New Year, New Ways to Exchange Ideas

As we begin 2020, we can see the future clearly, or at least imagine it.

It's a remarkable time, one where we are aggravated by the self-driving cars that apparently insist on driving at the speed limit; and are delighted by our phone's ability to remember to order a non-fat vanilla latte when we are four blocks from our favorite coffee shop so that it's hot and ready when we walk in. What these things have in common is that they are interconnected by shared data. The cars talk to one another; the phone communicates with the coffee shop.

Likewise, the sharing of data and knowledge in health education will dramatically change the way we improve health within academic health centers and for the population globally. To achieve this vision, we need to be interconnected with common health records and common points of interaction. This may mean rethinking our education model and broadening the scope of oral health care providers.

Throughout history, there are certain periods of time that are inflection points, moments where the rate of change and the transfer of knowledge accelerate. I believe we are at an inflection point today, where scientific biomedical data and technology will combine to create a dramatic period of health improvement through collaborative synthesis data. We saw such a time during the 18th century, commonly referred to as the Age of Enlightenment, which emphasized reason, tolerance and science inquiry. A central American figure in the Age of Enlightenment was Benjamin Franklin, who sojourned to British coffeehouses to take part in the exchange of ideas.

The coffeehouse as the physical hub of learning actually may have played a crucial role in the significance of that inflection point. First, the predominant beverage consumed in the 1700s was alcohol: beer and wine with breakfast, lunch and dinner, with maybe a little gin mixed in throughout the day. This largely was because drinking water often was not safe; but the end effect essentially was a constant state of inebriation. No wonder that the move to coffeehouses and the consumption of tea and coffee led to conservations that were more focused and stimulating.

Perhaps even more important was coffeehouse culture itself, where the random nature of thought led to building on ideas through hacking systems and remixing of data (to use modern parlance). This stood in contrast to the lecture-hall style of learning in formal education. Today we understand the importance of how we interact, and we have many more ways to recreate the coffeehouse experience. Distance learning, social media and video learning are but a few of the options we now have at our disposal.

Examining how and why we do things — leading as well as educating — is essential and helps us build the future of shared information. I look forward to exploring our future.

Reprinted (with edits) with permission from the Journal of Dental Education, January 2020, 84(1).