Hi! - ENG
Have you ever wondered how you can draw up a treatment plan for those complex cases that are presented to us in the dental clinic?
Do the harmonious results presented by other peers in publications or conferences ever catch your eye?Why is it that a multidisciplinary team signs an article for the treatment of a single case?
What makes the end result of an implant treatment so striking and outstanding in the hands of other doctors?
What we first must do in order to answer these questions is step outside our comfort zone as implantologists to view the patient in an integral manner. We therefore need to ask ourselves a series of questions, such as: What type of rehabilitation is best? Are the patient’s gums in good condition? What occlusion am I going to plan? Am I faced with high esthetic requirements? What are the patient’s habits and his or her hygiene? And what of future maintenance?… And not the customary daily practice of viewing an X-ray, positioning the implant ruler and proceeding to operate.
The path that we must take to overcome any obstacles in order to help us to achieve the best possible results, provide suitable treatment options to our patients and establish a comprehensive treatment plan consists of three stages:
1. Planning
2. Knowledge of other dental specialties
3. Technical resources
The first and most important thing is to plan correctly for the case to be treated. If we do not assess and study the patient, if we do not know where to direct our work, we will hardly be in a position to perform the implant work. The best way to be proactive and anticipate any difficulties that may be presented to us is to design the future reconstruction. Once we have observed and assessed the case thoroughly, we will have understood the goal to be achieved and we will be able to set our path, which is to say, our treatment plan.
The second point that will help us to improve in our daily practice consists of overcoming the difficulties that we have previously defined in our treatment plan. Many cases are not confined to the field of implants and we must act in a multidisciplinary manner based on the knowledge of other dental specialties.
Implantologists are not lone wolves, nor should our vision only be bound to implantology. We are in a field that requires from us functionality, esthetics, maintenance, etc. and it is other dental specialties such as periodontics, prosthodontics, cosmetic surgery, orthodontics or maxillofacial surgery that will address these problems that are posed to us and offer us added value in terms of work quality.
Modern dentistry is undergoing a series of changes that will help us to reduce treatment times, make our work easier and provide us with greater precision and reliability, which is why the third point of support that we have is technical resources.
Advances in implants that we can see on a daily basis. Research is continuing in new surface treatments, new micro and macroscopic designs, new connections, etc. We can also see this in the biomaterials that we use: diagnostic methods, tomography, new dental material or intraoral scanners provide us with a new system for precise, fast and comfortable work for the patient.
Implantologists are like free solo climbers facing a bare rock face. The first thing that these athletes do is observe and study the route to follow – they diagnose. They then assess the difficulty and consider their ability to reach the top on their own or with the help of their colleagues – they rely on others. And finally they take the necessary material to achieve their goal – their technical resources.
With these three points we will be able to improve in our work and progress towards higher levels of excellence that will benefit our patients.