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We invited Rob Oretti to come to provide a Masterclass to do a 2 day, hands on, Masterclass at the Campbell academy last week and it was brilliant.

Circumstances being as they are and as they were, I was only able to attend a small piece of that, but I have seen Rob speak several times before and there is no question that he is at the very peak of his powers and is one of the best.

Despite not being able to make much of the lecturing, I made it further on in the evening and sat beside Rob and had a long conversation and these three blogs are snippets of what we talked about.

Still the best parts of courses that you attend are often the meals and the times at the bar and so it proved in the conversations with Rob about where implant dentistry has come from and where it is going.

Rob started to place implants in 1998 (the same year as me) and since then we have watched enormous change sweep over the profession, both in our little corner of work and in the profession as a whole.

The Journeys were very different from mine though, as Rob’s a little but older. He had more life experience, more dental experience and more practice experience by the time he started. I had placed my first implant when I was 25!

It was easier for us though, because it was like the wild west.

Everyone was prospecting for their piece of land trying to put their flag in the ground. It was possible to try things (in a totally ethical way) with patients consent and people understanding that this was new technology and better than what the alternatives were at that stage.

In this world you could hone your skills, you could watch your patients return with good results and less than good results and reflect and get better and move on.

This is what Rob did, better than most people at that time. Photographing and reflecting and improving.

There are three areas we talked about during that meal, for three specific blogs.

1. The Peri-implant time bomb.
2. Run-off cover.
3. Remedial treatment.

The Peri-implant time bomb

Since 1998 I have placed over 5,000 dental implants and Rob, I’m sure has done more than me and we have been in our places long enough to see the work we’ve done, come back.

We even invented that clever system of the 10 year guarantee, which ensures many of our patients return year after year so we can see, with our own eyes, what lasts and what doesn’t.

It is absolutely crystal clear the patients who attend for routine maintenance get very little amounts of Peri-implant disease and the disease that they get is hugely treatable.

Whereas it is also absolutely clear that if they don’t attend the incidents of Peri-implant disease goes through the roof.

The number of dental implants placed in the United Kingdom over the last 10 years has rocketed and so here it comes.

Throughout that time there have been countless practitioners who have paid no attention to the fact that we have known for years that maintenance is the key to the reduction in Peri-implant disease.

It was great to speak to someone like Rob with the same sort of viewpoints as me, who understands that Peri-implant disease is a real reality even in the practices of people who do it properly, but for those who don’t it will be a disastrous long-term complication.

Which brings us on to part two of the blog...

Blog Post Number - 2132