Letter of the Editor
The beginning of the new year 2020 offers me the agreeable opportunity of transmitting to all collaborators and friends of the International Journal of Medical Dentistry our best wishes of good health and success both in their personal life and in the further support and development of a high-quality scientific publication.
The ambitious competition we assumed, as well as our objectives regarding the promotion and dissemination, among the specialists of the field, of the novel researches performed in dental medicine, involve a necessarily critical evaluation of the work of our editorial team, along a new start in our activity, regarding the new strategies to be applied in the future, as well as a continously improved command over the best editorial practices.
To be truly honest, we have to recognize that reorientation of the journal in the years to come, regarding: reorganization of the editorial team, setting out of new responsibilities and a higher exgency, improvement of journal’s scientific content, etc., has been mainly the result of the collegial stimulation we received from the part of the Scopus team, whose members have patiently and thoroughly analyzed the status of our publication and provided the necessary recommendations. Equally, the Scopus suggestions appeared as a guide providing rules and organizatoric variants which actually agreed with and expressed our strive for optimizing our publication. That is why, we are grateful to the team of Scopus and transmit to them our best wishes for the new year.
As a first step to be taken, our managerial team will have a new structure, adapted to the new management conception we intend to develop, and the editorial committee will have a much different composition.
Also, we shall reorganize and improve the sections traditionally forming the contents of the journal, we shall revigorate the Editorial Board and the peer-review team, the main objective being a higher rigour in the acceptance of papers, combat of plagiarism, etc.
It is our intention that the new structure of the editorial team, the academic level of the contributions submitted for publication, alongwith the measures we shall take for assuring a higher scientific quality and for combating plagiarism, by inviting reputed team of researchers to publish the results of their investigations in the pages of our journal, will grant a reputed international position of our publication.
We are decided to perseverently develop and recommend to our collegues procedures of good practices in the organization of the research activity and in the elaboration of the studies submitted for publication, thus contributing to the efforts made for the dissemination of the recent results recorded in dental medicine.
In this way, our journal will militate in favor of the concept of dental medicine, known as partially imposed a few decades ago, yet not sufficiently extended and acknowledged at international level. Along this period, many of the specialized faculties modified both their structure and their scientific content, coming to be called “Faculties of dental medicine” – including in their curricula disciplines that enlarged the horizon of medical culture of the stomatologist by extending the instruction period from 4-5 to 6 years of studies.
Nowadays, our discipline is still facing a narrow technicism, while the concept of a holistic vision upon the human organism is still insufficiently promoted, assimilated and applied in daily practice. This is the main reason for which we will open the pages of our journal to debates devoted to thorough analyzes of the quality and orientation of dental medicine studies from the perspective of didactic experience and research. The structure of the Board will reflect this reorientation by inclusion of important representatives of professional associations active both in the practice and theoretical education in the field of dental medicine.
It goes without saying that the progress recorded in clinical dental medicine, actually the final objective of all our efforts, cannot be attained without a more intense preclinical research at laboratory level, alongwith a substantial enrichment of the so-called fundamental disciplines with the most recent discoveries registered in general medicine. It was only in this way that reinterpretation of inflammation as the source of some oral diseases, application of stem cells in tissular regeneration, etc., became possible.
Clinical and paraclinical investigations in dental medicine evidenced important interferences in the clinical treatment and therapy of certain general diseases, such as: miscarrige, ischemic cardiopathia, some renal affections, etc. Other type of investigations permitted the application, in dental medicine, of some general therapeutical schemes: anticancer, antiinflammatory, antibiotic therapy, etc.
Priority will be given to the researches devoted to the promotion and application of new biomaterials, drugs and medical devices that contribute to an optimum solving of various clinical situations.
Populational epidemiological studies analyzing the incidence of oral diseases, the efficiency of the new prophilactic methods will be also considered, alongwith the interest for clinical investigations and applicative researches aimed at implementing new technologies, materials and methods, which requires validation, re-establishment and re-evaluation of the actual techniques, an initiative which will undoubtedly increase the involvement of practicians in dental medicine.
We are convinced that a correct orientation of our international journal will concentrate and disseminate the newest ideas characterizing such a dynamic specialty as dental medicine. We are also aware that no sudden leap is possible, yet our perseverence and the most suitable managerial solutions we shall aply will assure a positive dynamics of our editorial enterprise.
Prof. Vasile Burlui, PhD
Editor-in-chief
International Journal of Medical Dentistry