[The image of dentistry. Part 2: The ideal dentist]

Our second part of the publication entitled "The image of Dentistry" discusses the properties that correspond to the ideal image of dentistry or even the ideal scientist such as the management of the dental practice, the dentist-patient relationship and the appropriate handling of the patient's emotions such as anxiety or pain. The quality of treatment and the friendly, honest and compassionate attitude of the dentist can immediately affect the image of dentistry. Therefore, the dental professional must try to keep the balance between practice profit, staffing and patient well-being in order to fulfill both social and public health responsibilities.

[The image of the dentist. Part 1: Results of a literature search]

The dentist enjoys a high degree of professional independence. He is seen as reliable and productive at work while carrying a big responsibility. His foremost social responsibility is to treat patients suffering from toothache and to promote oral health prevention for all people, regardless of their social status. At the same time, the dentist is prestigious, respected and honest. Comparable to other professions, however, dentistry is under public pressure. Media often associate the dental profession with negative properties such as sadism, immorality, or madness. Does the image of the dental profession suffer in this context? Our first article discusses the environmental factors which are identifiable to influence both each dentist and ultimately the whole image of dentistry.

The tolerance of ambiguity in late cochlear-implanted pre-lingually deaf juveniles

OBJECTIVES: To examine the ambiguity tolerance, i.e. the ability to perceive new, contradictory and complex situations as positive challenges, of pre-lingually deafened adolescents who received a cochlear implant after their eighth birthday and to identify those dimensions of ambiguity tolerance which correlate significantly with specific variables of their oral communication. DESIGN AND SETTING: Clinical survey at an academic tertiary referral center. Participants and main outcome measures: A questionnaire concerning communication and subjectively perceived changes compared to the pre-cochlear implant situation was completed by 13 pre-lingually deafened patients aged between 13 and 23 years, who received their cochlear implants between the ages of 8 and 17 years. The results were correlated with the 'Inventory for Measuring Ambiguity Tolerance'. RESULTS: The patients showed a lower ambiguity tolerance with a total score of 134.5 than the normative group with a score of 143.1. There was a positive correlation between the total score for ambiguity tolerance and the frequency of 'use of oral speech', as well as between the subscale 'ambiguity tolerance towards apparently insoluble problems' and all five areas of oral communication that were investigated. Comparison of two variables of oral communication, which shows a significant difference pre- and postoperatively, yields a positive correlation with the subscale 'ambiguity tolerance towards the parental image'. CONCLUSIONS: Pre-lingually deafened juveniles with cochlear implant who increasingly use oral communication seem to regard the limits of a cochlear implant as an interesting challenge rather than an insoluble problem.

Indicating Commitment: The Notion of dépense in the Study of Ritual and Religion

By analysing two cases from the recent history of Vaishnavism (a temple festival in Vrindavan; the development of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON), this paper shows that the notion of dépenseas developed by Marcel Mauss, Robert Hertz and Georges Bataille can be applied as an analytical tool in the study of rituals and religion as an indicator of religious commitment. At the same time it is possible to show that, by constructing a kind of macro-economic theory that includes religious behaviour, recent theories of religious economics are part of, and reproduce, a modern discourse of rationality that rules out, rather than understands, forms of irrationality such as unproductive expenditure (dépense).

Stuck in Mobility? Fragmented Journeys of Migrants without Chances of Admission in Europe

This paper is about young migrants without chance of being granted legal residence status in the Schengen zone. Previous observations suggest that some migrants, whose country of origin leaves them with low chances of receiving asylum or in fact any type of residence permit, exhibit a highly complex migration pattern that is characterised by 1) durable “transit” across Europe, which is a multi-linear movement according to opportunities that open up along the journey; 2) a high degree of flexibility, as they have to respond to suddenly changing conditions, such as work opportunities, rejection of asylum claims, detention or deportation, and 3) switching between different legal statuses, such as asylum seeker, sans papiers or detainee. The experiences of these young adults thus show a deep ambivalence between a sense of autonomy, on the one hand, and of profound hope and powerlessness, on the other. The Dublin Convention intends to limit such a hypermobility of migrants but seems to fail in many cases. Simultaneously it provokes some of the movements by sending asylum seekers and irregular migrants back to their first country of arrivals. Given the fact that little is known about these fragmented journeys inside of the Schengen area, this ethnographic study produces novel data on a highly pertinent migration pattern, the impact of the European migration management on individual migrants as well as the inter-relatedness of the asylum regime and irregular migration in Europe. At the same time these fragmented journeys are an excellent example to discuss mobility as a resource on the one hand (since it enables this specific migrant group to extend their presence in Europe) and as a handicap on the other (since it impedes the building of stable social networks, the planning of the future, etc.).