Twenty-five years ago the CRANIO Journal was just a small bright developing idea in my brain. As I drove with my wife to East Lansing, Michigan to study with a joint meeting of the American Association of Dental Editors (AADE) and their journalism faculty at Michigan State University.
“Why do you want to start a TMJ journal?” I was asked. “What do you expect to do differently to attract readership that other traditional journals are not doing?” “I want a multidisciplinary journal.” I answered. It was a unique reply then and apparently it is now. I thought that some 25 years later there would be many multidisciplinary journals-guess again. Harold Gelb had the published “Clinical Management of Head, Neck, and TMJ Pain and Dysfunction: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Diagnosis and Treatment” (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders), a nicely selling textbook on TMJ with chapters devoted to the various disciplines treating TMD patients. Many of his chapter headings became Journal sections in the new CRANIO Journal.
Why should practitioners who treat these patients not have the benefit of current information available to physical therapists, chiropractors, radiologists, etc. After all, don't all of the aforementioned, plus many others, daily treat these difficult patients? And why should their knowledge not be shared in one publication? What better way to do this than to share information in a dental publication? After all, it is dentistry that inherited the traditional role of TMD treatment by default from the orthopedic community and others. Don't we also understand occlusion and, heaven forbid, still touch our patients? The mere fact that CRANIO has survived for 25 years in a fickle publishing world is significant. I thought multidisciplinary information was where the action should be a quarter of a century ago, and I feel that it still is today. Our approach to CRANIO is to publish a journal full of different philosophies and credible ideas from various disciplines that will assist treatment of TMD patients. Over the years, there have been some ebb and flow of specialties. Since most of our practitioners are open to various modalities to care for their TMD patients, the journal provides a glimpse into other approaches.
To date, the journal is apparently one of the world's only medical multidisciplinary journals with a working multidisciplinary editorial board. At this time of year, we begin thinking about and adding section editors to the editorial review board and occasionally, we add a new area of expertise to the journal's staff and editors page. This year, at our quarter century mark, we are adding a new section. Acupuncture is the world's oldest proven method for pain control. Acupuncture began in Asia some 2500 years ago and has more or less retained its original thrust and knowledge. We are possibly tardy in recognizing its value. However, if you or your patients have ever suffered from pain of neurogenic origin that has been largely treated by an allopathic medicine approach, which involves brain and body numbing pain suppressant drugs, then you will celebrate this addition to our staff for expertise and guidance. I hope the addition to our section editor staff of Scott Mist, L.Ac., in January 2007 will stimulate more manuscripts and readership in this area. Scott has written his dissertation entitled: “Investigating the Relationship Between Traditional Chinese Medicine Diagnosis and Temporomandibular Joint Disorder.” Who knows, within the next 25 years, we may add a nutritionist or a stem cell researcher to the editorial board. I only hope that I'm still around to welcome them.
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