Malaysia is short of orthodontists

The Sunday Star on April 25, 2010 quoted that the Ministry of Health plans to train 170 orthodontists in 5 years to overcome the shortage of such specialists.

Orthodontics is a dental speciality that concerns itself with genetic variations and developmental aberrations in the dento-facial area, which is the growth and development of the face, jaws and teeth.


Currently there are only 117 orthodontists nationwide and 61% of them serve in the private sector. Thirty-three are in the public sector, including four in Sarawak, 10 in the universities and three in the Defence Ministry.


Private sector practitioners will be invited to work in strategic locations in the country to provide orthodontic care pending the increase in the number serving the public sector..

The ideal ratio is one orthodontist to a population of 100,000 people but currently, it was one orthodontist to 250,000 people. It was observed that the lack of trainers and training centres also contributed to the low number of orthodontists in the country.

The Government would also consider sending people to train in countries like Britain, Australia, New Zealand, India or Hong Kong if it could not get enough trainers and places for them locally.

For budding dentists, if you are interested to pursue your career further, the government is willing to sponsor your training in order to achieve the optimum orthodontists to population ratio.