When we cannot optimize the position and appearance of the gingival tissues, we often want to recreate it with restorative material. Over the years this has been an incredible challenge. Today more often than not I will utilize pink dental composite material that I can hand sculpt and custom color directly in the mouth. Recently I switched to a new pink Read More
Curators Journals
Phone Calls Can Make or Break Your Dental Practice
In this video I'll discuss recording phone calls in your dental practice. This has been a really important business management activity for my office. There are numerous ways to get the recordings, and several ways to use them. One of the most important times to review phone call recordings is with new employees. It is critical to know what and how they are Read More
How clear and current is your vision?
Although many dentists have developed a vision for their dental practices, I'm recognizing that many have never committed it to paper or clearly created ways to share and engage their team in bringing that vision to life. That being said, for those that HAVE put their vision in writing, when is the last time that you updated it based on your growth and Read More
Giving Every Dental Patient An Epworth Sleepiness Assessment
I utilize the Epworth sleepiness assessment routinely in my dental practice. It has become part of our routine screening for sleep and airway disorders. The Epworth is an incredible took for identifying patients with a symptom called "Excessive Daytime Sleepiness". If you are not familiar with, or already using an Epworth I highly recommend it. Read More
Implementing Change In Your Dental Practice
One of the most common issues I deal with when I work with dental teams is change. It's very common for a team member to tell me that other team members are averse to change. Also common is a team member who feels like they have lots of good ideas that never get implemented. All of us have a relationship with change, and our response to change can depend on Read More
What Is Your Joint Diagnosis?
One of the common ways we begin to find seated condylar position is with an anterior deprogrammer. Sometimes when we first start doing this and the patient does not respond as expected we get concerned. Before we can determine why, we need to answer the question "what is your joint diagnosis?" Read More
Improved TMD Muscle Diagnosis Using the M-SCAN
One of the things I focus on in my dental practice is assessing functional risk and treating patients with TMD, from simple occluso-muscle disorders to joint issues. I'm always seeking to advance my functional diagnosis abilities, including adding technologies that will work well in my practice. I was considering getting an EMG to analyze muscle activity, Read More
Speaking In A Language Patients Understand
I know I am not the only dentist who has patients who are not moving forward with the treatment I have recommended. Recently when interacting with a patient who was not moving forward with occlusal therapy I got to watch his understanding shift about the recommendation I had made. The difference was in explaining it in a language he understood, because I Read More