Gene McCoy
It is important that there be a sufficient number of dentists to ensure that a population can access the dental care that it needs. Unfortunately, with a population of 323 million in the US, there is a shortage of 7,300 dentists.1 However in spite of the deficiency, the dental work force seems to be sufficient since only 35% of working-age adults visit the dentist regularly,2 the most apparent reason being financial. Dental care ranks #1 among health care services that people skimp on because of cost.3In addition, those patients that do visit on a regular basis may not be able to accomplish all their restorative needs also due to financial limitation sand subsequent work has to be deferred. In order for the general practitioner (GP) to accomplish restorative dentistry by increments extended over a period of time, not only does there have to be a design analysis of the proposed work, there has to be an appraisal of the masticatory system (the system) as well to ascertain whether it can maintain itself in a state of acceptable health until the next increment of restorative work. To maintain optimal efficiency, the GP must be able to recognize and correct when the system is out of sync with normal function.