From the Editor
Gerard Kugel, DMD, MS, PhD
Dear Readers:
This month marks the one-year anniversary of Inside Dentistry. As we reflect on the time that’s passed, it appears we have come full circle. Our first year-long journey of examining the issues and thought-provoking questions that affect our profession has returned us to a topic that we first explored in our inaugural edition: education. Now, however, our attention focuses on continuing education—the necessary learning that helps us to further our careers, enhance our skills and, ultimately, ensure the well-being of our patients.
Steadfast in our journalistic style. Last year the publishers and staff introduced dentistry to a refreshing new way of looking at the news and views that shape the oral health care profession. As we celebrate Inside Dentistry as a firmly rooted dental publication, we hope we have succeeded in positioning it among the trustworthy resources that you consult for information that’s relevant and useful to your practice.
CE that’s still free. Interestingly, our journal is among the options providing free, multiple-reviewer CE. Each one of our reviewers has a minimum of 15 years’ experience, most are university-based, and all are respected leaders in their areas of expertise. Through article reviews and online testing, we continue to make CE more accessible and affordable.
Encouraging the diligent pursuit of valid knowledge. As our cover story points out, CE is more than just attendance at a hands-on course or a lecture, and it’s more than a self-test accompanying a CE article. Pursuing appropriate, applicable, and relevant CE requires a dental professional’s active participation in order to sustain the level of intellectual comprehension and clinical competency necessary to delivery quality care to the public. Undertaking advanced education isn’t just an opportunity, it’s a responsibility. Therefore, we encourage our readers and our colleagues to look for CE opportunities—whether online courses or journal articles, lectures or hands-on continuums, academic-based programs or private institute courses—that are based on research and scientific proof. And, if partnerships have been involved in the presentation of the information, evaluate whether or not they are balanced, objective, and clearly disclosed.
What do you think? As we examine the topic of continuing education in this month’s cover story, we remain as committed to fostering dialog among members of the dental community as we were a year ago. There are many recommendations and opinions about how dentistry should best undertake the ongoing skills development of its professionals. We touch upon those in our current reporting, and we welcome your thoughts and reactions to this coverage. As always, please continue to send us your letters and feedback to letters@insidedentistry.net.
On behalf of everyone at Inside Dentistry, it’s been a great year. It has truly been my pleasure to serve as the Editor-in-Chief, and I look forward to continuing this ambitious undertaking. Thank you for the opportunity to serve you, and thank you for your continued readership.
With warm regards,
Associate Dean for Research
Tufts University School of Dental Medicine
gkugel@aegiscomm.com
PS: To ensure that you continue to receive everything that Inside Dentistry has to offer, please sign up for your free subscription by visiting www.insidedentistry.net or by mailing in the business reply card found on page 16 in this issue.
