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Diabetes mellitus (DM) is an important health problem throughout the world. Association between DM and oral diseases has been reported and dental clinic is indicated to be one of the suitable venues for the screening of DM. The purpose of this paper is to determine patients’ attitude toward DM screening in dental clinics.

The anonymous, self-administered questionnaires of five-point response scale questions were distributed to convenience samples of adult patients (⩾25 years) attending one of the dental settings. These dental settings were divided into the university/hospital-based dental clinics (encompassing two university-based and five hospital-based dental clinics) or the private dental clinics (encompassing two private, and one special (after office hour) clinic of a faculty of dentistry). The questions could be categorized into three groups regarding importance, willingness, and agreement of DM screening in dental settings. Results are presented as percentage by respondents based upon the number of responses for each question. The favorable outcomes which were defined as responses of either scale of 4 or 5 were also summarized according to dental settings. The χ² test for comparison was used to compare the favorable outcomes between the two settings.

A total of 601 completed questionnaires were collected; 394 from university/hospital-based dental clinics and 207 from two private clinics and a special (after office hour) clinic of a faculty of dentistry. Overall, the majority of respondents in both university/hospital-based and private practice settings felt that it is important to have a dentist conduct a screening (84.8 vs 79.5 percent). The majority of patients in both groups were willing to receive blood pressure examination (95.0 vs 92.0 percent), weight and height measurements (94.7 vs 94.0 percent), saliva/oral fluid investigation (86.4 and 86.9 percent) and finger-stick blood test (83.8 vs 83.9 percent). More than 75 percent of all respondents agreed with diabetes screening in dental clinics.

The majority of respondents supported the screening of DM in dental settings and they were willing to have a screening test by the dentist. Patient acceptance is an important key to be successful in the screening of DM in dental settings.

This article aims to measure quality by applying the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model at three different participation levels, in a Karachi teaching university dental hospital.

The case study assessed the eight EFQM model excellence concepts as benchmarks for providing quality services: results orientation; customer focus; leadership and constancy of purpose; management by processes and facts; people development and involvement; continuous learning, innovation and improvement; partnership development; and corporate social responsibility. This study was conducted at Hamdard University Dental Hospital (HUDH), located in Karachi – part of the largest privately‐owned university in Pakistan. Data were collected through in‐depth interviews with internal stakeholders at three levels (management, faculty and student).

Continuous learning, innovation and improvement; partnership development; and corporate social responsibility were satisfactorily represented.

The EFQM assessment was limited to a single university dental hospital, hence findings cannot be generalized.

The article highlights that it is envisaged that this exercise will bring about a positive change in attitude and will stimulate institute staff to kick start the self assessment process and implement measures leading to better quality practices, thus establishing a continuous quality improvement cycle.

Acids have the potential to dissolve or erode teeth. Dental erosion and dental decay are two very different processes. This review aims to explain what is erosion and how it is caused. Potentially erosive dietary acids in drinks and foods tested under laboratory conditions have resulted in eroded teeth, but epidemiological data on the degree of risk have been more difficult to determine. This paper outlines the chemical factors influencing erosive potential and reviews the current literature.

Oral health is a major public health problem, both in developed and developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to examine the utilization of dental care and identify the main socioeconomic factors affecting the use of these services in the city of Sanandaj, west of Iran, in 2015.

A cross-sectional survey using multistage sampling was conducted to obtain information on the dental care visits of 520 head of households in Sanandaj. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data on the utilization of dental visits. Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify the main socioeconomic factors affecting the utilization of dental care in Sanandaj.

Results showed that 61.3 percent of the respondents visited a dentist at least once in the last year, of which 45 percent visited dentist for restoration, 27.9 percent had extraction and 10.3 percent had a dental checkup. The average number of dentist visits by respondents was 1.9. Regression results indicated a significant association between socioeconomic factors (e.g. income, educational level and employment status) and utilization of dental care.

This study suggested that dental care visit was influenced by socioeconomic status of households. Therefore, strategies aimed at improving dental care utilization for socioeconomically disadvantaged households (e.g. dental health insurance) are required to promote oral health among socioeconomically disadvantaged groups.

Dental school curricula increasingly emphasize training in leadership, public health, community engagement and collaboration. Leadership may be defined as a relational process for inspiring and influencing positive change. Leadership training focused on effectively building relationships and partnerships to improve community health is particularly important with the increased emphasis on dental primary care, holistic care, rural care and health disparities. Dentists and other health care providers are encouraged to engage with communities and community partners and organizations to improve healthcare and overall health. To better educate and train dental students to meet these challenges, new and innovative methods of didactic and experiential coursework are needed. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The current study describes the development, delivery and preliminary evaluation of a community-engaged leadership training program for dental students. The program incorporated student-developed public health project proposals and sessions with simulated community partners based on a simulated rural community with specific oral and general health needs.

Overall, students felt the training was realistic and valuable for developing leadership skills and preparing them for challenges that could not have been learned through didactic instruction alone. Students gained a better understanding of their own leadership styles, their strengths and weaknesses and their level of developed leadership competencies.

This program is an innovative way to develop leadership applied to public health and community needs and should have implications for ways of teaching leadership to improve oral health outcomes.

This paper aims to explore the development trend of OA articles and their advantages and disadvantages in the process of fighting the pandemic, and conduct a multi-level and multi-angle analysis of the relationship between publishing costs and the influence of OA articles.

This study first compares the total number of articles in Web of Science with the number of OA articles, and the total number of COVID-19 related articles with the total number of OA articles. Subsequently, using the methods of institutional cooperation co-occurrence network, keyword co-occurrence and multidimensional scale analysis, and using the literature on the topic of COVID-19 in CNKI (Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure) as the data set, we generate visualized maps of research results distribution and keyword co-occurrence network with the help of the Statistical Analysis Toolkit for Infometrics (SATI)

The research results show that the citation frequency and use frequency of OA articles related to COVID-19 are significantly higher than that of non-OA articles. OA articles dominate in the anti-pandemic process, with a series of advantages such as short review cycle, timeliness, high social benefit, high participation and fast dissemination playing an important role. Under the model of author's non-payment for OA article, the degree of institutional cooperation and author cooperation is enhanced, which improves the fluidity of knowledge, strengthens close links between keywords and enhances significant academic influence; OA articles will continue to promote research in the field of COVID-19, but the lack of quality of some OA articles may hinder their development. Then OA articles will further focus on clinical medicine, and related results will continue to promote the development and communication of OA articles in this field.

Corresponding measures are also proposed for the existing problems of OA articles, to provide a reference for the publication and dissemination of OA articles in public health emergencies in the future.

New film on obesity. The Health Education Council has announced the launch of a new film, produced jointly by the Health Education Council, the Scottish Health Education Unit and the British Nutrition Foundation. The film, which is called ‘A Way of Life’ shows the hazards of obesity and the way they can be avoided. The intended audiences are teenagers and the 25 to 35 years age group. The message of the film is that to lose weight there is no need to endure starvation or crash diets. You can slim successfully through sensible changes in eating habits which must become a way of life. For further information about the film, contact The Health Education Council, 78 New Oxford Street, London WC1A 1AH.

The article intended to excavate the Lean Six Sigma (LSS) deployment challenges, Critical Success Factors (CSF), tools and techniques, and managerial implications in an Indian healthcare setting.

The article illustrates a case study established using Action Research (AR) approach. Further, the case study is based on the Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control (DMAIC) phases of LSS. The performance and service quality of the Endodontics department of a dental college attached to a hospital is enhanced and sustained through the LSS strategy.

The processing time of Root Canal treatment is reduced by determining the root causes for delay and implementing sustainable solutions. The structured deployment of the LSS strategy helped the Endodontics department to reduce the processing time from an average of 116 min–84 min. Thus, the process's sigma level is enhanced from 0.06 to 4.17 and assisted in sustaining the results.

The case study's findings are based on the single AR carried out at an Endodontics department of a dental college hospital based on LSS strategies. Even though this study's results cannot be generalized, the deliverables of the case study can be used to develop the LSS roadmap for the dental colleges to enhance the service quality and safety of the patients.

The article provides step-by-step details for implementing LSS in dental college hospitals with critical analysis based on robust statistical tools and techniques. The case study provides evidence of the adoption of LSS in medical college education and provides the confidence to adopt the same through novice users. The study's findings may persuade the policymakers to add LSS in the medical education curriculum to reinforce safety and reduce errors in the healthcare system.

The purpose of this paper is to bring together the history of war, the universities and the professions. It examines the case of dentistry in New South Wales, detailing its divided pre-war politics, the role of the university, the formation and work of the Dental Corps during the First World War, and the process of professionalization in the 1920s.

The paper draws on documentary and archival sources including those of the University of Sydney, contemporary newspapers, annual reports and publication of various dental associations, and on secondary sources.

The paper argues that both the war and the university were central to the professionalization of dentistry in New South Wales. The war transformed the expertise of dentists, shifted their social status and cemented their relationship with the university.

This study is the first to examine dentistry in the context of the histories of war, universities and professionalization. It highlights the need to re-evaluate the changing place of the professions in interwar Australia in the light both of the First World War and of the university’s involvement in it.

The article evaluates the obstacles, lessons learned and managerial implications of deploying Lean Six Sigma (LSS) in a dental college hospital in India.

The work adopts the action research (AR) methodology to establish a case study, which is carried out using the LSS define–measure–analyze–improve–control (DAMIC) approach in a dental college. It uses LSS tools to enhance the productivity and performance of the Conservative Dentistry Department of a dental college and to unravel the obstacles and success factors in applying it to the education and healthcare sector together.

The root cause for high turn-around time (TAT) is ascertained using LSS tools and techniques. The effective deployment of the solutions to the root causes of variation assists the dental college to reduce the TAT of the Conservative Dentistry process from an average of 63.9 min–36.5 min (i.e. 42.9% improvement), and the process Standard Deviation (SD) was reduced from 2.63 to 2 min. This, in turn, raises the sigma level from 0.48 to 3.23, a noteworthy successful story for this dental college.

While the results and recommendations of this research are focused on a single case study, it is to be noted that the case study is carried out with new users of LSS tools and techniques, especially with the assistance of interns. This indicates the applicability of LSS in dental colleges; thus, the adopted modality can be further refined to fit India's education and hospital sector together.

This article explains the implementation of LSS from an aspiring user viewpoint to assist dental colleges and policymakers in improving competitiveness. In addition, the medical education sector can introduce an LSS course in the existing programme to leverage the potential of this methodology to bring synergy and collaborative research between data-based thinking and the medical field based on the findings of this study. The most important contribution of this article is the illustration of the design of experiments (DOE) in the dental college process.