Know your dentist
Know your dentist
KNOW YOUR DENTIST
Dentists are health care professionals who provide preventive and restorative treatments for problems that affect the mouth and teeth. Dentists either work as full private practitioners or are also attached to dental colleges and hospitals thus contributing to academics and training students in dental colleges.
A five year course provides a degree of BDS (Bachelor of Dental Surgery) and a further specialisation in the field makes a dentist as MDS(Master of Dental Surgery)- a three years course.
Typical work activities
The dental team may consist of well qualified dentist, dental technicians, dental assistants, receptionist, and a well equipped lab support .
A dentist is typically responsible for:
educating patients on oral health care;
examining teeth and diagnosing patients' dental conditions, using X-rays;
assessing treatment options and agreeing treatment plans with patients;
carrying out agreed clinical treatments, such as restoring teeth affected by decay, root canal treatments, crown and bridge work, etc
maintaining patients' dental records;
recruiting, training and managing staff;
managing budgets and maintaining stocks of equipment;
keeping him self updated of new developments through a structured continuous professional development (CPD) programme.
providing quality service to his patients.
Providing community dental service to children and adults with special needs and disabilities, providing school visits, and organising dental check up camps in remote and rural areas also form an integral part of a dentist's ethical duties
How to Choose a Dentist
Dentists are licensed practitioners who hold a degree of BDS or a specialisation degree of MDS. No other qualification is sufficient for any individual to practice dentistry as per the rules of DCI (dental council of India). Simple knowledge about the various specialisations can help you to gain best of dental treatment by a specialist. These clinical specialisations are:.
Conservative dentistry and Endodontics: Prevention and treatment of diseases of the root pulp and related structures (root canal therapy, RCT) and tooth fillings
Oral and maxillofacial surgery: Tooth extractions; surgical treatment of injuries of the mouth, jaw, and face
Orthodontics: Diagnosis and correction of tooth irregularities and facial deformities.
Pedodontics Dental care of infants and children
Periodontics: Treatment of diseases of the gums and related structures
Prosthodontics: Treatment of oral dysfunction through the use of
prosthetic devices such as crowns, bridges, and dentures
Other branches such as oral pathology, oral medicine and radiology and community dentistry also exist.
CLINICAL PERSPECTIVES
A Competent dentist is one who takes a personal interest in patients and their health. .
A thorough dental examination that includes inspection of the teeth, gums, tongue, lips, inside of the cheek, palate, and the skin of the face and neck is done for complete evaluation. Regular check-ups can not only detect problems early but can also prevent loss of teeth from advanced infected stage. Routine tooth cleaning, X-rays, gum examinations, early interventions, and fluoride treatments can often avoid costly treatment and hence the benefit of regular dental check up.
. Once current treatment has been completed, it is the responsibility of the dentist to place a recall schedule for the patient and notify when the next checkup is due. The patients should also understand the importance of same in the best interest of their oral health.
Before embarking on treatment the patients must understand the qualification of their dentist and hence his competence to perform the procedure. The patients must consider all treatment options, because there may be more than one way to accomplish a goal. For example, a removable bridge, fixed bridge, or an implant may all be acceptable ways to replace a missing tooth; but they have different advantages, disadvantages, and cost.
High-quality dental work usually lasts a very long time, whereas low-quality work may fall out or decay out in a few years. The price of dental work is not the best way to judge quality; rather, pay attention to the time the dentist takes to do the work. High-quality dentistry cannot be done assembly-line style; it takes time and meticulous attention to detail.....
Dental Fillings - Dental Amalgam
Cavities are holes in our teeth created by the wear, tear, and decay of tooth enamel. Dental cavities have been repaired or filled with a variety of materials including: stone chips, turpentine resin, gum, and metals. Arculanus (Giovanni d' Arcoli) was the first person to recommend gold-leaf fillings in 1848.
History of the Debate about Mercury
"French dentists were the first to mix mercury with various other metals and plug the mixture into cavities in teeth. The first mixtures, developed in the early 1800s, had relatively little mercury in them and had to be heated to get the metals to bind. In 1819, a man named Bell in England developed an amalgam mix with much more mercury in it that bound the metals at room temperature. Taveau in France developed a similar mixture in 1826."
Dental Floss
Dental floss is an ancient invention. Researchers have found dental floss and toothpick grooves in the teeth of prehistoric humans. Levi Spear Parmly (1790-1859), a New Orleans dentist is credited as being the inventor of modern dental floss (or maybe the term re-inventor would be more accurate). Partially promoted teeth flossing with a piece of silk thread in 1815.
In 1882, the Codman and Shurtleft Company of Randolph, Massachusetts started to mass-produce unwaxed silk floss for commercial home use. The Johnson and Johnson Company of New Brunswick, New Jersey were the first to patent dental floss in 1898. Dr. Charles C. Bass developed nylon floss as a replacement for silk floss during WW II. Dr. Bass was also responsible for making teeth flossing an important part of dental hygiene.
Dentist's Chair
In 1848, Waldo Hanchett patented the dental chair.
Dentist's Drill
On January 26, 1875, George Green patented the first electric dental drill.
False Teeth
False teeth date back as far as 700 BC. The Etruscans designed false teeth out of ivory and bone that were secured into the mouth by gold bridgework.
Novocain - Alfred Einhorn
There is historical evidence that the ancient Chinese used acupuncture around 2700 BC to treat the pain associated with tooth decay. The first local anesthetic used in dentistry was Cocaine, introduced as an anesthetic by Carl Koller (1857-1944) in 1884. Researchers soon began working on a non-addictive substitute for Cocaine, and as a result German Chemist, Alfred Einkorn introduced Novocain in 1905. Alfred Einkorn was researching an easy-to-use and safe local anesthesia to use on soldiers during wartime. He refined the chemical procaine until it was more effective, and named the new product Novocain. Novocain never became popular for military use; however, it did become popular as an anesthetic among dentists. In 1846, Dr. William Morton, a Massachusetts dentist, was the first dentist to use anesthesia for tooth extraction.
Orthodontics
Although teeth straightening and extraction to improve alignment of remaining teeth has been practiced since early times, orthodontics as a science of its own did not really exits until the 1880s. The history of dental braces or the science of orthodontics is very complex. Many different inventors helped to create braces, as we know them today.
In 1728, Pierre Fauchard published a book called the "The Surgeon Dentist" with an entire chapter on ways to straighten teeth. In 1957, the French dentist Bourdet wrote a book called "The Dentist's Art". It also had a chapter on tooth alignment and using appliances in the mouth. These books were the first important references to the new dental science of orthodontics.
Historians claim that two different men deserve the title of being called "The Father of Orthodontics." One man was Norman W. Kingsley, a dentist, writer, artist, and sculptor, who wrote his "Treatise on Oral Deformities" in 1880. What Kingsley wrote influenced the new dental science greatly. The second man who deserves credit was a dentist named J. N. Farrar who wrote two volumes entitled "A Treatise on the Irregularities of the Teeth and Their Corrections". Farrar was very good at designing brace appliances, and he was the first to suggest the use of mild force at timed intervals to move teeth.
Edward H. Angle (1855-1930) devised the first simple classification system for malocclusions, which is still in use today. His classification system was a way for dentists to describe how crooked teeth are, what way teeth are pointing, and how teeth fit together. In 1901, Angle started the first school of orthodontics.
In 1864, Dr. S.C. Barnum of New York invented the rubber dam.
Eugene Solomon Talbot's (1847-1924) was the first person to use X-rays for orthodontic diagnosis.
Calvin S. Case was the first person to use rubber elastics with braces.
Invisalign Braces
Invisalign braces invented by Zia Chishti, are transparent, removable, and moldable braces. Instead of one pair of braces that are constantly adjusted, a series of braces are worn in succession each created by a computer. Unlike regular braces, Invitations can be removed for teeth cleaning. Zia Chishti, along with his business partner Kelsey Wirth, founded Align Technology in 1997 to develop and manufacture the braces. Invisalign braces were first made available to the public in May of 2000.
Toothpaste
Toothpaste was used as long ago as 500 BC in both China and India; however, modern toothpastes were developed in the 1800s. In 1824, a dentist named Peabody was the first person to add soap to toothpaste. John Harris first added chalk as an ingredient to toothpaste in the 1850s. In 1873, Colgate mass-produced the first toothpaste in a jar. In 1892, Dr. Washington Sheffield of Connecticut manufactured toothpaste into a collapsible tube. Sheffield's toothpaste was called Dr. Sheffield's Creme Dentifrice. In 1896, Colgate Dental Cream was packaged in collapsible tubes imitating Sheffield. Advancements in synthetic detergents made after WW II allowed for the replacement of the soap used in toothpaste with emulsifying agents such as Sodium Lauryl Sulphate and Sodium Ricinoleate. A few years later, Colgate started to add fluoride to toothpaste.
Toothbrush
Natural bristle brushes were invented by the ancient Chinese who made toothbrushes with bristles from the necks of cold climate pigs. French dentists were the first Europeans to promote the use of toothbrushes in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. William Addis of Clerkenwald, England, created the first mass-produced toothbrush. The first American to patent a toothbrush was H. N. Wadsworth and many American Companies began to mass-produce toothbrushes after 1885. The Pro-phy-lac-tic brush made by the Florence Manufacturing Company of Massachusetts is one example of an early American made toothbrush. The Florence Manufacturing Company was also the first to sell toothbrushes packaged in boxes. In 1938, DuPont manufactured the first nylon bristle toothbrushes.
Hard to believe, but most Americans did not brush their teeth until Army soldiers brought their enforced habits of tooth brushing back home after World War II. The first real electric toothbrush was produced in 1939, and developed in Switzerland. In 1960, Squibb marketed the first American electrical toothbrush in the United States called the Broxodent. General Electric introduced a rechargeable cordless toothbrush in 1961. Introduced in 1987, Interplak was the first rotary action electrical toothbrush for home use,
Toothpick
In 1872, Silas Noble and J. P. Cooley patented the first toothpick-manufacturing machine.
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