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GUEST EDITORIAL |
1 Professor, University of Minnesota,
2 Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and
3 Director and Senior Researcher, The Procter & Gamble Company; The authors are also members of the National Advisory Dental and Craniofacial Research Council of the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
* corresponding author, mcherzb{at}umn.edu
KEY WORDS: Dental research • careers • dental schools
"Research...is the register of a profession’s achievement and standing." (Gies, 1918)
At the intersection of dental research, clinical practice, and education sits a dilemma, and the future of our craniofacial and oral health mission is in jeopardy. There are many unfilled positions for academic faculty in dental schools, and there are too few young people seeking and entering careers in academic dentistry. Dental schools must effect cultural change, both to improve their academic vitality and also to train the next generation of academic faculty. To seed a population of skilled academic faculty, schools of dentistry must engage 20% of the best and brightest of their students with enriched academic curricula for 20% of their educational program.
There are abundant opportunities to develop careers in academic dentistry. In 2004–05, the American Dental Education Association estimated that there were 4736 full-time budgeted faculty positions in US dental schools, and 250 of these were vacant (Chmar et al., 2005). Of these unfilled positions, three-quarters were in clinical science and education, 6% were basic and behavioral sciences positions, and 12% were identified as ‘academic-track’ research positions. Similar data have been reported around the world. Why are more than 5% of the full-time positions unfilled? Many academics with clinical credentials leave to enter private practice, and certainly the discrepancy in earning capacity plays a role. But there is another reason, one that is more easily addressed. Many dental schools are housed in major research universities and abide by rigorous codes for promotion and tenure. Too often, faculty members are hired because they are expert clinicians, but they are incompletely trained to succeed in academic careers. To nurture the careers of young faculty, senior research faculty must mentor, but they are too often unavailable or inaccessible. Young faculty must be inspired and able to compete in strong academic environments. Inspired and able faculty will reap satisfaction in their work, succeed in teaching, research, and service, and get promoted.
So how do we develop a cadre of able young aspirants to academic careers in dentistry? Here are some hard facts. The mission of most schools of dentistry is to train competent clinicians for the community. Most schools focus exclusively on this mission. Few schools aspire and make a concerted effort to educate future leaders. With too few faculty committed to mentoring and training the next generation of academic and professional leaders, who will develop and spearhead new advances in diagnosis, prevention, and therapy through effective fundamental, translational, and clinical research? Who will educate dental health care economists, journalists, and informatics specialists for the coming technology age? How will we effectively address the dental health needs of the world’s people during the 21st century? Schools and the dental profession must do more to integrate research and scholarship into the training of dental health care professionals. In short, we must create a ‘virtuous circle’. To be effective, we must recruit, educate, and train the leaders of the future.
But how do we start? First and foremost, we and our dental schools must aspire to enable the next generation to achieve more, recognizing that accreditation guidelines, at least in the US, offer sufficient flexibility for us to achieve our goals. Schools must recruit and mentor inquisitive students who aspire to professional careers in dentistry other than clinical practice. To attract bright and inquisitive young people, our schools must provide interesting, perhaps non-traditional, and robust educational options. Curricular interventions might include (1) cooperative educational alliances with the strongest programs within or among universities to offer concurrent and robust DDS/MS and DDS/PhD education (or their equivalents). Schools could also (2) create community partnerships that provide field study for interested students, including unusual patient populations, internships with architects, hospital administrators, newspaper reporters or health care economists, or work at a research institute. No two schools will have the same resources or educational programs, but all schools have some compelling educational resources that can provide formal training for future leaders in some intellectual arena that can support the profession.
Next, our schools must formalize their dental scholars program, and advertise and recruit inquisitive and intellectually aspiring students. Indeed, title or ‘brand’ your school’s program with the most significant honorific that can be imagined. Make sure that the program is visible, credentialed, appreciated, and recognized by all as the premier offering of your dental school.
To make an impact on the future of dentistry, we must be committed to increasing our academic mission. To commit to change, our schools must provide a "centerpiece" dental scholars program for 20% of our dental students, who will be engaged at least 20% of their time. Leaders in academic dentistry will not likely emerge if the time in the scholars program is devoted only to supervised work in the clinic. Think of the program as ‘non-clinical dental education’. Our goal is to educate leaders who will explore, teach, conduct robust research, and achieve extraordinary scholarship. We want to educate a generation of young people who will drive the future of the dental profession into worthwhile but currently unimaginable directions. The health of the nations depends on it.
Received March 22, 2006; Accepted March 30, 2006
REFERENCES
Chmar JE, Weaver RG, Valachovic RW (2006). Dental school vacant budgeted faculty positions: academic year 2004–05. J Dent Educ 70:188–198.
Gies WJ (1918). The Journal of Dental Research. J Allied Dent Societies 13:496. Reprinted in: William John Gies: his contributions to the advancement of dentistry. Orland FJ. Washington, DC: The William J. Gies Foundation and the IADR, p. 73 (1992).
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  A. M. Iacopino The Influence of "New Science" on Dental Education: Current Concepts, Trends, and Models for the Future J Dent Educ., April 1, 2007; 71(4): 450 - 462. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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