Learning Center
"The Power of Knowing"
In my soon to be published book, "Control Your Dental Destiny - a Patient's Guide to Oral Wellness," I introduce the important concept that I like to call "The Power of Knowing." The Learning Center of this website is dedicated to improving your "dental IQ" and much of the material you will find here is taken from my book.
I will be adding new "pages" to the Learning Center on a frequent basis, so come by often and see if there is anything new to learn about your oral care.
From the very first moment that I treated a patient I recognized that it wasn't just important for me to know what I was doing, but it was equally, if not more, important for the patient to know exactly what was going to happen. I realized very early on that the anxiety and tension that traditionally accompanied a dental treatment experience was born out of the patient being kept in the dark about what was actually being done.
By the way, I don't blame early dentists for this method. Up until the early latter part of the 20th century, dental treatment was an almost barbaric experience. The technology and the capability needed to perform procedures predictably and painlessly just wasn't there. Similary, even dentists were a bit "in the dark" about the details of what caused most of the diseases they treated.
So, even if the dentist wished to open up a dialogue with their patients, what were they going to actually say to them? "Gee, this is probably going to hurt like hell, we probably won't be able to prevent it from coming back, and I'm not even certain the work is going to last?"
Up until the last few decades, dentists did not possess the "Power of Knowing" so there was no way the patient was going to share in that good fortune. So it was a "grin and bear it" period of time, a "just suck it up and deal with it" approach with very interaction with the dentist.
But that is all ancient history. Now we, as dentists, know just about everything we need to treat and prevent dental diseases comfortably and predictably and you deserve to be a part of a serious dialogue regarding your care and treatment. The "Power of Knowing" will help you to relax. It will save you alot of time, misery, and hard earned money. But most importantly, it will allow for you to be in control of your dental experiences and shape your own dental destiny.
But first you need to get up to speed. It is my sincere hope that the following pages of the Learning Center will help to achieve that goal.