Spring 2013 - Tufts University School of Dental Medicine

on campus
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The Most Valuable Tool
Good research is the foundation of good practice, aDa exec says by Julie Flaherty
athleen o’loughlin, d81, the
executive director and chief
operating officer of the American
Dental Association, tells a story
about an observation that her husband,
an HVAC mechanic, once made about one
of her dental instruments. “I have one of
those,” he said. “It’s just bigger.”
The tools may be similar, O’Loughlin
said, but there is one important thing that
keeps dentists from being perceived as glorified
fix-it guys: evidence-based research.
“That is what preserves us as a profession,”
she said. “Without it, we are nothing more
than a trade.”
O’Loughlin emphasized just how crucial
research is to the future of dentistry
when she gave the keynote address in
March at Bates-Andrews Day, the annual
showcase of research by Tufts dental
students.
Dentistry, she said, has come far from the
days when dentists learned by apprenticeship.
“You hung around for a couple years;
you went out and practiced your own way;
there was no scientific basis for the profession,”
she said. It has taken about 150 years
for dentistry to achieve its current status as a
medical profession, she said. “So we cannot
risk losing our reputation . . . by focusing on
things that are not based in sound science
and research. We just can’t risk it.”
She encouraged students to follow in
the footsteps of the creators of Novocain,
nitrous oxide and modern composites. She
pointed out that Rafael Bowen, the dentist
who invented resin composites in the
1960s, isn’t resting on his laurels; he is currently
working on new restorative materials
at the ADA Foundation’s Paffenbarger
Research Center.
Caries is a global public health issue,
and more professional resources need to be
devoted to risk assessment and prevention,
O’Loughlin said. Oral health research needs
to refocus on disease management related to
both oral and general health outcomes. To
address current environmental concerns,
O’Loughlin said, we need to find suitable
restorative materials to phase down the use
of materials with chemicals such as mercury
and lead, for instance.
“We need better, easier-to-use, more utility-driven
restorative materials. If you are
interested in this field of research,” she told
the students in the audience, “get going.”
Yet, O’Loughlin also pointed out that
by focusing on research and taking a disease-management
approach, including
increasing awareness of the importance of
oral health to overall health and how to
prevent dental diseases, dentists worldwide
can help decrease the need for all
restorative materials.
Dentistry needs more and better studies
vaLUabLe, continued on page 42
40 tufts dental medicine spring 2013 photos: kelvin ma