I have the privilege of working with the dental students at the University of Toronto. One of my responsibilities is to discuss with them the management of medically compromised patients. I am often pleasantly surprised with the students’ knowledge pertaining…
The dentist-patient relationship is the core of dentistry. Just like in any relationship, there inevitably will be a negative experience, and nearly all dentists will need to dismiss a patient at some point in their careers. Dismissals can be upsetting…
Biotensegrity is a new word. An explanation of its origins opens the door to a new and unfamiliar world which seems to have nothing to do with orthodontics. Does it merit spending time on it or is just another distraction…
Case study: January 2021 For four years, as dental students enter the four walls of their respective faculties, they are taught how to protect and save the teeth and smiles of their patients. Today, dentists continue to do what they…
In 2014, I was published in the Ontario Dentist journal pleading for speakers and content that could address the stress that dentists incur day after day and ways in which to successfully handle it. I can’t believe that six years…
It has often been said that to bring attention to a controversial matter simply affirms its existence, memorializes it and gives it credibility. The corollary is to ignore it and allow wrong and negligent statements to pass as science. Instead…
Knowledge is forever advancing. In my early days when my computer froze, I used to think “What did I do wrong now.” Today I think “What is wrong with this computer!” No, it’s not always the clinician that is to…
In 2013 the RCDSO introduced the mandatory Practice Enhancement Tool (PET) for licenced Ontario dentist to be exercised every five years: “a computer based self-assessment program … that allows members to evaluate and assess their practice, knowledge, skill and judgement”.…
The Canadian Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (CAOMS) is a not-for-profit organization that serves the needs of hundreds of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons across Canada. It is designed to support the ongoing practise requirements of OMFS and ensure that…
It behooves me to talk about CAOMS as a recently appointed executive director to the organization. Let me first mention I’ll be as excited as uncomfortable trying to walk in shoes quite larger in size than my small footprint. So…
Many of our patients are attracted to the allure of cheaper dental treatment abroad. Tooth #36 in the accompanying radiograph (Fig. 1) and photo (Fig. 2) is an example of such a case. Unfortunately in this case, almost every possible…
“If you look you up the word experience in the dictionary, it says see mistakes” and at 60 years old you, feel that you have mastered a lot over the years. Consequently, at this stage in life most of us…
I suffer from a metacognitive inability known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. I was working with a keen and knowledgeable intern who was suturing a wound in the posterior maxilla. Now, it was a rather difficult area but I gave the…
The term “creative destruction” was coined by Joseph Schumpeter in 1942.1 Schumpeter was an economist who was commenting on how capitalism evolves. Creative destruction in its original form refers to industrial mutations that revolutionize economic structures from within, creating a…
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