title: Stumbling into the age of evidence.
abstract: This article presents personal observations on how the concept of evidence-based dentistry is faring in the profession. It considers how the dental profession's concept of evidence has matured, how evidence-based dentistry was originally envisioned, how it is currently embodied, and what its prospects might be for the immediate future. Evidence-based dentistry began in the profession approximately 2 decades ago, initiated by the appearance of the first systematic reviews on dental topics in the late 1980s. The emergence of the concept of evidence-based dentistry--and its fundamental construct, the systematic review--marks what can be considered a fundamental shift in how the dental knowledge base has grown and developed over time.
authors.affiliation: Operative Dentistry CB# 7450, School of Dentistry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA. jim_bader@unc.edu
authors.forename: James D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Bader
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003729:Dental Care; D018865:Dental Research; D003813:Dentistry / Q000639:trends; D003815:Dentists; D004497:Education, Dental; D055094:Evidence-Based Dentistry / Q000145:classification / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends*; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D051188:Knowledge Bases; D019239:Practice Patterns, Dentists'; D012196:Review Literature as Topic