Magnification

What will magnification do for me?

We can benefit from visual magnification for a number of reasons. These can be boiled down to two main reasons: Ergonomics and quality control. Wearing loupes or using an operating microscope allows us to see our work with good detail from a distance that non magnified vision would find difficult. Loupes also have a defined focal area and this forces us to sit upright to create enough distance between our eyes and the subject to bring things into focus. It causes less strain on our eyes to scan for finer details. Loupes allow us to see detail that is far beyond the capacity of our eyes to see unaided. There is no way that we can focus on the apex of a tooth through a root canal access without some heavy duty magnification and therefore finer procedures are opened up to us that were not available before magnification.

Hand in hand with magnification is illumination. A headlight is a very useful tool as it brings a bright, even light into the oral cavity that is in line with our angle of vision. This is especially useful for seeing down root canals as the narrow space will not allow light from any other angle to reach to its depths. Technically only a light source from between your eyes or in an operating microscope will reach down to the apex in a straight canal as any deviation from this angle will cause a divergence of light going out from your headlight and going into your eyes. But for most purposes a headlight will improve the quality of illumination in the oral cavity compared to an overhead light. The even quality of the light reduces shadows in the mouth which allows an evenly lit background. This reduces the fatigue of your eyes in longer appointments as your brain has less stimulus to process and you can focus on the task at hand.

Be cautious though; Magnification and illumination will improve your dentistry without a doubt but it won't make you a better dentist. It will allow you to notice finer details and lengthen your effective career by improving your ergonomics however the skills to notice those details has to be learned in the first place. I know plenty of fantastic clinicians who didn't use any magnification until late in their career and still produced fantastic results. This is because they trained their eyes to see details and trained their hands to produce consistent results without needing to see the minutia of these results. Magnification tends to give us tunnel vision and it can be useful to take a step back mid way or at the end of a procedure to see how things are overall without magnification. After all this is what the patient and the public will see of your wrk after you are finished. Dental photography can be useful to see things overall without tunnel vision. Additionally, asking the patient how it feels to their tongue or touch and feeling yourself with a finger or sickle probe can give you tactile sensations that surpass visual inspection.

Magnification and illumination are very useful tools to the dental practitioner however your mustn't be too focussed on the fancy gadgets and instead start with the basics. Develop the skills to see and manage overall details before you focus on the very fine details that magnification can allow you to see.