Interacting forces influencing private dental practice in South Africa : implications for dental education

Abstract

Healthcare professionals are being challenged by a whole host of outside pressures and forces. The emerging healthcare environment and traditional ways of thinking are mutually exclusive. Innovative thinking is required as accelerating change, increasing complexity, intensifying competition and expanding consumerism will be characteristic of the 21st century. The situation with regard to the dental profession in South Africa (SA) - private dental practice in particular - is similarly being influenced by these factors which can be described as the interacting forces influencing the profession in SA. Their effects are channelled through the external environment and through dental education.