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‘I want the truth to be said, I want the truth to be known’
True (Gary Kemp)
Readers will be aware of the great amount of hype, fake news and untruths that have been written over the past 10 months regarding the pandemic, arguably none more than across the Atlantic. We are now at a time when we would like to see a return to something like normal, and our patients want that too. A certain way of encouraging them to return to our practices is to reassure them that they are being treated in a safe environment, and that the advice that we give them is believable.
I have previously written that the fastest route to a legal complaint started by a patient is a treatment that has not worked out as promised. Of course, some practitioners will have adapted their computer systems to provide patients with an accurate estimate of how well treatments carried out by that dentist survive, and, for those who have not, perhaps this should be a New Year resolution? It is not possible to cover all treatments under this umbrella, so, it is therefore necessary for the clinician to be able to quote (perhaps not verbatim) from the published literature. However, how can they guarantee that it is believable? The peer-review process is the only way.
Wikipedia has defined peer review as follows:
‘The evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). Peer review methods are used to maintain quality standards, improve performance, and provide credibility. In academia, scholarly peer review is often used to determine an academic paper's suitability for publication in journals of good quality.’
The latter statement applies to Dental Update. All articles are reviewed, generally by two experts in the field, occasionally more, and their views are taken into account by the Editorial Director when deciding whether the paper that has been submitted is suitable for publication, and, if suitable, whether minimal amendments or major revision is required. The reviews should be written in a way that is supportive of the writer, and, in my own writing experience, following a reviewer's suggestions is as good a way as any of enhancing one's work.
I laughed when I recently received an anonymous press release about a forthcoming magazine publication. It stated: ‘From our recent research conducted in June 2020, 65.57% of dental professionals stated their preferred content to consume was practical, clinical articles and case studies’. Wow, I thought, that's Dental Update! Then I thought, there are no details of how many dental professionals took part in the research - was it five, 10, 20 or 30? How valid is this so-called ‘research’? Are the numbers of respondents sufficient to provide a valid result - indeed, have the numbers been subjected to a power calculation? And then, further investigation indicated that the proposed publication was not going to be peer reviewed, so, it was potentially not believable. Hopefully, the UK dental profession is sufficiently educated in the value of peer review as to not be fooled.
This brings me to another point. Readers obtain verifiable CPD via Dental Update by completing the CPD questions that are presented in every issue. (I recall that Dental Update was the first to provide this service). However, if the content is not believable, then the CPD is potentially valueless. What is the UK General Dental Council's view on this? None, at present, as far as I am aware. There is a simple solution for them with regard to CPD obtained by the reading of dental journals, namely, to allow CPD that counts towards dentists' re-registration to be achieved only through peer-reviewed journals. Of course, there are other routes to CPD via lectures and webinars and the GDC have pointed out that they do not have the resources to ‘police’ these. I understand that, given the variety of topics and content that is available. However, something needs to be done to stop dental clinicians watching a lecture that is devoid of meaningful and true content and claiming CPD hours for that. The debate on this must start forthwith, and readers' views on this would be appreciated.
Finally, I have received correspondence querying the content of a recently published guest editorial. These (occasional) features are designed to allow a particular viewpoint, which could be of interest to readers, to be aired and discussed: they are not peer reviewed. To ensure that readers are aware of this, such non peer-reviewed papers are now clearly identifiable.
Spandau Ballet have recently released a ‘greatest hits’ album to celebrate 40 years since they signed their first recording contract. This includes the song True, quoted above. The lesson for dental professionals is that if we want certainty that what we read is true, it must be peer reviewed.