All of us, who hold certain academic titles, frequently admit one defeating fact; quality research is difficult! To our regret, or to our happiness, the very same confession one can hear from their colleagues working in the countries of EC or USA with a high standard of scientific work and health care, still unreachable for us. Then, does this truth justify us for refusing to go for it at all? Certainly not. So, how would a basic research seem in our circles, who would suppose to conduct it, and how the result of such a research should be valued? It is clear that in our conditions, academic institutions or their departments as well as faculties with their research programs are responsible for research work. So, let us follow the order.

Let us take the researches in surgery for an example. In an operating room, by pure chance, there comes an idea of a certain surgical procedure. To carry out such an idea and to make it applicable in practice, it would be wise to start with an experimental study. Even here, the first and real problem can emerge (ethical, commercial, biologic, and who knows what else), for after all, if we choose an inadequate animal model, then we can obtain inadequate results! Nevertheless, the researcher has made a successful first step, and now, there is an incoming dilemma. Are the obtained results sufficient to be recognized as “science”? All of us will agree that it is not possible to approve unreservedly that science is only what is observed under the microscope! Thus, the researches are being continued. Clinical investigations go on and here again, the study group (not experimental) should be carefully chosen; certain new procedure is to be compared with the standard one and finally, the obtained results should be gathered. Now, there is a real dilemma. How should the results be interpreted? Let us say, the results are excellent, whereas clinical studies are poor! In some other geographical regions, researchers would spend sleepless nights looking for “holes” in the whole investigation, since being mistaken is rather expensive there. At one of the world’s clinics, I have witnessed the investigation of an apparatus to be used in bone surgery, and I was stunned with the enthusiasm that both the engineers and the surgeons expressed discussing the failures pointed out by the surgeons. This means that excellent laboratory result, and computer-based confirmation that everything is all right does not mean that it will be the same in clinical practice! Not wanting to escape the key topic, I only tend to point to an absolute truth. We can see only what we know, and we believe in what we want to believe. Hence, it is necessary for us who hold titles to carry out critical researches. It is necessary to hear what others think of our researches, yet not “others” in the next-door office, but the professional audience, both at home and abroad.

Now, if we have accepted this precondition, we come to writing the scientific work. Again, here we face another catastrophic fact. If the researcher carries out an objective experiment or study, spending a lot of money on all that is technically complicated and takes long, and yet, fails to publish the results, then the whole ordeal is in vain; the researcher is “dead”. Carry out, write and publish; only published researches matter in science, everything else is a tale! Yes, so we have been told by those who taught us to fight for every single scientific and professional word, our teachers. And they were right! Probably every one of us will say, more or less ironically, that creating written scientific or clinical articles is not a big deal. Then, have we forgotten our students’ or specialization days when we tried to plunge as deep as possible into the spring of knowledge? Only written works remain, that is the absolute truth. And that truth says that every year, about 4000 articles from the whole world are not accepted for publishing in the British Medical Journal. Reasons are different. For instance, if an article is “boring”, that is, if the style of writing is uninteresting, then the article will not attract the reader’s attention and will not be published. In fact, our readers usually read the abstract, as reading the article from beginning to end is tiresome. Therefore, here I address a question to all of you who have started reading this journal and this editorial: can you write the abstract consisting of six sentences (this is one of the hints for writing abstracts), to meet the first requirement set by an international journal? You probably know the answer. For those who have forgotten, I kindly suggest reading the answer in the next journal issue, when we will continue this story concerning the initial title as well.

At the end, there is something I (we) should not forget. In the end, I invite all young colleagues and those older as well to start writing. In the foreseeable future, the everyday work (not the license) will depend on the number of acquired “points” during a calendar year. When I say this, actually I have in mind the competition and our “market”, where only the most valuable ones endure!

 Nikola Buric

• Copyright © 2003 by The Editorial Council of The Acta Stomatologica Naissi