Foremost among these is the relatively wide gap between the income of a private practitioner and an academician. Unlike Japan, in the United States there is no national dental insurance system, nor is there one planned in the near

future under any health care selleck products reform package proposed by the United States Congress or by the current President Barack Obama’s administration. In the United States, there is an extensive private insurance system, particularly for employees in a variety of public services, small and large businesses, and private industries. As a result of this insurance system and the fee structure in the United States, fees for the most dental procedures are several multiples greater than that seen in Japan. For the practicing US dentist,

this results in the situation where currently the average income of the general dentist is 2–3-fold higher than the average dental academician. One possible solution to this income gap is to encourage faculty CX-5461 purchase who feel economically satisfied and secure to donate more of their time to teaching. When one of the authors of this paper (I.M.) visited several US dental schools in 2009, a common comment from dental school faculty was that it is impossible to ask dentists in their 30s to 50s when they could earn enough income to give up some of their private practice time to teach at a dental school. But towards the end of their careers of peak production as a private practitioner, it is much easier to recruit dentists in private practice to donate their time and their rich clinical and educational experience to dental programs. By contrast to the situation in the United States, in Japan the salary gap between dental practitioners and full-time faculty is not as large, and there are relatively few vacancies in full-time faculty positions. Another difference between faculty education in the United States and Japan is that in Japan clinical teaching is done primarily by full-time clinical faculty, although there are also part-time clinical professors. This system of clinical

teaching by full-time faculty has several advantages, particularly in continuity of care, and with more opportunities for interactions this website with other disciplines in the dental school. However, the experience of the full-time clinical faculty is limited to treatments at university hospitals and not at dental clinics in the community. Furthermore, faculty of national universities are not permitted to have their own private practice. Thus in Japan, there is a need to further utilize the experience of part-time clinical professors. An equally important reason for the current lack of interest in pursuing an academic career in dentistry in the United States is the current structure of the educational system in most US dental schools.