We Need More Doctors Who Are Scientists

What we really really need are more dentists who are scientists. Dental practice has changed a lot, but at the end of the day, we still drill holes in our teeth and fill them up.

Most dentists spend three years in school, where 2.25 of them are spend just learning the hand skills of dentistry. By the end of it, they are highly motivated to not want to advance dental science because it could put them out of a job.

If someone developed a drug that would remove cavities, or a device that made it so you didn't have to brush every day, these would be huge quality of life improvements for people, but the people who are most expert at discovering such things are the ones most motivated to keep the status quo.

I say this as someone who has multiple family members involved in dentistry. Every time I even mention a new possible treatment, their immediate response is "hmmm I'm not sure that's a good idea that's not how we usually do things". It's something that their training has engrained in them.

As a board-certified specialist physician engaged in research, and now starting to teach others how to engage in research, I predict that the road out of this is going to be very long and hard. As research has lost support (not just financial, but cultural), it has become increasingly difficult to justify to department chairs. In the course of the last 8 years I was kicked off my own project twice while in training.

So, what I predict you will see, is it will become progressively harder for a hopeful young researcher to make the transition, not to research, but to adding research to their already full-time+ job. It is quite likely you will be in a department where no one has research experience and few contacts with academics. And if you're doing research and there's even a hint of a perception that it could interfere with any element of your clinical duties, you can bet there are people who will be happy to burn you and your research.

The most supportive stance I got from anyone in my department during training "Don't talk to any of us about it." That was my PI and program director.

So, the current status quo is "Toil, in addition to your other, formidable responsibilities. Don't ask for anything. Don't ever talk about it, don't even mutter under your breath." That does not align very well with the open-mindedness of research.

On the flip side, if you are a PhD, the current state of medical practice in the US is such that many medical centers are ripe for research if you can cultivate a relationship with an MD. I know, I know the perception, which I have been told directly by a biochemist who didn't know I was an MD "MDs aren't knuckle-dragging idiots." But maybe, just maybe, make a friend and see where it takes you. Which may be hard. You will probably have to go to tumor boards and grand rounds and suffer through a bunch of people kibitzing about things you know are 20 years behind the state of the art. Yep, that's true. But the entrances to the mines collapsed. You will have to do the hard work of opening your own shaft. And so it goes.

I agree for an additional reason: critical thinking and root cause analysis. I am not going to go into detail but a family member had several years of misdiagnoses because she has a lot of weird symptoms don't fit a common disease pattern. After being correctly diagnosed with a blood test, once in awhile she will still be told by a doctor that she has something else. Even when shown the results of the blood test, they persist in their nonsense. A scientist would never think they are right when there is objective evidence to the contrary.

we need more statisticians doing medical research.

We need free medical school.