Translation of 口腔医生?

[Dawei3]

Every translation apps/website I checked gives "stomatologist" for 口腔医生. 

 

Hospitals with stomatologists are common in China.  However, in the US, "stomatology" is extremely rare:  google finds just 1 site in the US.  It's a place that studies rare oral diseases.  Wikipedia says that in the US, "oral medicine" replaced stomatology.  Centers for oral medicine are common in the US.  

 

From the limited info I received from a Chinese stomatologist (with limited English ability), it sounds like "doctor of oral medicine" or "oral medicine doctor" are better translations for stomatology.  The Chinese stomatologist does dental, mucosal, and maxillofacial surgery, which sounds like oral medicine as described here:  https://www.aaom.com/life-and-careers-in-oral-medicine   Hence, the translation of 口腔医生 to stomatologist seems like a translation to an arcane word (from a US perspective).  

 

1. Do English speaking countries outside the US use the term "stomatologist"?  Commonly?  (or use the term oral medicine?)

 

2. Your thoughts on the translation of 口腔医生?  (I realize it may depend on your answer to #1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jim]

I think it actually falls under dentistry and the most common term would be dentist despite the ostensibly wider remit; did a quick search of the BMJ and found this supporting quote:

 

Which comes from this article: https://www.bmj.com/content/282/6265/721

 

Absolutely not my field of expertise though!

[Dawei3]

T

4 hours ago, Jim said:

I think it actually falls under dentistry

I wondered about the use of stomatology in other languages too.  

 

I think it is a form of dentistry.  However in the US, most dentists do more simple things.  The stomatologist I know in China and oral medicine doctors in the US also do surgery on cancer and other oral/muscosal surgeries that I can't imagine my dentist doing (albeit, I'm guessing there is overlap between dentist/stomatology).  

 

Seeing that stomatology is used in Russian makes me want to know the origin of the word.....  

 

Not my field of expertise either..... 

[Dlezcano]

"Stomatologist" is a common word in Spain, although less common than "dentist". I think in China 口腔医生 does mostly the job of a dentist, but I can ask a Chinese doctor to confirm if necessary.

 

Edit: I asked a Chinese doctor who is working in a big hospital in China about the difference between 牙科医生 and 口腔医生. He said there isn't any difference.

[Dawei3]

14 hours ago, Dlezcano said:

"Stomatologist" is a common word in Spain

This question is more interesting than I expected.  I wondered about the English speaking word. Cool to know it's used in Spanish too.  Recently, I've been listening to the History of English podcast.  The first episodes are on Indo-European and Latin.  It makes me wonder about shared words in the different Indo-European languages.  This said, stomatology is likely a late loan word from whenever the specialty was invented.  

 

14 hours ago, Dlezcano said:

牙科医生 and 口腔医生.

A difference between the US and China is that in the US, dentistry focuses on preventative care.  Seeing the dentist 2x/yr is common in the US and as a result, serious problems are less common.  In contrast, seeing a dentist in China normally happens when a person knows they have a problem and by then, it's usually serious. Hence, having no difference between these terms in Chinese makes sense.

 

I wonder if over the long-term, China will move towards more preventive care.  While the US medical system has lots of draw-backs, its approach to dentistry is quite good.