{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,23]],"date-time":"2026-09-23T16:38:09Z","timestamp":1790181489298,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":60,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,22]],"date-time":"2026-05-22T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1779408000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Med."],"abstract":"<jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Background<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>The Western Enlightenment model of oral health professionalism in Africa, emphasizing clinical detachment and biomedical reductionism, fails to resonate with communities like the Yor\u00f9b\u00e1, where oral health is intertwined with spiritual personhood and relational knowing. This paper critiques colonial epistemological foundations underpinning oral health professionalism, articulates an Ubuntu-informed alternative grounded in Yor\u00f9b\u00e1 knowledge, and proposes a relational framework centering marginalized community.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>We conducted a critical interpretive synthesis to integrate insights from community-based participatory research in Yor\u00f9b\u00e1 communities, feminist epistemology, African philosophy, and health professions education through iterative dialogue between empirical findings and theoretical frameworks. We examined colonial epistemologies and articulated a relational alternative for oral health professionalism.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Oral health professionalism in Africa remains shaped by colonial epistemologies that privilege clinical detachment while excluding indigenous knowledge systems. An Ubuntu-informed alternative, attentive to feminist critiques of gendered power relations, offers a foundation through mutual vulnerability, clinical empathy, and ecological professional identity formation across interdependent domains. Transformations across curriculum, assessment, workforce policy, research, and governance are required to address epistemic injustices.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Conclusion<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Reimagining oral health professionalism in Africa requires approaches holding clinical excellence and relational depth, recognizing professional identity as formed through interdependent relationships. Dental education must transform by reconceptualising itself as an ecology of relations cultivating practitioners accountable to communities as both knowers and learners.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fmed.2026.1834418","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,22]],"date-time":"2026-05-22T04:57:08Z","timestamp":1779425828000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Reimagining oral health professionalism in Africa: a narrative from the margins"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"13","author":[{"given":"Mor\u00e9nik\u00e9 Oluw\u00e1t\u00f3y\u00ecn","family":"Fol\u00e1yan","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Child Dental Health, Obafemi Awolowo University","place":["Il\u00e9-If\u1eb9\u0300, Nigeria"]},{"name":"Department of Public Health Dentistry, Saveetha Dental College and Hospitals, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, Saveetha University","place":["Chennai, India"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Opeyemi Oyewunmi","family":"Ekundayo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre for Gender and Social Policy Studies, Obafemi Awolowo University","place":["Il\u00e9-If\u1eb9\u0300, Nigeria"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Nceba","family":"Gqaleni","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Sub-Discipline of Traditional Medicine, University of KwaZulu-Natal","place":["Durban, South Africa"]},{"name":"Africa Health Research Institute","place":["Durban, South Africa"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,22]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","article-title":"The four ways of knowing in dental education - an epistemological perspective: communication corner.","volume":"64","author":"Gugushe","year":"2009","journal-title":"SADJ."},{"key":"B2","first-page":"166","article-title":"Professionalism.","volume":"71","author":"Naidoo","year":"2016","journal-title":"SADJ."},{"key":"B3","volume-title":"Whose Science? 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