A Study on the Increase of Dental Technicians in Korea and the Regional Distribution of the Korea Dental Technician Association Members

우리나라 치과기공사의 증가현황 및 협회원의 지역별 분포현황 연구

The present study reviews the license registration status of dental technicians and dentists from 1970 to 2002, the number of technician members of The Korea Dental Technician Association from 1990 to 2003, and the number of dentist members in 2003. It also considers the yearly membership fluctuations, its growth rates, yearly increase/decrease, the rate of dentist to dental technician, regional distribution of association members, regional yearly increase/decrease of the members, and the regional distribution of dentists and dental technicians. The purpose is to identify and predict the problems in the demand/supply of dental technicians and the regional imbalance of manpower distribution. By doing so, this study attempts to propose the appropriate standard for the supply of dental technicians and point out the necessity of making mid- or long-term plans for ensuring the efficiency of manpower supply and balanced regional distribution. The result is as follows: 1. The number of dental technicians and dentists in 2002 has grown 36.79 and 9.27 times from 1970, and 2.20 and 2.05 times from 1990, respectively. It tool 11 years for the twofold increase of dental technicians from 1990, one year faster than the same increase of dentists. The number of dental technicians per a dentist was the lowest in 1972 (0.21 person), and the highest in 2002 (0.86 person). Specifically, the fastest growth was observed for a year from 1983 (0.47 technician per a dentist) to 1984 (0.6). From 1984 to 1986, the ratio grew by 0.1 every year. Summing up the numbers of dentists and dental technicians who passed the national certification examination, this study predicted the number of dental technicians per a dentist to be 0.88 in 2003, and 0.90 in 2004. 2. From 1990 to 2003, the average distribution of dental technician was 71.76% in the metropolitan areas and 28.24% in other smaller regions. The proportion of dental technicians working in the three major cities (Seoul, Busan, and Daegu) was the lowest in 2001 (52.39%) and the highest in 1996 (62.66%). The majority number of dental technicians who practiced in the metropolitan areas (about 70% of the entire population) were in service in the three major cities. 3. Compared with 1990, the number of dental technicians in 2003 grew 2.28 times in the large cities, and 2.05 times in other smaller regions. The yearly growth rate was the highest in 1994 over the previous year: 26.06% in large cities and 17.86% in the other regions. In the large metropolitan cities, the growth rate was the highest in Incheon (5.8 times for 5 years from 1998 to 2003), In the rest of the regions, the increase of dental technicians was the highest in Gyeonggi (6.5 times from 1990 to 2003). 4. In 2003, as much as 73.40% of all the members of the Korea Dental Technician Association were distributed in the large metropolitan cities, and the rest 26.60% were in other smaller regions. Meanwhile, 54.35% of the dentists practiced in the metropolitan cities, and the rest 45.65% were in service at other regions. This result indicates that more dental technicians than dentists are concentrated in large cities. More than half of all the technician members of the Association are distributed in the three major cities (i.e. Seoul, Busan, Daegu). On the other hand, 42.03% of dentist members are in these three cities and 53.97% of them practice in Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Busan. In 2003, the ratio of dentist to dental technician is 1:0.43 in general, while the ratio is 1:0.58 in the metropolitan cities, and 1:0.43 in other regions. In 2003, 33.30% of all the certified dental technicians are the member of the Korea Dental Technician Association, while 66.82% of all the licensed dentists are its members.