Dental As Anything
Episodes
Using 3D intra-oral scans to diagnose decay
11 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dental caries continues to be one of the most important public health problems in Australia, and particularly for Australian children. One in three ch...
Anatomy of a Parliamentary roundtable
06 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Advocacy is an important part of our role in the dental profession, but often feels like a thankless task. I recently spent the day in Canberra courte...
Myth busting the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With recent talk about expanding Medicare to include more dental services, it’s worth revisiting the last time that this was done with the Chronic D...
Dental opioid prescribing
09 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Opioid prescribing by Australian dentists has increased over the past decade, although the quantity dispensed has reduced. New research highlights som...
Are you embarrassed by your smile?
25 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We make snap judgements about people based solely on their appearance, and draw negative assumptions about people with visibly poor oral health, contr...
ai.Revolution
11 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The biggest issue with artificial intelligence isn’t that it makes mistakes, it’s that it has the potential to make mistakes at scale at the same ...
Media coverage of early superannuation release for dental treatment
28 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A new study has looked at the media coverage and the implications for the dentistry, particularly in terms of societal attitudes towards dental health...
The rising cost of dental education
14 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How much did you pay for your dental degree? Were you one of the lucky ones who received a free education? Did you come in during the early days of st...
The power to legislate dental services
31 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What does the Australian constitution say about the powers of the Commonwealth to provide dental services and what impact might that have on the denta...
Who profits from healthcare?
17 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dentistry is a $12 billion a year industry and growing, making it a valuable target for private equity investment. But what are the implications for p...
Trust me, I'm a dentist ...
03 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Trust is essential to the normal function of society, yet it is perhaps not something that we spend a lot of time thinking about until it’s gone. Lo...
Commercial determinants of oral health
02 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of the Dental as Anything podcast I talk about our new paper Oral Health Meets Commercial Determinants: An Opportunity to Bridge Indiv...
Cosmetic procedures and ethics
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
New guidelines on cosmetic procedures and a statement on the use of superannuation for dental treatment have again shone the light on ethical conduct ...
Difficult conversations
15 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What do we do when a dental practitioner breaks the trust of patients? Should we discuss that within the profession? What happens when those cases are...
Health is political: the role of research and advocacy
01 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Health is inherently political . Like any resource or commodity in our neo-liberal economic system, some social groups have more of it than others. We...
Ethics of Water Fluoridation
17 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We often talk about the pros and cons of water fluoridation through the lens of benefits versus the risk of harm. But it's also important to understan...
Social media influencers and over-diagnosis
03 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of the Dental As Anything podcast I talk to Dr Brooke Nickel, an NHMRC Emerging Leader Research Fellow at the University of Sydney Sch...
Give Medicare Teeth
18 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Medicare is meant to help all Australians access affordable healthcare guaranteeing them access to a wide range of health and hospital services at low...
Why am I a dentist?
06 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dentists. What makes us tick? For many people, a trip to the dentist at the top of the list of things they would prefer not to do. Makes you wonder wh...
Why is it so hard to find a dentist in the bush?
20 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why is it so hard for the more than 1 in 4 Australians who live outside of capital and major cities to access dental care? And how much is that a fact...
Main character syndrome
06 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How do we know if we are suffering from main character syndrome? Or even have strong narcissistic tendencies. And what impact might that have on the p...
Healing Smiles
05 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
One in every six women in Australia experiences physical or sexual violence before the age of sixteen. In 2022, 64% of reported assaults to WA Police ...
Antimicrobial resistance - a global health problem
21 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Australian dentists write around 70,000 prescriptions for antibiotics each month. And medical practitioners are also prescribing antibiotics for denta...
What does a Trump presidency mean for oral health?
07 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
During the US presidential election campaign, Robert Kennedy Junior tweeted that a Trump White House would advise all US water systems to remove fluor...
On the frontline of Australia’s paediatric dentistry crisis
24 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
New data from the Australian Institute of health and Welfare has highlighted that there has been an increase in the number of preventable hospital adm...
Tackling commercial drivers of poor health
11 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How much sugary drinks do you consume? Is it more or less than the average Australian? And do you know the harm that it’s doing – not just to your...
History, colonisation and oral health
26 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Knowing and understanding the history of colonisation in Australia is important to tackling the gap in oral health that persists in Aboriginal and Tor...
They took our jobs ...
12 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Are you a Luddite? Do you know the origins of the term? It might surprise you to know that the original Luddites opposed the automation of textiles an...
Exercising your right to disconnect
29 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Does your boss contact you after hours asking you to complete tasks? Or are you the boss always texting your employees to get additional work done? Ne...
Are Health Stars making us healthier?
15 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Are Health Stars making us healthier? That’s the intent behind those little star ratings that you find on food and drinks in the supermarket and con...
Tackling poverty to improve oral health
02 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What can we – as dental practitioners and advocates – really do to tackle the social and commercial determinants of health? And is it even our rol...
Is poor oral health a dental issue or a social issue?
18 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Is poor oral health a dental issue or a social issue? Is the solution to reducing increasing rates of tooth decay and periodontal disease found within...
Using artificial intelligence for clinical records
04 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Artificial intelligence tools are expanding into all areas of health practice, and clinical notes provide an opportunity for efficiencies - but it'...
Food for thought - do your investments contribute to the burden of disease?
20 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
You wouldn't invest in tobacco companies, but would you invest in fast food and sugary drinks, knowing the harms they cause? In this episode of De...
Your time starts now – life lessons from the MasterChef kitchen
06 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There are many parallels between the pressure cooker environment of the MasterChef kitchen and a dental practice. So it shouldn't be surprising th...
Tongue tied and twisted
23 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The somewhat controversial issue of tongue ties hit the media last week, with a newspaper article highlighting some harrowing patient stories and the ...
Budget relief for dentists
09 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In a span of only 30 years, the cost of a dental education has gone from zero to anywhere from $60,000 to $430,000. With inflation running hot over th...
An army that cannot bite, cannot fight.
24 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dental personnel have a long history of ensuring that the members of our Army, Navy and Air Force have good oral health. ANZAC Day is an opportunity t...
Dentists – physicians of the mouth, or glorified carpenters?
11 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Being a competent dental practitioner is about much more than just surgical skills, and it is important that we focus more broadly on our role as phys...
Do we have too many dentists? It depends where you live.
28 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There have been many dire predictions of an oversupply of dentists over the past decade, but do we in fact have too many dentists? Let's find out ...
The ethics of artificial intelligence
14 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms will play an increasingly important role in dental practice, and there is no escaping that ine...
How will artificial intelligence change dentistry?
07 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Is artificial intelligence going to change the way you practise dentistry? According to this week’s guest Dr Max Ganhewa, the answer is a resounding...
If in doubt, fill ... dogma, myths and clinical judgement in caries management.
29 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week Matt is joined by Dr Tim Keys, a specialist paediatric dentist whose research looked at clinical caries management. When do we make a decisi...
Public dental funding lacks teeth, but is change coming?
22 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week Matt talks about public funding in the context of dental service provision across both the public and private sectors. Did you know that $1 ...
Ethics, professionalism and the imagination.
08 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week Matt Hopcraft is joined by Dr Jodie Heap, a clinical dentist and social theorist to talk about ethics and professionalism. Where do our eth...
Mouthwashes - are they effective, and do they have a role in clinical practice?
24 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week Matt Hopcraft is joined by Michael McCullough, Professor of Oral Medicine at the Melbourne Dental School to discuss the role of mouthwashes ...