But I would guess that medical care in general is cheap. I don’t know about dentistry, but last month I had to go the emergency room of Japanese hospital; it was far cheaper without insurance than an American one would have been. You are also right about inheriting dental practices; another Japanese friend is in such a family. In fact, I think inherited practices are, if not the norm, very common across most or all medical specialties to the point I wonder whether these fourth generation eye doctors (for example) are any good. In my family in the States, I would never have wanted my cousin, an only son, to inherit his father’s pediatric practice. He couldn’t, of course, because he could not get through undergraduate study, let alone medical school.

I have since found out that the policy makers can control the numbers of dentists fairly easily: they reduce the number of dental school seats. They’ve apparently started this process and are able to carry it out without too much opposition from the dental schools etc. the problem of course was too many spots created by the same policy makers before – a case for deregulation and market forces to determine the number of spots?

Yeah the social status of dentists is high. Your mother is right and that is how they are viewed in Japan too but wasn’t it Seinfeld that said those who fail med school go on to become dentists?

In regards to the major supposition, you would think the social status of dentistry might also be a factor. Obvious free kick politically if you are seen as “for good health” rather than being against it, and it would be a brave politician selling a proposal to reduce the number of health professionals.

Plus it explains much of the constant attraction of dentistry as a future vocation: as my mother often told me, dentists, in terms of “making it” are up there with doctors.