{"id":6911,"date":"2021-02-12T12:00:28","date_gmt":"2021-02-12T18:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/?p=6911"},"modified":"2025-09-11T08:03:23","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T13:03:23","slug":"its-not-just-about-the-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/2021\/02\/12\/its-not-just-about-the-science\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Not JUST About the Science"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At a time when \u201cevidence-based\u201d everything is all the rage; I would like to share my experience and philosophy in regard to salivary diagnostics.\u00a0 My approach comes from a non-scientific perspective garnered from my 40+ years of clinical experience. \u00a0I come at it from both a trained scientific, human, psychological, patient management and pragmatic mindset.<\/p>\n

Several years back, I had a discussion with a well-respected career academic and journal editor about \u201cevidence-based\u201d medicine.\u00a0 He questioned my use of salivary diagnostics as related to therapeutic recommendations.\u00a0 In his opinion, he felt that charging for a \u201ctest\u201d that might not have evidence-based, proven therapeutic validity was\u2026unethical.<\/p>\n

I disagreed with him and asked, \u201cWhat\u2019s the value of an \u2018evidence-based\u2019 therapy that a patient won\u2019t accept?\u201d\u00a0 I know and respect science.\u00a0 I lived in the academic world for 30 years at an ivy league institution, but I have also been a clinician for over 40 years.\u00a0 In dental school, we were taught to \u201ceducate\u201d our patients.\u00a0 What we were not taught was how to listen to them.<\/p>\n

While I love to educate, I realize that people are motivated by their self-interests. Understanding a patient\u2019s motivation is a key to relationship, trust, and treatment acceptance.\u00a0 Appreciating a person\u2019s \u201cwhy\u201d requires skillful questioning and listening.<\/p>\n

WHY do patients come to us?\u00a0 What are their concerns, fears, hopes, and dreams?<\/p>\n

That is what we need to discover.\u00a0 This is emotional evidence, and it needs to be considered in treatment planning and presentation.<\/p>\n

The process begins with a single question.\u00a0 \u201cWhat\u2019s important to you?\u201d And then, LISTEN to what is being said, how it is said, and the emotions conveyed between the lines.<\/p>\n

Salivary diagnostics, or as I call it, \u201cbacteria profiles,\u201d offer non-partisan, third-party corroboration of the clinical picture in a way that resonates with people.\u00a0 It allows the clinician\/diagnostician to connect the dots to the patient\u2019s WHY.\u00a0 Connecting the dots of clinical evidence with emotional evidence is another key to open the door for a doctor-patient relationship that can result in optimal health and wellness.<\/p>\n

My academic colleague failed to appreciate the challenge of communicating what we believe as \u201cneeds\u201d to patients who will only accept \u201cwants.\u201d OralDNA\u00ae Labs, through their comprehensive reports, provides that link.<\/p>\n

Many of our patients need to SEE evidence rather than being told, or worse, lectured to.\u00a0 Any visible evidence, such as a lab report, we can show to patients about their conditions and how they can be resolved connects with their WHY and helps facilitate the treatment acceptance process.<\/p>\n

OralDNA\u00ae reports are, in my opinion, a very effective communication tool.\u00a0 I appreciate the great science behind salivary diagnostics; however, patients oftentimes do not care about science.\u00a0 They frequently care about what science can do for them.<\/p>\n

COVID-19 has changed much. \u00a0Impersonal communications, reduced doctor-patient interface, virtual everything, and artificial intelligence can threaten to change the doctor-patient relationship as we know it.\u00a0 We need all the resources we can muster to help connect us to our patients and them to the science that will bring solutions they need.\u00a0 Salivary diagnostics can be one of those resources.<\/p>\n

To learn more about Practice Perfect Systems, click Here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

For more information on how to become an OralDNA Provider \u2013 scan HERE:\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Connecting the dots of clinical evidence with emotional evidence is another key to open the door for a doctor-patient relationship that can result in optimal health and wellness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":28229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,59,110],"tags":[112,152,3],"class_list":["post-6911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-patient-education","category-practice-management","category-salivary-diagnostics","tag-patient-education","tag-practice-management","tag-salivary-diagnostics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Practice-Perfect-Systems_Featured-Image.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":false,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7W16z-1Nt","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6911"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6911"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28228,"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6911\/revisions\/28228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}