I am old enough to remember Daley Thompson when he did a somersault on the high jump mat after clearing the high jump in the Los Angeles Olympics.
He won a Gold Medal in the Decathlon for GB. Thompson was an amazing athlete, achieving fantastic things in all ten disciplines, although his 1500m was not really a sight to behold (I could probably have beaten him with my legs tied together. By the time he got to that stage he was so tired)
Jessica Ennis is the female equivalent of Daley Thompson doing the Heptathlon in London 2012. The difference is that Jessica Ennis could probably compete individually in the 100m hurdles for women because she is that good at that discipline.
Here lies my point - there are some General Dentists (although very few) who excel at an individual part of dentistry. They have the ability to perform to a great level at each individual element of General Dentistry (just like Daley Thompson) but then are able to perform fantastically aesthetics, or implants, or orthodontics but never, ever, ever all of those.
The reason that people become Specialists or dial down into specific areas is because they want to get really good at that specific area and at the moment, it just so happens, that there is a little bit of a premium for some guys in those areas. i.e they get paid a little bit more money. That is not always the case.
What's happened in dentistry, and particularly implant dentistry, is that almost everybody is claiming to be 'a Specialist'. I found a website the other day by someone who had qualified with an MSc from Warwick University claiming it was "one of the highest quality educational institutes in Europe"
As a profession we continue to try to deceive our patients in what we're capable of and what we're good at. We continue to pretend to patients that having placed 50 implants makes us an expert or having provided 10 sets of dentures makes us a Professor.
As a profession we continue to accept people who call themselves this or that and even support them educationally or financially, even though there is no backing for the supposed positions they hold. Worse than this, many of the profession nows sees Specialist Practices like ours as the enemy not the ally and only refer patients to these services grudgingly instead of striking up strategic alliances with Specialist Practices in order to improve the care for their patients.
We do have some very enlightened practitioners who work very closely with us and who do extremely well out of this arrangement, as do their patients, but the majority of people think we are 'stealing their work'.
I go back to my original point... there are very, very, few people who would be able to compete well in a Decathlon yet keep up with Usain Bolt in the 100m.
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