Background and foreground questions

in life or in our studies.

Um and as practitioners conditions, there are two fundamental types

of questions that were sort of interested in.

Um There are questions that we call background questions and

there are others that we call foreground questions, Okay?

And just kind of briefly kind of explained to just

so that you're sort of clear where we are.

So background questions concerned with things like anatomy, um or

the chemical structure of things, or the innovation of things,

those sorts of questions that are being pretty much put

to put to rest.

Okay, We kind of know what the answer is to

them. They don't change very much.

All right now, you know, that's debatable.

Somebody might discover some new innovation um, in a particular

person or a particular group of people, I don't know

right? But fundamentally the structure of the skull is pretty

much known, and there's not much that's going to really

change about the structure of the skull.

Okay, So the sorts of things that we might England,

you know, what's the innovation of the mandible, right?

You're gonna learn that um There are certain nerves that

supply the lower jaw, the mandible and the teeth in

it. Um And you know, you need to know that,

okay, we all need to understand and know what the

anatomy of of the jaws is, because we can cause

a lot of harm if we don't and we won't

know what we're doing if if you know if we

get stick local anesthetics in that kind of thing.

Okay, so we have to know this kind of background

information but it doesn't change very much once we know

it, we know it okay.

And you know, I can sort of go back to

my anatomy learning from 20 odd years ago and and

it's pretty much still the same.

Not much will have changed.

Mhm. How does blood circulatory the body?

Okay. You know, there's a way in which the heart

pumps the blood through the body goes around the body.

One way it goes to the lungs the other way

and you know, we end up with oxygenated blood passing

around the body.

Okay. That's pretty well understood.

And not much is going to change on that.

How the nerves work synapse, How does how does that

kind of work now?

Okay. People might discover new ways of managing how the,

you know the nerves work and and sort of altering

them. But those aren't background questions.

You know, lots of drugs for example work lots of

antidepressants and those sorts of things work at the local

anesthetics work on the myelin sheath.

Okay. And there may be ways of improving those, but

those aren't background questions.

Background question is how does the nerve work?

And that's pretty well understood.

So what we're mostly concerned within evidence based practice is

foreground questions.

Things that kind of might change and tend to change

as things develop.

Okay, so for example how might you best manage anxiety?

Okay. Is meditation is sitting and meditating, mindfulness, mindfulness meditation

or something like that?

Is that the best way to manage anxiety?

Or do you you know, do medications help improve that

or does physical activity help improve that?

And if there are new things being developed, how how

do they compare to things like meditation?

So if there's medication and there's a brand new super

duper drug out there that the manufacturers claim improves people's

anxiety then.

Well, how does that compare to not taking the drug

or you know, other existing methods?

Okay, so those are kind of foreground questions.

How best we manage anxiety now.

Alright. And given the sort of resources that are out

there or how best do we prevent dental carries?

This is fluoride varnish.

Dura fat is this sort of classic thing that we

use now, You know?

How best do we prevent dental care?

Is it by applying fluoride varnish every three months for

the rest of a child's life or is it or

hygiene instruction or dietary advice?

You know?

And if we're going to give dietary advice, how best

do we motivate a child and a parent change their

diet or an adult to change their diet?

So it's really kind of stuff that can potentially improve

because we know we don't prevent dental care is 100%

because we know that's why we're training dental students because

in hygiene therapy students because we know we're not preventing

dental care is there's still dental care is to be

treated. Um So clearly there there's room to be improved

their rooms to improve it.

That was the room to improve it.

Okay. It will change how much rural cancer is there?

Okay? You know, oral cancer rates at least back in

2012. You know, we're going up and why are they

going up?

Okay. That's that's changing.

Um I graduated well before that time.

If I was still working on the prevalence or the

incidence rates of mouth cancer Back in 1999 when I

graduated, you know, I would not be there with the

current data, which is obviously getting much higher.

So four grand questions are really quite the ones we

focus on there and you know, the basic science teaching

that you'll be receiving.

That's the kind of background questions that we ask.

But when we're thinking about evidence based practice and changing

our practice were and trying to keep on top of

new research, then were generally trying to answer foreground questions

things that are a current and and changing okay.

And we need to be doing that throughout our lives,

are practicing lives, so that was staying on top of

stuff.

Background and foreground questions

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