadly-based understanding of ethical issues. Dentists, like physicians, must be clear about professional ethics and competent in interdisciplinary and interprofessional discussions of the right and good. Modern bioethics is providing approaches to these issues to help practitioners make ethical clinical decisions. These approaches may not be appropriate for dentistry, especially as practised in Canada. Clearly, there are fundamental questions concerning dentistry as a profession, patient-dentist interactions and dental health that must be addressed to form a basis for an ethic relevant to professional practice. The answers to these questions have profound implications for the initial and continuing education of Canadian dentists and for dentistry itself. Some possible starting points for a truly Canadian ethic for dentistry are suggested from a non-dentist, physician ethicist.