Walked through the waiting room yesterday and saw a patient sitting in the corner in the sunshine. He was the third person I ever put any implants into back in 1998/1999 (can't quite remember).
I said hi to him and had a chat. I went back to my office, where there is a photo book of all my first 20 or so cases in 35 millimetres from 27/8 years ago, something like that. Tried to show his pictures to Faith, but couldn't quite find them, but then I did, the third patient I'd ever done.
At that time, I thought I was behind the curve of implant dentistry. I thought people were way ahead of me, placing more implants, being more experienced, being better, but now I realise that's not so much.
Now, though, I feel I'm even further behind the curve, 28 years in this year to placing implants, over 6000 placed, I feel I know less about placing implants than I ever did.
That’s obviously not true. I obviously have some sort of retained knowledge of the work that I have done, some sort of experience of the good and the bad. Some sort of remembering of the stuff that I've talked.
Recently, at a meeting I was at, someone came to me to describe a material that I use regularly in implant dentistry (doesn't matter which one), they wanted to tell me that the material was s**t, that it didn't work.
And they've done a few cases and haven't got the results they wanted.
It’s something I've been using for almost 30 years.
We did two separate studies using this material, 15 patients per study or similar, and they were longitudinal, consecutive patients.
All the material collected, all the results are objective; it works if you use it properly.
That's probably right for many, many things.
You're never going to be able to clean the floor very well using the wrong end of the brush.
Understanding which end of the brush cleans the floor is probably the first step it takes to be somebody that's really, really good at clinical dentistry, if you know what I mean.
Blog Post Number - 4516
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