Dentists
Based on the achievements of the physician postgraduate training program, the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) started to expand the scope of trainees to other medical professionals in 2007. In 2010, the MOHW officially announced the “2-Year Post-Graduate Year(PGY)training for Dentistry Program” to standardize training content, teacher qualifications, training institution capacity, etc. for the nation’s “Dentist Supervising Physicians training”.
After graduating from dentistry school and obtaining a license, new graduates must practice in a dental clinic or hospital for two years. Prior to the program’s implementation, however, there was no consistent training system provided during this period. To improve training quality and enhance new dentistry graduates’ professional skills, MOHW announced dentists shall complete a two-year postgraduate general medicine training before participating in specialist training. Moreover, Article 18 of the Medical Care Act indicated that approval for future supervising dentists of dental clinics shall be limited to those who have received at least two years of post-graduate dentistry training at hospitals or dental clinics designated by the central competent authority.
The 2-year Post Graduate Year (PGY) training for Dentistry involves 50 hours of fundamental seminars and 18 months of mandatory courses covering general dental practice, social dental care services, oral and maxillofacial surgery, emergency dental treatment, and six months of dentistry elective courses. Through system design, hospitals and dental clinics established a teaching atmosphere, promoted dental educational activities, and introduced general dental practice training to their program syllabus.
The MOHW also provided teaching subsidization for the certified training institutions. As of 2022, there are over 600 institutions certified by the MOHW, and approximately 57% of dentistry graduates received training in hospitals and 43% in dental clinics. Training program contents are adjusted on a rolling basis in response to the needs of society and institutional practices. The next program is scheduled for implementation in 2022. We have formulated and added the 10th elective training program for “Special Care Dentistry”, according to the MOHW policy. We will continue to observe and learn about the challenges experienced by the training institutions in terms of implementation, teacher qualification, environment, equipment, or potential training risks to serve as the basis for future DPGY development.
Figure. Number of Training Institutions and Trainees of the 2-year
Post Graduate Year (PGY) training for Dentistry Over the Years