A person who practices dentistry is a dentist. Dentistry is the arrangement, function and placement of teeth according to the dental science. In order to become a dentist one needs to be trained for many years in a university as well as have some practical experience. In United States, you have to obtain a degree in DDS or DMD, prior to that you must hold a post graduate degree, to be a dentist. In Australia, dentist holds a degree in bachelor of dental surgery or bachelor of dental science. In United Kingdom dentists undergo five years of study prior to securing BDS degree.

There are several specialties in dentistry. Dentists can be specialists of either of these:

The straightening of teeth is Orthodontics. They also perform oral and maxillofacial surgery.

Pedodontics: This involves treatment of children's teeth.

Periodontics is the treatment of various gum diseases.

Prosthodontics fixes missing teeth with the help of dental implants, bridges and dentures.

Operative dentistry: This involves restoring existing teeth.

An Endodontics performs root canals.

Dental Public Health: It is the study of social health policies and dental epidemiology

Forensic odontology is used to gather dental evidence in law.

Oral radiology and oral pathology is the study of oral and various other dental diseases.

Dentists must have additional training at the university for several years before becoming a specialist. However, there are some other specialties for which dentists do not require additional training. These are cosmetic dentistry, temporal- mandibular joint therapy and dental implant. In order to be the specialists in these, the courses that last for about few days are enough.

History reveals that in some parts of the world like Canada there were no dentist in the colonial times. Although, Europe and some other developed parts of the world had dentists, in Canada, interestingly, blacksmiths and barbers used to pull out decayed teeth of the people. Canada got its first dentist when some loyalists fled to Canada from America in order to escape the ongoing revolution. In 1814, someone for the first time advertised in the newspaper offering his dentistry services. That is how people of Canada came to know of this profession.

People believe that dentists suffer from inferiority complex as they are looked down upon by other medical professionals.

To make the matter worse they do not have a good rapport with their clients as everyone hates to see the dentist because of the pain. According to some research a higher suicidal rate among the dentists is attributed to all these reasons.