Sir, I read with great interest the editorial In your debt (Br Dent J 2008; 205: 219) and could not help but agree that financial planning is not something that most dentists worldwide are taught, whether in pre-university days or during their professional dental training. I wish to share our experience on a survey done in Malaysia about two years ago with regards to the financial knowledge and motivation to pursue a career in dentistry.

In a survey of 380 dental students with 255 responding, we found that most undertake this course out of interest, with only 16.1% for financial gain. Only one-third of them think they can become rich as a dentist. This is of course good news as it will ensure that we get suitably dedicated dentists who treat their patients not merely for monetary reward. However, we also found that their knowledge of financial planning, insurance, investment, pension planning and so forth was shallow. For example, 87% of the respondents had no idea what indemnity insurance is despite its importance to their eventual working lives.

Similar to the BDA reports most of our students will be in debt by the time they complete their course because their sponsors are usually their family, with or without scholarship or loan (81.9%). Only 9% were fortunate to be sponsored fully by their parents. Debt in a local context may include repayment of study loan, scholarship in the form of a bond to the sponsor and repayment to the parents in the form of parental support for the future. Hence, like British and Canadian dental students,1 Malaysian students are restricted in their choice of future job options and career prospects too. Most indicate a preference to work for the private sector as opposed to the public sector with a third group unsure. This of course will limit the number of those who wish to further specialise or teach in a dental school.

We have no solution to this problem but hope improvement may be made by incorporating the teaching of financial planning at a very early stage.