Dental Dean Update — Dental Digest

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25 March 2024

Faculty of Dental Surgery

In last month's Dental Digest, I discussed oral health influencers and to show that I am down with the kids, I thought I should bring you right up to date.

One such influencer is Dental Digest. Who is Dental Digest? Well, I will get to this shortly but before that, I want to explore the meaning of Dental Digest in some detail to provide you with some background. The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh's Dental Digest is a resource that collects and disseminates to our Faculty membership key information relevant to the various fields of dentistry. As a 'digest', it covers a wide range of topics and subjects including news, clinical techniques and information, case study data, dental industry news, technological updates and general information that is likely to be of use for all. One of our College values is innovation, and through the Dental Digest, we want to keep you up to date with innovations and insights to help your practice remain current and up-to-date with advancements.

I hope that you find the Dental Digest as useful as I have done since it started, and given that it is as much your magazine to which to contribute; as Editor in Chief, I am always delighted to hear from you on what you would like included. The Dental Digest is ultimately a membership benefit and requires a bit of planning, so if you would like to become a contributor, please also get in contact. We generally publish the Dental Digest as an online/email resource, but consideration is being given to developing this into a digital magazine. There will be more on this as discussions progress.

So, back to the other Dental Digest. Who is he? Well, the other Dental Digest is an internet sensation, a YouTuber and TikTok star, born on 17 July 1997 in Chicago, Illinois. His real name is Anthony Baroud and is a dental student in the United States. He is a so called 'short-form content creator' who rose to fame by sharing dental advice, including tooth brushing techniques, flossing tips and demonstrations of dental products. To date, he has over 9 million fans on the Dental Digest TikTok account. TikTok is the latest social media platform surrounded by hype. I have to admit that I am not a TikTok expert, but have noted its popularity among Gen Zs and millennials who are noted to spend around 1 hour per day on the platform. It differs from other social media systems, as it is not only a video sharing platform but also encourages users to generate and share short segments of homemade videos between 15-60 seconds in length. These often involve lip-sync, dance or tricks and can apparently be addictive. It is a great way to connect with younger users.

If followers are a metric of success in the current world we live in, Dental Digest has now accrued 130K followers on his Instagram page. Our Faculty does not publish our internet metrics but rest assured, while our own Dental Digest is distributed to the 8K Faculty affiliates, associates, members and fellows, through our website and social media action, we have massive penetration across the globe reaching >100 countries as well.

Should you as a dentist or dental care professional be on TikTok? User-generated content is powerful on social media platforms, and TikTok is no different. Creating a strong profile on the platform is a simple process but needs careful thought. Creation of content is a different matter entirely, as this requires a significant amount of time and resource for the material to look professional. Without professional content, beware, you might not become the internet success star you hope for. There is a saying that every dog has its day. In 2022 and 2023, Dental Digest switched to a more questionable style of internet video, including consuming significant quantities of food in the form of emoji or colours, and Dental Digest does this based on individual trends, including Super Mario Bros. it has been suggested that Dental Digest could be changing his appeal to engage children, but many people have reported this new behaviour to be embarrassing and of less interest. I wonder what Dental Digest would make of our very own RCSEd Dental Digest when he graduates from university in the fullness of time, and more importantly whether he would be successful in our examinations.

Whilst TikTok presents an interesting opportunity as part of your social media marketing, and Dental Digest has shown how this can develop and incredibly engaged younger audience, this is not a route our own College Dental Digest will be exploring any time soon. We intend to continue providing you with our current content and general information for all within the Faculty. Our email format will continue for now. I hope that you find the Faculty’s email Dental Digest influential in your ongoing clinical practice.

As ever, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with any comments at dental@rcsed.ac.uk.

Grant McIntyre, Dental Dean

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