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Showing posts from May, 2017

Great Dentistry Takes Practice

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When it comes to dentistry and medicine, "practice" does make perfect.  But I wanted to add, practice with the intention to get better every time, makes more of a difference.  There are some diagnosis or procedures I would not have came up with just a few years out of school.  Below are the restorations I recently did.  They certainly look a little better than the ones I've done 15 years ago when I started my career.  Having done over 10,000+ restorations, my restorations probably should look this good. However, if one practices with the same methods, same techniques - even after 10,000 restorations, the results will look the same. We constantly tweak, evolve, and adjust our methods.  Having three dentists in the office certainly helps.  With combined 50+ years of practice, we share ideas, methods, to do things more efficiently and better.  We admire each other's work but also learn from each other's mistakes.  They all results in better patient care.  Not only

You Can Floss Less!

I had the pleasure of meeting this young lady earlier this week.  She came in for a cavity which happens to be between her two molars.  She was a little bummed out about her cavity.  Her most recent x-ray showed many more small cavities we decided to watch because they are still in the enamel.  This is how the conversation went, I said:  "I am going to take care of this cavity for you, but flossing will help you prevent or at least slow down all these small cavities" - assumed that she does not floss daily based on the x-rays in front of me. "I do floss!  I floss three times a day!"  She protested. "Really?  Three times?  When do you floss?"  I can tell that she was telling the truth. "When I get up in the morning before breakfast, after lunch, and after dance.  I don't know what else I can do?" she sounded defeated. "When is your dance class?  Before or after dinner?"  I asked. "Before dinner" she replied.