tips and tricks

I recently completed the last module of the Orthoed MiniMasters run by Dr. Geoff Hall. An orthodontist based in Melbourne. I thought the course was well run and a good starting point for someone who is inexperienced in orthodontics. The progression of the courses weren't difficult to follow, basics at the start and more complicated concepts built on top of those basics. He is big on fundementals and concepts and I think an important aspect of the course is identifying risk and mitigating risk in orthodontics.  There were a few concepts that I took from the course and have unconsciously been applying to other aspects of dentistry namely: - There are no problems, only solutions. When we are faced with a problem, think of every possible solution to that problem no matter how farfetched and then think of the benefit and risk of each of those solutions. Sometimes one solution to a problem will create other problems and that needs to be accounted for. For example, For a crowding issue, o...

Last year I attended a lecture by Michael Sernik who founded Prime practice but subsequently separated from the company. Then later that year I attended a prime practice seminar on communication and case acceptance. I took away a few things from those talks and I find my communication style to have been altered because of it. To be honest, before those talks, I didn't really have a communication style. I kind of just blurted out the facts and then it was up to luck whether or not the patient accepted my plan or not. Usually they would accept it if they already know of the preexisting situation and options. After the talks, I have been focusing more on educating the patient as to their preexisting condition, and focusing on the DREC (which they call the- Damaging results of the existing condition). I have found this to be helpful in getting patients to understand their situation and to be honest it matches well with how I actually  want  to communicate with patients. I am not t...

 I haven't made a post here in almost two years. I've been really busy with life, started a family, been working a lot. It's not that I had no time to post anything, it doesn't take that long. It's just that there have been so many other priorities that I had an let's be honest, I am a strong procrastinator. From a professional standpoint, I'll reflect as to where I am in my journey. I keep forgetting when I graduated, some patients ask me how long I have been a dentist and I have to calculate the years in my head. I get it less and less these days, but still so because I have a young face (at least I think I do). I graduated end of 2016 so that makes it (...2017, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25) my 9th year as a dentist. I know that some of my colleagues have expanded their skills much faster than me, and I know that some have developed much slower and are pretty much where they were when they graduated, just working a bit faster at producing the same type a...

 I thought of a good analogy as to why pulpitis pain can be so severe for our patients. I don't know how useful this will be in a clinical scenario but it may come in handy in the future. Have you ever put a ring on that was too tight and you were scared because you knew that if you couldn't get it off at first then it would be harder and harder to get off? The problem is that as the finger is irritated and compressed, the blood flow increases to the area and the soft tissue swells. On top of that, The ring is a hard material and doesn't expand in response to the swelling tissue. The same is true in a tooth. The tooth is the proverbial ring and the pulp tissue is the finger. Localised insults cause an increase in blood flow to the area due to the inflammatory cascade but the pulp is entombed in the tooth and there is nowhere for the excess pressure to go and this increase in pressure causes firing of nerve endings that manifest as pain. If we burn our skin, the skin swells,...

 I had a mishap just a couple of days ago where I had to remove a crown to perform endodontic therapy as the crown eventually required replacement. It was a lower central incisor and all the lower teeth had been crowned with the same white, monotone, textureless ceramic.I was very paranoid about cutting into the wrong tooth as all the teeth appeared the same. I counted mesial to distal, correlating the tooth to the xrays, counted, and then counted again. Finally, I made a bur mark into the tooth to mark it and got into cutting. Somehow, I still managed to cut into the wrong tooth and ended up sectioning halfway through the contralateral central incisor before I realised my mistake. This is a very real risk in these situations and I put it half down to how uniform the teeth looked, half down to my stupidity and carelessness.  In the future, in a situation like this, I will be making a mark on the tooth with an indelible marker before double checking and triple checking the toot...

I have recently been getting back into endos after spending the past year referring them to the principal dentist who was an endo aficionado. I find endos quite difficult, therefore time consuming and draining. Logically I know that the less I like something, the more I should do of it to become proficient but I thought that I had reached a point in my career where I could focus on my special interests. However, due to changes in my work circumstances, I have to take on these procedures again.  I have recently gone through the All things endo online course from Ashley Mark in the US (https://all-things-dentistry.teachable.com/courses). It was a very cost effective course that gave a good refresher for endo knowledge. The main benefit I got from it was the repetition of recordings of endo accesses. This is the most important part of the endo procedure and improves the outcome of each step follow this. Seeing this being done over and over with some tips to give confidence to know tha...