An interview with Dr. Alan Winter

 Hello.  This is a sensitive subject.  If I wanted to be purely objective, the only true specialists should be oral surgeons and orthodontists.  After that, pedodontists, periodontists, endodontists, and prosthodontists exist at the whim of the GPs and the work they don’t want to do.  This is how it was arouond the world in the 19th century and into the 20th century.  In the 1930s or thereabouts, perio and pedo started to become more specialized, and the other specialties followed.   Please understand I am not saying that specialists are not needed, they are.  And please understand that I do not feel that generalists, as a group, perform all aspects of each speciality at the equivalent level of the specialists who trained 3 asnd 4 more years.  It logically doesn’t make sense that they do.  However, the gatekeeper for dental care is the generalist.  The obvious goal for the dental industry would be to make all generalists into superspecialists.  In some instances, that will happen, and it has happened for a few.  The greater good would be to raise the bar for all dentists around the world, so that no matter where one receives dental care, it is reasonably the same regardless of locale.  So, am I looking for a new career?  Not yet.  But as I periodontist, I feel my speciality needs to redefine itself and the services it provides or it will go the way of the dinosaur.