This is an interesting blog, at least for me, because it's part of the vision of the future of our educational strategy at The Campbell Academy and what we'll do over the next 3 to 5 years.
For that reason, it's a little bit edgy because I'm giving away my corporate secrets or my direction of travel, but hey, I have an abundance mentality, so maybe it will attract people who'd like to join.
About 18 months ago, I took the position of editor-in-chief of the ITI Academy for anyone who follows what's been going on here. This position is to be responsible (in fact, my job description says I am the leader) for the ITI's online education delivery.
I did that because I wanted to because I was flattered, and because I told myself a story that the skills I gained and the contacts I made would also help my own business here move forward.
However, one main reason I took it was that I was already designing our future online educational platform, and I thought that doing that in tandem with the work at the ITI would have a certain degree of synergy for both parties, so it appeared.
For me, though, I want philosophically to take our education in a different direction than that of the ITI.
And so, when I went to the ITI World Congress as the editor-in-chief of the ITI Academy in May, it was to sit in an audience of 6,000 in front of a main stage that showed the most extraordinary clinical work it was possible to achieve pretty much unattainable out of sight, unreachable even if you jump on a trampoline to grab it.
The Campbell Academy digital online experience will be different; it will be 'real world', it will be where we talk about the good and the bad and the ugly, it will be able to be questioned, it will be able to be shouted at, we will show stuff that we are not proud of, we will tell stories of the good things we've done and stories of the things that haven't gone so well and how we might have done them better and we'll do that all with the permission of our patients.
And so today, I'm going to tell you a story about Simone, or was it Simon, or was it Simeon? It's obviously an anonymous person.
I'd have full permission to talk about this person by name and put photographs, but I don't think it's necessary; all you need to understand is that this individual was referred to see me to have some really, really difficult impacted canines taken out of their palate to facilitate orthodontic treatment.
The individual is in their mid-twenties, so they're past the age of children's orthodontic or children's canine extractions, but I assessed the patient fully, consented them really well and then embarked on taking the canines out under sedation.
I didn't manage it.
I sectioned a canine on the upper right side but couldn't really get it out. I decided not to start the left side, sweated over it for about 45 minutes, stitched the patient back up, and said, "I'm sorry, but the risk of damaging other teeth at the time during surgery seemed too great a risk to take."
The key here is that I took it back to our MDT (Multidisciplinary team) to see if there are any other options that we could think of, to see if there's any way we could rack our brains between surgeons, restorative dentists, orthodontists, periodontists, the nursing team, and the like.
So, both Andy and I came up with a plan where we would go back again and try to get the canines out. However, in this circumstance, if we were unable to do that, having had two good goes with two decent clinicians (So I believe), we would have to abandon and perhaps place implants at that time, accepting the roots of the teeth and the risks that were associated with that.
This was discussed several times at our MDT meetings using photographs, CBCTs, and case planning.
This week, Andy and I went back, sedated Simone, and Andy provided the surgery with me, providing moral support, and extracted both the Canines.
I will absolutely attest to the fact that Andy did that because he is a better surgeon than me, but he will say it is because he had a safety net. We were both together, blame sharing the case with each other and blame sharing it with our MDT.
So, the canines are out, and the ortho goes ahead. Plan B is no longer required, at least not at this stage.
The moral of the story is that… it doesn't always go well; you need to have a safety net, people you can lean on, and talk to people who can help. That's how we will educate online going forward. Watch this space.
Blog Post Number - 3951
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