The New ‘Golden Age’ of Dentistry: A Highly Desirable Profession with Unprecedented Global Opportunities in Industry Settings

Background Dentistry 1.0, an era where the patient journey was embedded in fully analog realities gave way to a 2.0 era of select digitalization since the late 1990s. Now, we are arguably at another tipping point, where for the foreseeable future digital workflows and solutions are expected to influence every aspect of the patient journey and big data becomes the new healthcare currency. With this, the dental profession's perspective on how to best serve the entire patient journey must also expand to explore unprecedented opportunities to unobstruct another layer of critical choke points and unlock further value in global oral health. Consider some examples. Today, the global patient journey is already obstructed well before the point of care due to insufficient global coverage and imbalanced geographic distribution of dentists. While there is a growing and aging global population, the majority of dentists serve only a minority of the human population. Such coverage gaps fuel the already growing trend of patients who consume health insights online. Going forward, those who respond to the needs of more empowered and well-informed patients are poised to be the partners of choice for modern patients who increasingly expect to take ownership in their own health journey. In addition, the Age of Information has decisively accelerated toward the Age of Intelligence. This expands our imagination in new ways, not only on how to keep up with, but also how to influence the latest scientific, clinical, economic, social, and technological developments for the greater good. Meanwhile, there are real dichotomies worth noting. For instance, the relevance of dental education to dental practice is under increasing pressure. The norm in dental education remains relatively analog curricula, which struggles to adapt considering the rate of change far exceeds the average dental school reality and capabilities. This means newly graduated dentists increasingly face this rapid digitalization alone. Such pressures further fuel other trends, such as the rise of corporate dentistry and acceleration of non-traditional players in the field. In a world when in any given week the equivalent of half of America passes through a Walmart, it is not hard to see why such big retailers find it attractive to enter healthcare. In this article, the authors explore key mega trends influencing dentistry and reflect on the oral healthcare ecosystem beyond the clinic, where clinical knowledge and skills are relevant and needed.