Dental Services to the Armed Forces is an important arm of the trinity of medical services, namely medical, dental and nursing under the overall command of Director General of Armed Forces Medical Services.

Army Dental Corps, the mother body of dental services for Army, Navy and Air Force, provides state-of-the-art dental services to the service personnel and their families and also to the ex-servicemen and their dependents.

Regular dental service for the Indian soldiers came into being in 1941, long after the formation of Army Dental Corps for the British troops. Before that, many an Indian soldier were invalidated out of service due to bad gums and teeth and inability to chew field rations.

It was only at the beginning of the World War-II, when crash recruitment of Indians took place, that eight Indian civilian dental surgeons were commissioned in the newly created dental wing of the Indian Medical Service–IMS(D). The work done by these officers and immediate steep rise in the demand for dental treatment from the Indian troops established the necessity for a regular dental service for the Indian Armed Forces. A rapid expansion took place in due course and the number of dental officers rose sharply leading to the formation in 1943 of a separate Corps designated Indian Army Dental Corps. The prefix ‘Indian’ was later dropped and on January 26, 1950, the Corps was rechristened Army Dental Corps.

During World War-II, independent mobile dental units with portable equipment were sent to many theatres of war all over the world. This practice continued whenever the country has been forced to take up arms against the aggressors.

Officers and men of the corps have also been rushed abroad at the request of the United Nations and individual countries. Some of these assignments since independence have been to Korea, Cango, Oman, Botswana, Zambia, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Cambodia, Lebanon, Ethiopia-Eritrea and Maldives. Members of the corps have demonstrated great valour on many occasions and wielded weapons to safeguard life of their own and that of others.

Army dental teams periodically visit Nepal for the benefit of Gurkhas. Regularly officers of the corps organise dental camps in remote areas where they render free treatment to local public.

The aim of Army Dental Corps is to keep jawans, sailors and airmen 'biting fit'. To achieve this aim, a chain of dental units have been functioning from mountain-tops of Ladakh to Thiruvananthapuram in the South and from Mumbai to easternpoint of India on the India-Burma border. Dental inspections and treatment are regularly carried out in forward bunkers and trenches, on snowy peaks, onboard the ships and in aircraft hangars.

The scope of treatment is vast, ranging from treatment of gum diseases, restoring teeth, artficial dentures, implants, metal bridges, to reconstructive surgeries of the facial region. Dental diseases among flying personnel and submariners pose certain problems which at times affect their performance. These are tackled effectively by the Dental Officers specially trained by Navy and Air Force.

The multispeciality dental institutions of defence forces like Naval Institute of Dental Sciences, Air Force Insititute of Dental Sciences and Command Military Dental Centres are today comparable to the best dental hospitals in the country. The elite Army Dental Centre (Research and Referral) raised on May 1, 1999 provides specialised care to soldiers who sustain injuries in the enemy action and terrorist activities in the border areas. Armed Forces Dental Clinic in New Delhi is the most advanced multispeciality dental centre. It is one of the biggest dental establishments in the country with 14 Dental Officers and Dental Hygienist on its roll. It is equipped with an implantology centre providing implant to the troops and their dependents, free of cost.

Department of Dental Surgery at Armed Forces Medical College, Pune imparts advanced professional training to dental officers and basic training to dental ancillary staff. Post- graduate courses in prosthodontics, oral surgery, orthodontics and periodontics are conducted at this institution under the aegis of Mumbai University. In addition, a number of Dental Officers and ancillary staff from the Armed Forces of Indonesia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sudan, Bhutan and Nepal have also been trained here. An outstanding feature of the Army Dental Corps is its activity in the field of dental research. A number of materials like bone plates and dental implants have also been developed to save valuable foreign exchange.