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Power in Dentistry: A Foucauldian Shift in South Korea

Authors
 J Kim  ;  D-H Han  ;  Y Song 
Citation
 COMMUNITY DENTAL HEALTH, Vol.39(2) : 131-136, 2022-05 
Journal Title
COMMUNITY DENTAL HEALTH
ISSN
 0265-539X 
Issue Date
2022-05
MeSH
Dentistry ; Health Literacy* ; Humans ; Oral Health* ; Personal Autonomy ; Republic of Korea
Keywords
Dentist-Patient Relations ; Empowerment ; Health Literacy ; Power ; Shared Decision Making
Abstract
The established method of understanding power in dentistry is based on the early Foucauldian discourse that dentistry enforces oral health discipline to the people on behalf of state power. This exhibits the hierarchy between dentists and patients, which clearly appears in clinical dentistry and effectively explains the responsibility of oral care assigned to patients. However, there presents no way to becoming free from the framework in the discourse as a resistance. Beyond the political aspect of the medico-sociological framework, this paper seeks a different way to understand power in dentistry through 'care of the self', a late Foucauldian concept. First, based on the current discussion of the dentist-patient relationship (DPR), the paper examines two trends of clinical dental treatments in South Korea. The high prevalence of dental implant and orthognathic surgery indicates that traditional prejudices including ableism and pursuit of Western beauty still remain in South Korea albeit with the society overcoming paternalism in DPRs. These dental phenomena, however, contain excesses that cannot be explained only by traditional prejudice, and this paper attempts to interpret them as the pursuit of care of the self that appears in the dentist's professionalism and the patient's self-determination. In dentistry, care of the self can be introduced in the form of empowerment, which is implemented through the improvement of oral health literacy and shared decision-making. This paper argues that this interpretation helps surmount the traditional dyadic model of the DPR and revise the understanding of power in dentistry.
Full Text
https://www.cdhjournal.org/issues/39-2-june-2022/1126-power-in-dentistry-a-foucauldian-shift-in-south-korea-special-issue-of-community-dental-health-to-be-disseminated-at-the-power-in-dentistry-international-association-for-dental-research-symposium-july-2022-china
DOI
10.1922/CDH_IADR22Junhewk06
Appears in Collections:
2. College of Dentistry (치과대학) > Others (기타) > 1. Journal Papers
Yonsei Authors
Kim, Junhewk(김준혁)
URI
https://ir.ymlib.yonsei.ac.kr/handle/22282913/191420
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