What is Occlusion? Canine Guidance…..Group Function…that’s all right?! If only it was that simple! I hope to simplify Occlusion no matter where you are in your journey starting with this back to basics episode. Occlusion is the backbone of complete dentistry and full mouth rehabilitations.

Protrusive Dental Pearl: If you think your patients are in Canine Guidance, check again. This time check while the patient grinds really hard. You will notice that most people are really group function and even have non-working side guidances!

“It’s very difficult to say that one occlusion is perfectly correct for all individuals. And I don’t think we’ve identified an ideal occlusion for a specific person.” – Dr. Ed McLaren

In this first episode on Occlusion I shared:

Check out my 9 point checklist to never have high restorations again on YouTube:

Be sure to check out the best Dental Event of the year, the Dentinal Tubules Congress

And as a reference for the terms, here’s THE GLOSSARY OF PROSTHODONTIC TERMS 9th Edition

If you liked this episode, you will also enjoy Posterior Guided Occlusion 

Vertiprep? Dirtyprep? There are some Dentists who will literally opt for an adhesive onlay for every indirect restoration. That’s not cool – they are not a panacea. On the flipside, there is a breed of Dentists who identify as ‘Verticalists’. They will vertiprep their grandmother if they could. The answer lies somewhere in the middle – everything is case dependent. In this episode, with the return of my friend Jorge Cardoso, we revise Vertical Preparation, decision making protocols for indirect and then explore the nuances of digital scanning for vertical preps (even if they are super subgingival).

Protrusive Dental Pearl: Impressions vs Digital. Remember, if you’re going digital, you need to be more aggressive in your tissue retraction compared to impressions. If the light from the scanner tip does not reach beyond your margin, it will not be recorded. Whereas with impressions, the wash material can flow beyond the margin and capture the sulcus, even if you cannot see it.

Treatment Plan Letters with MakeMeClear discount – all of the Protruserati clan get 25% OFF the monthly or Annual plan with the code ‘protrusive‘! Trial it for 21 days and generate letters and listen to Episode 49 – Crystal Clear Treatment Plan Letters

Fancy joining us for a POTENTIAL trip to Portugal for hands-on Vertical Prep? Click here and I’ll email you if/when this gets the go-ahead. We are thinking Spring 2022!

In this episode Dr Jorge and I talked about:

Sorry that Dr Jorge’s screen share did not show in the main video, we had some AV issues. Please find below an 8 min snippet where he shares his screen at various points

As promised here’s BOPT by Ignazio Loi

Do Check out Dr. Jorge Cardoso’s episode with Crystal Clear Treatment Plans that Wow Patients and are Easy to Understand

If you want to learn more about vertical preparations check out eMax Onlays and Vertipreps with Dr Jason Smithson

Ask 10 Dentists for a treatment plan, and you will get 12 different recommendations. Treatment planning is an art, but our diagnosis should be highly scientific. Making decisions of what specific treatment we should recommend to our patients is the very foundation of daily practice. With the experienced Dr Paresh Shah we discuss the How, What and Why of the Treatment Planning process in this Back to Basics in Dentistry series.

Protrusive Dental Pearl: If you are unsure what is the best treatment plan for your patient, it likely means you haven’t asked enough questions. Ask more questions and seek your patients’ drivers and goals.

“Find an experienced mentor that will walk you through gathering the information…. [discover] why it’s important to mount the cast rather than just holding it in with your hand.” – Dr Paresh Shah

In this Episode, we discussed:

Check out Dr. Paresh Shah’s Instagram to learn and be inspired!

If you enjoyed this, you will of course love Zak’s Presenting Treatment Plans the Comprehensive Way 

Want to upgrade your practice with dental photography but unsure where to start? I got early adopter and dental photography legend Dr Alessandro Devigus (the main man behind dentist.camera Instagram page) to share with us his fundamentals to make dental photography routine in for your clinical documentation.

Protrusive Dental pearl: AACD Dental photography guide, have this document at hand when start taking dental photographs because it will help you to remember your settings before they eventually become second nature.

And also be sure to check this video tutorial I made on how to take perfect Occlusal Dental Photographs (the trickiest shot!)

“Every picture you didn’t take is a missed one…” – Dr Alessandro Devigus

In this episode we talked about:

As promised, here are the basic dental photography camera settings by Dr Alessandro Devigus:

Check out Dr Alessandro Devigus’ instagram page, the dentist.camera, to learn more about cameras.

If you enjoyed this episode, you may also enjoy the ‘Which Dental Camera Should I Buy’? also with Dr Alessandro.

When treating periodontal disease there is more to it than removing biofilm. Our role is to be a motivator and lifestyle coach – only then can we see successful periodontal outcomes in the longterm. What’s your spiel to patients to explain what periodontal disease is? Do you show diagrams, draw or use your fingers? Listen to how Dr Ian Dunn explains Perio and you will want to implement his way of communicating on Monday morning! Brought to you by the Back to Basics series of August on Protrusive Dental Podcast.

Protrusive Dental Pearl: Have some tools to be able to communicate via drawing (draw teeth, draw bone or periodontium etc) whether it’s digitally, on whiteboard or paper. There is beauty and magic about being able to draw something while your patients are watching beside you.

“Communication has to be a two-way street. It shouldn’t be a monologue, it should be a discussion.” – Dr Ian Dunn

In this episode we discussed about,

Catch Dr. Ian Dunn’s Perio courses and be able to communicate to patients effectively about periodontal diseases.

Do join us on our Facebook community, the Protrusive Dental community!

If you like this episode, be sure to watch Finding Your Niche in Dentistry with Dr Pav Khaira

I know some of our colleagues who have completely lost confidence in extractions and they are crippled by the thought of failure or having to ‘start a surgical’. I think being good at exodontia is fundamental for successful Dentists and it was my mission to bring on Oral Surgeon Chris Waith who will help you regain your confidence. The secret, we think, lies in your ability to section and elevate roots! Listen or watch now to find out why – guest featuring Dr Zak Kara!

Protrusive Dental Pearl: Be able to section teeth. If you can learn how to section roots and know WHEN to do it and HOW to do it safely, you will dramatically increase your success rate for dental extractions.

“I always say to Dentists that you should have a plan A, plan B, plan C etc. Don’t just go in with plan A and carry on with it..” – Dr Chris Waith

Dr Chris Waith and Dr Zak Kara are here to join help us in stepping up our extractions game.

In this episode, we discussed:

Check out Dr Chris Waith’s oral surgery course. 

If you enjoyed this episode, check out Why and how you need to Improve your Tooth Morphology – PDP046

Do your ID blocks work all the time? How about your management of the dreaded ‘hot pulp’? As a part of the Back to Basic series this August, I asked Dr Pynadath George, who practices advanced surgical and implant dentistry, about dental hacks for success with every dimension of local anaesthesia in Dentistry.

Protrusive Dental Pearl: Give painless local anaesthesia (aside from topical anaesthetic, we know that already!) by massaging the mucosa and the lip with your index finger and thumb. Get just a few drops of LA first and give it a minute to work. Then you can go back in and deliver your anaesthetic much faster and the patient will love you for painless anaesthesia!

“If you want good success with the ID blocks, you need to look at and study the anatomy, even if it’s on a skull, and then relate that to your patient..” – Dr George

In this episode we discussed about:

Want to learn more? Check out this Advanced Implant Training by Dr George Pynadath

I hope you are enjoying this Back to Basics series of episodes! If you liked this episode, you will also enjoy Basic Implant Occlusion and Work Life Balance – PDP012 with Implant Ninja!

A daily dilemma in Dentistry is deciding when (and HOW) to restore that extensive MODL amalgam restoration that was placed over 30 years ago! We go deep in to this, looking at single-tooth factors but also a full mouth ‘bigger picture’ view with Dr Andrew Chandrapal who has been trained by world-class clinicians including Dr John Kois and Dr Didier Dietschi,

Protrusive Dental Pearl: How to make sure your equipment doesn’t keep getting lost? Use color coded tapes on your own equipment and tell your team that stuff is super important because it belongs to you.

“Using things like air abrasion to then try and remove the apical amalgam whatever you can do to try and be gentle in your removal of that material is a good way to go” – Dr Andrew

In this episode I ask Dr Andrew Chandrapal, 

As promised in the episode, if you want to learn more of Composite courses by Dr Andrew Chandrapal – IndigoDent Education

If you enjoy this episode, check out this Composite vs Ceramic with Dr Chris Orr

Recession is one of the those diagnoses we make all the time – lots of our patients have recession. I always struggled to decide when we should be proactive with recession and suggest surgery – it is very easy to monitor recession through photos and measurements. Specialist Periodontist Dr Amit Patel discusses his decision making when it comes to recession defects. He also discusses his journey which is very encouraging as it teaches us that you DON’T have to have it all figured out from the start….

Protrusive Dental Pearl: What do you do if your patient is bleeding after an extraction and you’re struggling with haemostasis? You can try placing a hot tea bag on the socket (no, really!) – the tannic acid in the tea bag will aid blood clotting. So next time you have a bleeder in the chair, remember, ‘time for a cup of tea!’

In this episode we discussed:

If you liked this episode, you might also enjoy the episode, Should you specialise?

Online reviews for Dentists are a big thing in 2021 and it’s only really just lifting off now. A few years ago I had an appointment with an ENT consultant and the first thing I did was google his name. Most of our patients are googling us and our online reputation is critical. In this episode I am joined by the founder of Doctify, Dr Suman Saha to help you get more high quality reviews for your practice.

Protrusive Dental Pearl: How to increase the success rate of capturing review: Consider text messaging and/or having a tablet in your practice so they can leave it immediately after treatment.

In this Group Function we discussed:

If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like this episode Think Comprehensive – Communication Gems with Zak Kara