{ tooth & nail }
Dentistry in China C
hina is a country that is growing rapidly. With their eco- nomic growth also comes some changes in Chinese den- tistry. Examining these changes may teach us something about dental markets. I have never been to China, and my
knowledge of Chinese dentistry is limited to two immigrant Chinese families I have treated and the In- ternet. I am not a primary source, so take this with a grain of salt.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has released a few facts about China’s economy. For the first time ever, China’s gross domestic product adjusted for cost of living is higher than it is for the U.S. This created a little bit of a headline but may be a little misleading. The cost of living is very low in China compared to in the U.S. A million dollars in China has a lot more purchasing power than a million dollars in the U.S. If you do not adjust for cost of living, the U.S. GDP still dwarfs China at $17.4 tril- lion versus $10 trillion respectively. There are a lot of people in China. The per capita GDP in China is $8,000 per person, versus $55,000 in the U.S.¹ There is little doubt China’s economy is drastically larger than it was 60 years ago, but has the dental world changed too?
88 percent in adults.³ If you are in China and looking for a dentist who does things in a western style, they may not be too hard to find in Shanghai, Beijing or Hong Kong. Elsewhere may be a different story. One blog I read said many dental clinics are tiny little shops on the side of small roads. They often have glass sliding doors opening right into a tiny room with a dentist’s chair. If you walked by the shop at the right time, you could peer right into a patient’s open mouth from the other side of the glass door, with- out even going inside. Not exactly private.⁴
These dentists clearly fill a need in the Chinese market, but they’re not the type of place most Americans are going to entrust their teeth. One blog claimed that many of these dentists in private dental clinics are not actu- ally dentists! Many are job trained, which is legal in China except for in public hospitals (which have long wait periods). There is also a wide variety of cleanliness levels. Some places are ultra clean. Some places, not so much.⁴ While these small, almost amateur “clinics” are common in China, dentistry there compared to how it was 30 years ago is better.
For nearly half of the 20th century, China was cut off from the rest of the world. Chinese dentistry evolved separately from Western dentistry. However, a more open-door policy and exposure to Western ideas and practices (particularly in Hong Kong) have dramatically increased the exchange of dental ideas, procedures and training. Inside the country, it takes five years after high school to become an educated dentist, with further specialization available afterwards. In fact, many Chinese dentists even go abroad to specialize.²
Every year China produces more than 15,000 new dental health care practitioners, giving them currently more than 119,000 dentists. China has an average of around one dentist for every 11,000 citizens. The dental decay rate among 12 year olds in China is 19 percent and
6 focus | JAN/FEB 2015 | ISSUE 1
Many Chinese dental clinics aren’t exactly private. Walking by, you could peer right into a patient’s open mouth from the other side of the glass door, without even going inside.
The number of practicing dentists is hard to evaluate in U.S. I saw numbers as high as roughly 190,000 dentists according to Wikipedia⁵
down to 146,000 dentists in a bureau statistic. The dental decay rate among a comparable age group is tough to determine, but can reach 50 percent in some young populations. Yes, it turns out dentistry does cost more in the U.S., but it generally is thought that the average qual- ity of the work is higher. Meaning there is good dental work done in China and poor dental work in the U.S., but on average what you get here is better. Still, the quality in China is coming up. We graduate less than 5,000 dentists per year with sanitization as a critical con- sumer requirement.
It is interesting to evaluate the growing Chinese dental market. As China’s economy improved, the quality and safety in Chinese den-
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