I went into the profession of dentistry to help people with their dental needs. Little did I know that this journey would bring me to a place where I am able to give fully to my patients that desire the ultimate in reconstructive dentistry. Yesterday we treated a handsome man that has desired a much better smile for most of his 50 years. He also had a modicum of anxiety related to the thought of extensive dental work. With light sedation, he was comfortable throughout the seven hours. He finished the day with a great smile (he is in temporaries while the lab is doing its work) and happy. Modern dentistry, don’t you just love it?
Sedation dentistry and Cosmetic dentistry. They come together like a marriage made in heaven. Having a patient that is sedated and at that same time is able to get the smile that he or she has always desired. I am not writing about a couple of fillings. I am writing about changing the entire way a person looks. A sea change, if you will, in the way he is seen by others and by himself. I once had a patient that, after a reconstruction, looked into the mirror and said to me, you do not just change teeth, you build self-esteem. I have never forgotten that. I remember the patient. I never will forget his words.
The responsibility that it takes to reconstruct an entire mouth, an entire smile, is breathtaking for me. I mean that. I do not take it lightly. I remember the first time I ‘drilled’ on someone’s front tooth at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Dental Medicine in the late seventies. “I’m going to do what!!!???” After 30 years of extensive training in sedation techniques, in cosmetics, with laser dentistry and other high tech procedures, it is nothing less than amazing that dentistry has come to such a pinnacle of success with regard to patient comfort and awesome cosmetic results.
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