Bob Barkleys Successful Preventive Dental Practices has been re-published

Bob Barkley's Successful Preventive Dental Practices has been re-published

Great news! How to order. Doug Reese, a member of the ISOC advisory board and Bob Barkley's stepson, has re-published Barkley's famous book on preventive dentistry.

Cost of the soft cover (in the original format) is $25.00. Copies of Barkley's hard to find original book are occasionally advertised on Amazon for over $300.00. There have been underground Xeroxed copies of the book circulating for years.

I am delighted that Bob Barkley's Successful Preventive Dental Practices is being re-published.

As the editor and publisher of the web site In a Spirit of Caring I get to see, on a regular basis, the impact Bob Barkley is still having on dentists years after his death in a small plane crash near his home of Macomb, Illinois in 1977.

One of the web site's most frequent requests -- from dentists using search engines - is for copies of this book and for information on him. This book was published in 1972 and has been out of print (because of confusion on who owned the copyright) for at least 30 years. These requests are not only from the US and Canada, but from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, India, and Malaysia.

When they read his book, they are amazed that a book written in the early 1970's is so applicable to the 21st century.

I think it is because he addressed timeless problems for dentists and dentistry and showed dentists remarkable and innovative ways of solving these problems. He helped the dentists, who understood and applied his concepts, practice a higher, more enjoyable level of dentistry. In my opinion, dentistry still has not grasped the import of his work.

While some of the information in the book is out of date, most dentists are still not utilizing his paradigm busting concepts. I just finished reviewing his book to see what is still relevant to dentistry today and ended up recommending the introduction, preface and 90% of the chapters.

In my opinion, his development of the co-diagnosis process is his most important contribution to dentistry.

My review of his book re-affirmed my knowledge and experience of him as a spellbinding storyteller, seeker, pragmatist, innovator, visionary, and master dentist.

As my philosophy of dental care matured, my self-image slowly changed from that of a healer to one of an interested, empathic teacher of health who is also capable of good restorative dentistry.

--Bob Barkley, DDS

Barkley felt the strength of his relationships with patients was the most important factor in helping them assume responsibility for their health. He wrote "As my philosophy of dental care matured, my self-image slowly changed from that of a "healer" to one of an interested, empathic teacher of health who is also capable of good restorative dentistry."

He showed dentistry the importance of the doctor-patient relationship and of counseling patients on how to prevent dental disease and become healthier. He studied the work of leaders -- people like Douglas McGregor, Peter Drucker, Carl Rogers, Arthur Combs, Nathan Kohn, L.D. Pankey, Sumter Arnim and C.C. Bass - in counseling psychology, management, education, selection and hiring practices, and preventive dentistry.

He integrated their concepts into a way of practicing dentistry that helped a generation of dentists discover that there is a much more satisfying way of practicing dentistry than "the drill, fill and bill" paradigm that still predominates. He described this way of practicing as health/prevention oriented instead of disease/fix-it orientated. Today, this way of practicing is called health-centered or relationship-based dentistry.

His work helped dentistry contribute to two of the most significant accomplishments in health care at the end of the 20th century -- the remarkable reduction of dental caries and periodontal disease and a more humane model of health care.

It is amazing to reflect back and realize that he accomplished this by the age of 46, when he died.

Now, dentistry is in danger of losing his legacy of prevention, humaneness, patient-centeredness and caring as it hurtles back toward a materialistic, technical, doctor-centered way of practicing. While this blind regression is going on, the primacy of the doctor-patient relationship is being covertly destroyed by the government and insurance companies as they fight to control doctors and our health care system.

Today, very few people in dental audiences raise their hand when they are asked if they are familiar with Bob Barkley and his work. It is my hope that the re-publishing of this fountainhead book will help re-ignite dentist's interest in Bob Barkley and his work on how to develop a health-centered or relationship-based dental practice.By doing this, dentists can re-discover the joy of practicing dentistry and apply it to the challenges of and threats to practicing dentistry in the 21st century.