CDA Essentials 2018 • Volume 5 • Issue 8

9 Issue 8 | 2018 | CDA at W ork M y father and I both practised dentistry in the same rural community in southern Saskatchewan for almost 70 years combined. Inspired by the way my dad connected with his patients, I modelled my personal approach with patients on his. However, our careers—shaped by changes in disease patterns, societal expectations, the dental workforce and technology—were very different. These trends continue, and we can assume the future will be different for the next generation of dentists as well. Understanding how all these changes will impact our profession’s future ability to meet the oral health needs of all people who live in Canada was the primary purpose for establishing a CDA Task Force on the Future of the Profession. The task force recently finalized recommen- dations that lay out a long-term vision for the profession. At the core of 12 prioritized recommendations is a recognition that we, as a profession and society more broadly, have struggled to provide care for people with some of the greatest oral health care needs: those who have difficulty accessing care because of cost, geography or other circumstances. Improving access to care for these vulnerable groups will require an openness to new ways of delivering care and leadership from a range of like-minded organizations. As a society, we will need to work collaboratively to improve not only the oral health of people living in Canada, but also their general health, and social and living conditions. As a profession, we must prepare our future dentists with a grounding in professionalism, ethics and empathic communication; knowledge of all career options; and a business education to support their chosen model of practice. We also need to develop a clear definition of oral health, as the FDI World Dental Federation did in 2016, to help the profession measure oral health outcomes and effectively advocate for health policies that support oral health as an essential part of well-being. The profession must also be open and ready to deliver care in ways that support the needs and values of the communities we serve. As individual dentists, we are the face of the dental profession. When we take time to build positive relationships with our patients and provide person-centred care—by putting people and their families at the centre of our treatment decisions—we are helping them achieve the best possible oral health outcomes. As the touch point between our communities and our profession, we define the role of dental professionals through our interactions with patients. It’s these individual relationships, built on a foundation of trust, that will collectively guide dentistry into a future where oral health equity can be achieved and dentistry can remain a valued and rewarding profession. I am tremendously grateful to the task force, for its leadership that will support future dentists to meet the oral health needs of the populations they serve. In our careers, my dad and I were privileged to serve a community that, in turn, supported us in ways that were personally and professionally fulfilling. In this way, our careers weren’t so different after all. From the President Michel (Mitch) Taillon, dmd president@cda-adc.ca The Futures Task Force: NavigatingChange