Dentistry in Russia – Personal Reflections

By Vladimir F. Kuznetsov
vlad@asmdt.com

Today a major event in the Russian Dentistry started in Moscow: DENTAL-EXPO Moscow – a “dental trade show in Russia and a meeting place for decision-makers from dental practices, dental labs, dental trade, dental industry, research and education”.  While you may look at the official Web-site and get a feeling of the participants – here I want to share my personal reflections.
To tell the truth – I am really, really impressed. Well, in these hard times for the world economy it is amazing to see a show of this type – is a rare occasion. First, when I approached the Exhibition Hall, I noticed big crowds of visitors, and the adjacent parking lot was filled with what I estimated over 1,000 cars from all parts of Russia, the Ukraine, Byelorussia and other former USSR countries. Standing in line with somewhat 50-60 people to register, I overhead a lot of professional talk on the booming business. Indeed, the overall impression is – DENTISTRY IN RUSSIA IS FLOURISHING, BOOMING and THRIVING.
Of course, one of the major attractions to the show is the trade part of it and many practitioners used this occasion to shop for instruments and materials – starting from gowns and slippers to implants and instruments. This is a SUPER SALE: discounts are 40-50% and as one of the companies put it 1 Euro= 39.99 RUR (with the official exchange rate of  45.1 RUR). Here is the crowd of dentists in line to one of the booth.

The leading companies staged some presentations and seminars that are crowded with dentists who are eagerly getting the latest updates on technology and hardware.

There are many players of the world dental market present, but the most prominent are representatives of Germany – this country has the only one official government booth. Some high tech developments and hardware is on display, like this one CAD/CAM scan machine, as well as other dental paraphernalia.

As a member of ASMDT team I was particularly interested in dental education – however, this seems to be a big niche. There are about 5 companies that provide this; however, they do not cover dental technologists. I had a number of conversations with several groups of experts, and all of them enthusiastically reacted to my suggestion of expansion of ASMDT business to Russia.  While continuing education is present for dentists, for dental technologists it virtually does not exist in Russia.
On my way back I chatted with a couple of young dental technologists – and they confirmed my observation – they are desperately in need for quality continuing education opportunities.