The Dental Team in the European Union

This book discusses dental healthcare professionals in the European Union and EU policy output and activities in the context of Europeanization and its impact on oral health care. Adopting a framework focused on an institution and its policies allows for discussion from the perspective of multiple actors, both national and international. The research is timely and significant because of the momentous changes that have taken and are taking place in healthcare delivery systems and professions in the Member States of the European Union.

In the book, the author constructs a profile of the oral healthcare professions in the Member States; creates an inventory of challenges faced by these professions; illustrates the impact Europeanization and one of its organs, the European Union, have had on oral health care; demonstrates the way in which national traits and institutions exercise a role in the transposition of EU outputs; and catalogues the stages and views of some representatives of the dental team. Topics explored include:

• The First Stage of Professionalization: Education
• Dental Care Professionals: Regulation
  
• Member States: Healthcare Provision
  
• The Workplace
  
• The European Union and the Dental Team
  

Readers not only learn the fundamentals of oral health professions, their realities, and healthcare delivery, but also become familiar with the political concepts, institutions, and practice related to the field.

The Dental Team in the European Union, having academic and general interest as well as practical value, appeals to diverse audiences. The book is an invaluable resource for researchers and practitioners in the social sciences and the healthcare and dental worlds. It also can be used as required or supplemental reading for students in the healthcare professions, public policy, and political science. Decision-makers at various levels of government and persons affiliated with funding agencies as well as scholarly and professional associations in the United States and abroad also would find this a useful text.

Sondra Z. Koff, PhD, is professor emerita in the Department of Political Science at the State University of New York at Binghamton, New York, USA, with teaching experience in the areas of comparative and healthcare politics at the undergraduate and graduate levels. She has conducted research as a North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and Fulbright scholar. Dr. Koff has published in her areas of specialization in the United States and abroad. She also has had practical experience in the healthcare arena with a variety of healthcare boards as a public member at the local, state, regional, and national levels and often in a leadership capacity.