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The arrival of the first issue of Dental Update through my letter box in May 1973 came as a surprise – firstly, because I was not expecting it (as tends to happen with surprises!) and secondly, because the presentation of Dental Update was very different from other journals that I read at that time. It seemed exciting, the articles all had a clinical focus, there were boxes and tables which made the papers easy to read, and advertisements featured too. All remain central to Dental Update 40 years on. At the time of the first issue, Dental Update was a close relation to a journal sent to general medical practitioners, Update, which was founded because the publishers felt the need for a clinical medical journal. I must pay tribute to the late Ted Renson, who saw the need for Dental Update and who was Consultant Editor in the first issue, later moving to be Editorial Director and involved in every issue from the first until he retired in 1996.
The first editorial explained the aims of the newly launched journal. It was designed to provide a wide range of interest per issue, useful to general dental practitioners, to dentists working for local authorities, to staff in dental schools and also to all students. Articles were to be commissioned from distinguished teachers. No changes there! Initially, Dental Update was published every two months, later moving to ten issues per year, but one of the few things to have changed is that the first issues were free, alas, something not possible today when one is making a quality publication, with the costs associated with peer reviewing and elegant production. The first editorial also spent 30 lines dealing with the importance of taking a medical history, and it could be argued that, while that was important 40 years ago, it is all the more important today, as our patients live longer and may be taking a wide variety of medications.
In this special 40th Anniversary Issue, readers will be able to view the articles published in the first issue, because this issue has been designed to reflect on what was published 40 years ago, with the first page of each of the articles in the first issue being published alongside their 2013 counterparts. Of particular note is the paper by Edwina Kidd, firstly because the 1973 paper was her first, secondly because she went on to have a glittering career and thirdly because she has been a longstanding member of the Editorial Board of Dental Update and an enormous influence on the quality and content of this journal. We hope that you will continue to do all of that Edwina, as long as you can find the time alongside your prolific ‘hobby’ of book writing.
Changes? Dental Update now has a super website, presenting articles which go back to 1999, and an app which facilitates the viewing of the journal while on the move. Nothing in the ethos of Dental Update has changed, but dentistry today is different from dentistry in 1973. I hope that this issue reflects that. I make no apology for the fact that two papers look at aesthetic restorations for posterior teeth as well as anterior, reflecting the increased impact of aesthetics in contemporary dentistry. Photography, also featured in the first issue, is also central to this. Implants are very much a part of dentistry today - they are missing from this issue only because they had not been developed in 1973! Prevention is also missing, not because it is not central to today's dentistry or because we were not aware of it in 1973, but simply because prevention was not included in the first issue (that's my excuse!). It is good to learn that this is, at last, to become a central tenet of NHS dentistry in the UK, if perhaps only in lip service, as explained in the article on Cariology by Kidd and Fejerskov, with the topic of caries being just as relevant today as 40 years ago.
A year before the first issue of Dental Update, David Bowie's song Changes was released and, despite being one of his best known songs, it had a singular lack of chart success. He wrote, ‘Time may change me, but I can't trace time’ (Lyricsfreak.com). I am certain that Dental Update has not changed from its original philosophy of publishing clinical review articles. It remains a clinicians' journal, written by clinicians for clinicians. Add to that something which had not been written about in 1973, the concept of ‘evidence’. Today, Dental Update is evidence-based dental publishing at its peer-reviewed best. I very much hope that you will continue to enjoy the Dental Update style of learning, as readers have been doing for 40 years.