Welcome to the new look of Oral Health Journal! This gives us a new fresh look in keeping with the modern age of dentistry. It’s so important that we keep up with the times or we inevitably fade into the past.
Dentistry is truly undergoing dramatic changes in the way we can treat our patients. No longer are amalgam fillings and gold crowns the standard of care. Yes, we have all seen this coming for a while now, but it seems as though the last five to 10 years has seen the most rapid changes. Implants have been mainstream for some time but the way we restore them has changed. Stock abutments have given way to custom abutments made from a variety of materials to enhance the esthetic outcomes of our treatment. We’ve gone from our lab technicians waxing up our crowns, to milling crowns in our office. Impression materials are now becoming more obsolete due to the many different intraoral scanners that are now available on the market. The scanners are proving to be so much more accurate and easy to use than the traditional impression techniques and materials. With the use of scanners comes the introduction of 3-D printers, which can print up our models with an incredible amount of accuracy. How about 3-D printing complete dentures? Where do our capabilities stop? The scanners are allowing us to create a computerized treatment plan and workflow for our cases in ways we could not imagine as little as five years ago. I can go on and on with all the changes modern digital dentistry has to offer. It truly is mind-blowing for someone like me, who graduated in 1990, just as composites were just becoming more popular.
We as dentists all have very important choices to make. Is it acceptable to stay with status quo in our offices and ignore the tremendous opportunities that exist in the marketplace? That truly is something that only the individual dentist can answer, but it does come with a huge responsibility to our patients. How many times have patients come into your office and requested a procedure that is literally cutting edge but it is either something that you do not offer, or have not heard about. It happens! I challenge all of us to keep up with the times. Go attend continuing education courses that truly introduce us all to the modern dentistry that is out there. It is important for us all to deliver the best possible care to our patients at all times. Once we know what’s out there, we can start to incorporate modern dentistry into our daily routine. Lasers, 3-D printers, scanners, many esthetic crown materials – they are all at our fingertips.
In this issue, many wonderful techniques and materials are featured. On our front cover, Dr. Daniel Ward highlights smile rejuvenation with a modern multidisciplinary approach. Dr. Galip Gurel from Turkey, always a leader in modern digital dentistry, is interviewed on his smile design process. As a bonus, Dr. Adamo Notarantonio shows off his beautiful photography in his article, “The Pictures Really DO Matter”. Please enjoy this issue of Oral Health and have a wonderful spring.
About The Author
Les Rykiss, DMD, Dip. ABAD, FASDA, FIADFE maintains his private practice in Winnipeg, MB. He is a graduate of the University of Manitoba as well as a graduate and Mentor at the Nash Institute for Dental Learning in Charlotte, N.C. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Aesthetic Dentistry, has his Fellowship with the International Academy for Dental Facial Esthetics, an associate Fellowship from the World Clinical Laser Institute, and is a member of the ASDA and CAED. He teaches, lectures, and writes articles on restorative, cosmetic dentistry, and hard and soft tissue laser use.
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