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Women’s Time in Dentistry Has Come by Krista Houstoun Associate Editor Dentaltown Magazine

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Though the first U.S. woman dentist graduated from dental school in 1866, the dental profession remained almost exclusively male until the mid-1970s.1 My, how things have changed! Today 22 percent of dentists are female; and with women now making up 46 percent of graduating dentists, that number is predicted to skyrocket in coming years. Taking a deeper look into the outlook for women in dentistry only makes sense.

The Successful Women in Dentistry Conference held at Pacific Dental Services' new, modern offices in Irvine, California, on June 22, 2013, did just that. A major takeaway of the conference was that as the paradigm of dentistry - and health care in general - undergoes severe core changes, and as the female demographic emerges as a strong presence in the profession, it's time female dentists hone their naturally occurring yet often ignored leadership skills.

"Leadership in the health-care profession is needed now more than ever before. It should be part of dental education," said Kathleen O'Loughlin, Executive Director of the American Dental Association, in her keynote speech.

And it turns out women are inherently partial to being great leaders - perhaps greater even than men (sorry fellas!). A study conducted by Caliper2 found "women leaders are more assertive and persuasive, have a stronger need to get things done and are more willing to take risks than male leaders."

"We should emphasize that the male leaders in this study were also exceptional in these areas. But the women leaders set a new standard," said Dr. Herb Greenberg, President and Chief Executive Officer of Caliper.

So, if women are naturally blue-ribbon leaders, why are there so few of them in the dental profession? Though women excel at teamwork and connecting in general, one of the main roadblocks in rising to leadership, it turns out, is the resistance to career networking.

"Women's strength is collaboration - the research is absolutely crystal clear on that," O'Loughlin said. "Yet at the same time we are the worst at creating networks to propel our careers. We need to learn how to go out and ask for what we want."

From clinical lectures by well-respected women dentists like Dentaltown Magazine Editorial Advisory Board Member Dr. Lee Ann Brady and Dr. Cherilyn Sheets to scheduled networking breaks throughout the day, the Successful Women in Dentistry Conference was a perfect venue for female dentists to begin practicing. The innovative conference gave a proliferating segment of the dental profession a place to unite as a group of emerging changemakers in a historically male-dominated profession. I'm sure many in attendance left the conference feeling as I did: that we had just been a part of something groundbreaking.

Together, women are so powerful - but we just don't know it," O'Loughlin concluded. And with the number of women in dentistry steadily rising in the past four decades, the time to know it - and reap the rewards of it - has come. Once this knowledge is tapped into and taken advantage of, perhaps then women leaders in dentistry will become less of an anomaly and more par for course.

References
  1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12540109?dopt=Abstract
  2. https://www.calipercorp.com/portfolio/the-qualities-that-distinguish-women-leaders/
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