Year: 2010
Type: editorial
Abstract: Today’s health care provider faces a significant challenge in keeping up-to-date with the burgeoning increase in biomedical information. A simple PubMed search for the term “dental” returned 105,749 references for the decade from 2000 through 2009. Furthermore, the current “half-life” of biomedical knowledge, the time until half the knowledge in a field becomes obsolete or is disproven, is estimated to be only a few years. At these rapid rates of evolution and decay, much of the information learned during dental education could be outdated or superseded within only a few years of entering practice. The practical implications of this situation are suggested by a recent systematic review that concluded, “... physicians who have been in practice for more years and older physicians possess less factual knowledge, are less likely to adhere to appropriate standards of care, and may also have poorer patient outcomes” (1). Over one-half (52%) of the 62 studies reviewed found decreasing performance with increasing years in practice. The problem of keeping up-to-date also has serious implications for dental education, and it looks like dental schools are not keeping up. For example, 23% of U.S. and Canadian dental schools surveyed reported that they continued to endorse occlusal adjustment for the prevention and/or treatment of temporomandibular disorders despite opposing conclusions presented in three review articles and a Cochrane systematic review recommending against this approach (2). In this environment, where both practitioners and dental schools are challenged in their efforts to keep up-to-date, new models of education and science transfer must be explored.
Source: Revista Odonto Ciência
Authors: John P. Hatch, John D. Rugh
Language: English
Subfield: General Health Professions
Field: Health Professions
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2103207294