I was very pleased to see that domestic violence was the cover subject of May JADA. In the excellent article by Dr. Nancy Kwon Hsieh and colleagues, "Changing dentists’ knowledge, attitudes and behavior regarding domestic violence through an interactive multimedia tutorial," (
JADA 2006;137:596–603
), domestic violence was identified as the silent epidemic. I believe that this statement is truer than most of us could ever imagine.
Over this past year, I have served as a trustee for "Give Back a Smile," the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry’s charitable foundation’s [effort] to restore the smiles of survivors of domestic violence. This year alone, our members have provided over $1 million in dental services to the survivors of domestic violence.
During my tenure, a number of people have confided their histories of violence and abuse to me. Not only do they suffer at the hands of the abuser, in our "blame the victim" society, they also suffer from the stigma of being abused. Fortunately, the people that I have spoken with have since escaped their abusive relationships, and have gone on to lead successful lives. But there are others who were not so fortunate, such as Lacey Peterson or Nicole Simpson, the sad victims of domestic violence—the tragic faces of this silent epidemic.
I especially appreciated the fact that the authors attempted to identify the victims and offered a pathway for becoming survivors. With the right kind of support, these victims can go on to lead safe, productive and even powerful lives.
Once a victim has suffered visible damage to his or her smile from domestic violence (yes, we have also had male survivors in our program), it is difficult to escape the stigma of violence and abuse. Give Back a Smile works with the survivors of domestic violence to make them whole again by restoring their damaged smiles.
As dentists, we all can do much more. This article pointed out that we dentists are on the front line to identify the problem. We have the opportunity to lead potentially tragic victims to a solution that could make them successful survivors.
Once again, dentistry has the opportunity to be the leader in prevention. Hopefully, this is just the beginning of an important new dialogue in dentistry. Congratulations to the authors for their excellent contribution to an emotional and politically sensitive issue.
