There are a lot of fields like this, where they have mostly been reduced to refinements but ultimately are still very barbaric procedures. All we've done is upgrade the stick (in this case, a nice shiny pick), but the procedure hasn't changed much at all.
Too much of dentistry is still stuck on instant fix solutions. Take hard metal, scrape teeth. Something wrong on inside, just drill into it scrape it out and fill it. Dental implants were the last major invention and that was what, in the 60s? There really needs to be far more money and research in the field, because there is ample opportunity for major improvements here as it's lagging so far behind other health fields.
There's huge inertia to change in Dentistry, we know that drilling and filling is basically the worst way to fix teeth. It's firmly established that ART/HVGIC is a much simpler and superior method for 95% of issues. Could be nearly 100% with proper patient education. The ART proponents have been saying this for 30 years, but it's now too hard to deny the superiority. You don't hear Dentist advocating for it though, instead they push fillings, crowns and root canals. Because the majority of a dentist work is actually repairing the inevitable problems that drilling and filling will cause. Drilled teeth will almost certainly need to be refilled and at a larger portion each time.
Loads of studies that show the effectiveness of ART just as well as composites.
And the difference is Novocaine shots and drilling out a tooth vs no numbing need, minimal cleaning with a pick and toothbrush and then essentially placing a ball of putty in the cavity. A ball of putty which actually chemically bonds with the tooth and releases fluoride to rebuild enamel.
But it's hard to charge $350 for something anyone with two fingers can do in about 15 minutes. And then of course if it breaks or comes out the fix isn't drilling an even larger area, it's just filling a smaller hole with putty.
So what you're saying is, the dental industry is ripe for disruption by someone who can set up a fancy office and hire a half competent nurse? Come on, YCombinator, do your thing.
Nope the regulation is too strict. You either must be a dentist or a hygienist to do any sort of dental work and there are strict limits on what a hygienist can do. To avoid regulation you must have an actual dentist doing everything. Now, the robot angle may open something up. There is already innovation in the manner you are thinking, but it's private equity basically buying the cheapest / worst dentist they can and scheduling them to do like 60 fillings a day in a different location each day of the week. Obviously the goal is extracting the most profit though. They will push all the most expensive procedures that non-dentist can do like periodontal debridement and measuring the gums etc.
At some point, you bottom out on the reality that we are all just big bags of meat and bones. No amount of technology or AI will change the fact that we are material objects who sometimes have problems with that composition and structure of that material.
That hasn't stopped other fields. You can get skin patches that utilize micro-needles to inject serum into your pimple, reducing the need to wait for pimples to "naturally" disappear. This was previously thought to be wildly unaffordable. Didn't we just get a new breakthrough for hair regeneration earlier this year using similar techniques?
Fact of the matter is, dentristry has lagged so far behind other fields because there's a lack of care for it. Dental is often not even considered "healthcare", despite how important oral health is to general health. It's also the easiest to hide, who cares about actual rotting teeth just sharpen them down and replace them with plastic. Whereas things like skincare and hair get far more priority due to being visible. Of course there's also the severity, people don't care if their teeth disintigrate, but a broken leg is a broken leg and gets handled appropriately.
Maybe it's because dermatology is much less risky since you're talking about a surface level treatment for a very small part of a very large organ. With dentistry, you're going into an orifice that humans must use to survive and directly interacting with the only place in the human body where bone is exposed to the outside environment. The risks are huge. You can die of heart failure if bacteria gets into your gums.
> a broken leg is a broken leg and gets handled appropriately.
Funny that you say that because I'm currently stuck on my couch with a broken ankle, unable to walk for the past two months. I'm very grateful for the quality of care I've gotten, but seeing the X-rays with three metal plates and 18 screws going into my bones sure as heck does look barbaric. But when chunks of bone snapped off and need to be put back in the right place and forcibly held there, maybe that's the best you can do.
Add decent calcium processing/distribution. I get too much calcium deposit and vit D+K basically fixed my dental issues. Unfortunately it took 30 years for a dentist to tell me about that.
Too much of dentistry is still stuck on instant fix solutions. Take hard metal, scrape teeth. Something wrong on inside, just drill into it scrape it out and fill it. Dental implants were the last major invention and that was what, in the 60s? There really needs to be far more money and research in the field, because there is ample opportunity for major improvements here as it's lagging so far behind other health fields.