Journal of Dental Research http://jdr.sagepub.com/
Emphasizing Relevance T.A. DeRouen J DENT RES 2014 93: 537 DOI: 10.1177/0022034514532103 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jdr.sagepub.com/content/93/6/537
Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com
On behalf of: International and American Associations for Dental Research
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>> Version of Record - May 15, 2014 What is This?
Downloaded from jdr.sagepub.com at Maastricht University on June 10, 2014 For personal use only. No other uses without permission. © International & American Associations for Dental Research
research-article2014
JDR
93610.1177/0022034514532103
Speech
Emphasizing Relevance
T.A. DeRouen University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA; [email protected] .edu
J Dent Res 93(6):537-538, 2014
P
resident Polverini, members of the AADR Board, Council, staff, and fellow AADR members, it is with a sense of honor and excitement that I begin my term as President of the American Association for Dental Research. I could say that this fulfills a lifelong dream, but that would be a bit of an exaggeration, since I have reached this point using a route less traveled than most. Many years ago, when I completed a PhD in Statistics, if I had consulted a fortune teller and asked for a prediction of what my future career would be like, and if I was told that before my career was done I would spend a year as dean of a dental school, and another year as President of a national dental research association, I probably would have laughed and called the fortune teller a fraud (which probably would have been the case anyway). The point is, such things were not anywhere on my radar screen when I started my career. But, as we all know, a career is a journey of opportunities pursued or declined, and I am glad that when the opportunity arose in the mid-1980s to get involved in dental research, I took it. The journey has been both interesting and rewarding. In 2011, when I was asked to serve as Interim Dean of the School of Dentistry at the University of Washington, I told the faculty and students that since I was not a dentist, I was not able to look at what we were doing through the eyes of a dentist who had gone through dental school, which was a bit of a disadvantage. However, what I was able to do was look at what we were doing through the eyes of a fairly well-informed patient. That exercise turned out to be very informative, as well as sometimes worrisome. In serving as President of AADR, I think I can also bring a different perspective to the role, since I am not so much a dental researcher steeped in expertise in a specific research area as I am a research methodologist interested in the use of the best research methods across a range of dental research topics, especially in clinical research. The AADR Mission involves advancing research and promoting the research community, both of which have received our previous focus. But there is a third component to our Mission, and that is to facilitate the communication and application of research findings . . . in other words, to demonstrate the
DOI: 10.1177/0022034514532103 © International & American Associations for Dental Research
relevance of what we do. Now if I had to identify a theme for what I think we should be doing more of over the next year, I would categorize it as “emphasizing relevance”. We can do that in several different ways and activities. First, let’s talk about the nature of the research we do. To frame the issue, think back to junior high school science, and the familiar question, “If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a noise?” Now let me offer a corollary: “If we conduct our research, following all the principles of good research methods in doing it, we obtain results, analyze and interpret them accurately, and publish them (in, say, the Journal of Dental Research), and they just sit there for years and do not have any direct or indirect effect on oral or craniofacial health, does that constitute good research?” We could clearly engage in a discussion of whether basic research needs to be immediately translatable into applications, or whether research with negative findings is important, as well as other esoteric topics, but my point is that our research will be deemed more valuable, and will be more likely to be funded, if there is an apparent path through which it can eventually be translated into having an effect on oral and craniofacial health. So we should be looking for opportunities to demonstrate that translation. As an Association, how can we facilitate that process? I believe that we should try to create more opportunities for researchers and clinicians to interact, with research serving as the focus of that interaction. One of the things I have done in the past is to serve as co-director of Northwest PRECEDENT, which is a dental practice–based research network. Something I learned from that experience is how much practicing clinicians can become enthused about research that is relevant to their clinical practice, and how knowledge of research findings can change how they practice. So how do we create more opportunities for interactions between clinicians and researchers? I know that there have been efforts made in the past to have more clinically oriented sessions at AADR annual meetings. But I would call that the “Field of Dreams” approach—you know, “if you have more clinically oriented sessions, the clinicians will come”. I’m not sure how much of an effect that has had. How do we expect clinicians to know how many clinically oriented sessions we have? Rather than expecting them to come to us, we need to make more of an effort to go to them. You know, the American Dental Association has been emphasizing the importance of evidence-based dentistry to its membership, which has raised awareness of the
537 Downloaded from jdr.sagepub.com at Maastricht University on June 10, 2014 For personal use only. No other uses without permission. © International & American Associations for Dental Research
538
DeRouen
importance of research among practicing dentists. Therefore, this is an opportune time to try to build upon that initiative to get more practicing dentists attending our sessions. One way of doing it is by taking some of our programs to them. So this year, the 2014 AADR Fall Focused Symposium will have as its theme “Research Translated into Practice”, and will be held just prior to and in conjunction with the ADA annual session, at the same venue. To encourage practitioners and researchers to attend, members of AADR and/or ADA will be able to register at member rates. Hopefully, this will be only the first of many sessions in which AADR may be able to partner with more clinically oriented organizations to highlight and integrate research into clinical practice. Those of you who are active in clinically oriented specialty or practice organizations should think about how AADR might be able to partner with those organizations in some of their programs, and offer suggestions to AADR leadership. Another way of emphasizing relevance in what we do is by offering more training opportunities in research methods, especially for new faculty. There are several new dental schools that have recently opened, and they all have faculty who will need to get involved in research. New faculty members with PhDs typically have adequate backgrounds in research to allow them to get involved in research immediately. However, new faculty in clinical departments typically do not have an adequate background in clinical research methodology to allow them to do high-quality clinical research, even if they went through a graduate residency program that included a Master’s degree. One of the problems with clinical research is that it is very easy to do poor clinical research, and unfortunately that is what is too often done. When I started working in oral health research, that was one of the first issues I recognized, and that is why I started the Summer Institute in Clinical Dental Research Methods, which has trained more than 500 faculty from 30 U.S. states and 42 foreign countries over the past 22 years. Nevertheless, there remains a substantial unmet need for training in research methods, and AADR is investigating how we can help meet some of that need. That is why there was a pre-meeting workshop on “Fundamentals for Research and Career Success of New Faculty”, and a discussion at the AADR Council meeting on
J Dent Res 93(6) 2014 how we can help faculty at dental schools be more competitive for NIH funding. These efforts dovetail closely with what IADR is doing in its Academy, which had offerings in research methods at the last meeting in Seattle, and will have at the next meeting in Cape Town. So, as we move forward, I encourage you to think of how we can emphasize and communicate the relevance of what we do in AADR to all faculty in dental schools, especially new ones, to the practice community, and to those government agencies and commercial enterprises that fund oral and craniofacial research. This position of AADR President will serve as a bit of a capstone for my career, so here I will take the opportunity to acknowledge the love and support of my wife of 46 years, Cheryl, who has been there to ensure that I had an enjoyable family and home life to complement, and sometimes escape from, my professional life. As I take office, I also acknowledge the tremendous staff at AADR Headquarters, led by Executive Director Dr. Christopher Fox, whose presence and excellent work make the assumption of this position seem less daunting than it might otherwise be. I thank my immediate predecessors in this position with whom I have had the pleasure of working, Drs. Jeff Ebersole, Rena D’Souza, and Peter Polverini. I also thank three past Presidents of AADR with whom I have worked at the University of Washington and who encouraged me in my efforts in oral and craniofacial research, Drs. Roy Page, Paul Robertson, and Martha Somerman. Dr. Page was instrumental in first convincing me to get involved in oral health research. His enthusiasm for the field was infectious, even though his predictions for the future of the field were not entirely accurate. He assured me at the time, which was the mid-1980s, that caries would soon be eliminated, since the development of a vaccine for caries was well under way and would soon become available. As we all know, that didn’t exactly work out, which is indicative of the kinds of challenges we face in this field, and of how unpredictable research can be. I look forward to working with all of you over the next year as we expand the scope, heighten the influence, and emphasize the relevance of AADR and its activities.
Downloaded from jdr.sagepub.com at Maastricht University on June 10, 2014 For personal use only. No other uses without permission. © International & American Associations for Dental Research
Emphasizing Relevance T.A. DeRouen J DENT RES 2014 93: 537 DOI: 10.1177/0022034514532103 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jdr.sagepub.com/content/93/6/537
Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com
On behalf of: International and American Associations for Dental Research
Additional services and information for Journal of Dental Research can be found at: Email Alerts: http://jdr.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://jdr.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
>> Version of Record - May 15, 2014 What is This?
Downloaded from jdr.sagepub.com at Maastricht University on June 10, 2014 For personal use only. No other uses without permission. © International & American Associations for Dental Research
research-article2014
JDR
93610.1177/0022034514532103
Speech
Emphasizing Relevance
T.A. DeRouen University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA; [email protected] .edu
J Dent Res 93(6):537-538, 2014
P
resident Polverini, members of the AADR Board, Council, staff, and fellow AADR members, it is with a sense of honor and excitement that I begin my term as President of the American Association for Dental Research. I could say that this fulfills a lifelong dream, but that would be a bit of an exaggeration, since I have reached this point using a route less traveled than most. Many years ago, when I completed a PhD in Statistics, if I had consulted a fortune teller and asked for a prediction of what my future career would be like, and if I was told that before my career was done I would spend a year as dean of a dental school, and another year as President of a national dental research association, I probably would have laughed and called the fortune teller a fraud (which probably would have been the case anyway). The point is, such things were not anywhere on my radar screen when I started my career. But, as we all know, a career is a journey of opportunities pursued or declined, and I am glad that when the opportunity arose in the mid-1980s to get involved in dental research, I took it. The journey has been both interesting and rewarding. In 2011, when I was asked to serve as Interim Dean of the School of Dentistry at the University of Washington, I told the faculty and students that since I was not a dentist, I was not able to look at what we were doing through the eyes of a dentist who had gone through dental school, which was a bit of a disadvantage. However, what I was able to do was look at what we were doing through the eyes of a fairly well-informed patient. That exercise turned out to be very informative, as well as sometimes worrisome. In serving as President of AADR, I think I can also bring a different perspective to the role, since I am not so much a dental researcher steeped in expertise in a specific research area as I am a research methodologist interested in the use of the best research methods across a range of dental research topics, especially in clinical research. The AADR Mission involves advancing research and promoting the research community, both of which have received our previous focus. But there is a third component to our Mission, and that is to facilitate the communication and application of research findings . . . in other words, to demonstrate the
DOI: 10.1177/0022034514532103 © International & American Associations for Dental Research
relevance of what we do. Now if I had to identify a theme for what I think we should be doing more of over the next year, I would categorize it as “emphasizing relevance”. We can do that in several different ways and activities. First, let’s talk about the nature of the research we do. To frame the issue, think back to junior high school science, and the familiar question, “If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a noise?” Now let me offer a corollary: “If we conduct our research, following all the principles of good research methods in doing it, we obtain results, analyze and interpret them accurately, and publish them (in, say, the Journal of Dental Research), and they just sit there for years and do not have any direct or indirect effect on oral or craniofacial health, does that constitute good research?” We could clearly engage in a discussion of whether basic research needs to be immediately translatable into applications, or whether research with negative findings is important, as well as other esoteric topics, but my point is that our research will be deemed more valuable, and will be more likely to be funded, if there is an apparent path through which it can eventually be translated into having an effect on oral and craniofacial health. So we should be looking for opportunities to demonstrate that translation. As an Association, how can we facilitate that process? I believe that we should try to create more opportunities for researchers and clinicians to interact, with research serving as the focus of that interaction. One of the things I have done in the past is to serve as co-director of Northwest PRECEDENT, which is a dental practice–based research network. Something I learned from that experience is how much practicing clinicians can become enthused about research that is relevant to their clinical practice, and how knowledge of research findings can change how they practice. So how do we create more opportunities for interactions between clinicians and researchers? I know that there have been efforts made in the past to have more clinically oriented sessions at AADR annual meetings. But I would call that the “Field of Dreams” approach—you know, “if you have more clinically oriented sessions, the clinicians will come”. I’m not sure how much of an effect that has had. How do we expect clinicians to know how many clinically oriented sessions we have? Rather than expecting them to come to us, we need to make more of an effort to go to them. You know, the American Dental Association has been emphasizing the importance of evidence-based dentistry to its membership, which has raised awareness of the
537 Downloaded from jdr.sagepub.com at Maastricht University on June 10, 2014 For personal use only. No other uses without permission. © International & American Associations for Dental Research
538
DeRouen
importance of research among practicing dentists. Therefore, this is an opportune time to try to build upon that initiative to get more practicing dentists attending our sessions. One way of doing it is by taking some of our programs to them. So this year, the 2014 AADR Fall Focused Symposium will have as its theme “Research Translated into Practice”, and will be held just prior to and in conjunction with the ADA annual session, at the same venue. To encourage practitioners and researchers to attend, members of AADR and/or ADA will be able to register at member rates. Hopefully, this will be only the first of many sessions in which AADR may be able to partner with more clinically oriented organizations to highlight and integrate research into clinical practice. Those of you who are active in clinically oriented specialty or practice organizations should think about how AADR might be able to partner with those organizations in some of their programs, and offer suggestions to AADR leadership. Another way of emphasizing relevance in what we do is by offering more training opportunities in research methods, especially for new faculty. There are several new dental schools that have recently opened, and they all have faculty who will need to get involved in research. New faculty members with PhDs typically have adequate backgrounds in research to allow them to get involved in research immediately. However, new faculty in clinical departments typically do not have an adequate background in clinical research methodology to allow them to do high-quality clinical research, even if they went through a graduate residency program that included a Master’s degree. One of the problems with clinical research is that it is very easy to do poor clinical research, and unfortunately that is what is too often done. When I started working in oral health research, that was one of the first issues I recognized, and that is why I started the Summer Institute in Clinical Dental Research Methods, which has trained more than 500 faculty from 30 U.S. states and 42 foreign countries over the past 22 years. Nevertheless, there remains a substantial unmet need for training in research methods, and AADR is investigating how we can help meet some of that need. That is why there was a pre-meeting workshop on “Fundamentals for Research and Career Success of New Faculty”, and a discussion at the AADR Council meeting on
J Dent Res 93(6) 2014 how we can help faculty at dental schools be more competitive for NIH funding. These efforts dovetail closely with what IADR is doing in its Academy, which had offerings in research methods at the last meeting in Seattle, and will have at the next meeting in Cape Town. So, as we move forward, I encourage you to think of how we can emphasize and communicate the relevance of what we do in AADR to all faculty in dental schools, especially new ones, to the practice community, and to those government agencies and commercial enterprises that fund oral and craniofacial research. This position of AADR President will serve as a bit of a capstone for my career, so here I will take the opportunity to acknowledge the love and support of my wife of 46 years, Cheryl, who has been there to ensure that I had an enjoyable family and home life to complement, and sometimes escape from, my professional life. As I take office, I also acknowledge the tremendous staff at AADR Headquarters, led by Executive Director Dr. Christopher Fox, whose presence and excellent work make the assumption of this position seem less daunting than it might otherwise be. I thank my immediate predecessors in this position with whom I have had the pleasure of working, Drs. Jeff Ebersole, Rena D’Souza, and Peter Polverini. I also thank three past Presidents of AADR with whom I have worked at the University of Washington and who encouraged me in my efforts in oral and craniofacial research, Drs. Roy Page, Paul Robertson, and Martha Somerman. Dr. Page was instrumental in first convincing me to get involved in oral health research. His enthusiasm for the field was infectious, even though his predictions for the future of the field were not entirely accurate. He assured me at the time, which was the mid-1980s, that caries would soon be eliminated, since the development of a vaccine for caries was well under way and would soon become available. As we all know, that didn’t exactly work out, which is indicative of the kinds of challenges we face in this field, and of how unpredictable research can be. I look forward to working with all of you over the next year as we expand the scope, heighten the influence, and emphasize the relevance of AADR and its activities.
Downloaded from jdr.sagepub.com at Maastricht University on June 10, 2014 For personal use only. No other uses without permission. © International & American Associations for Dental Research
