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•  DO YOU AS A DENTIST CATCH YOURSELF BLAMING THE LAB OR THE MATERIALS FOR A FAILURE? IS IT ACTUALLY A LACK OF COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE OF THE MATERIAL SCIENCE , THE TECHNIQUE AND PROTOCOLS NEEDED  ON YOUR PART?

 

• It's quite a shame that ‘Dental Materials’ was a first year subject in dentistry (not sure if it's still the case , it was in 1997 when I started dentistry!!) where most of us sort of swallow the information and vomit it out during exams. Not knowing why we need to know it/ its application for our dental career and how it helps us to provide good dentistry.

 

• If any of the academicians can take notice - please please please …. make dental materials a final year subject, so we can understand the importance of it all probably better.

 

• I was taught ‘Dental Materials’ by  ‘Dr Lilajam’ in my first year of BDS, everyone was quite scared of her, especially being new to the college and dentistry, but I never was, she liked me and was always kind to me. I had a real liking for the subject too, but the part of imagining all the uses of dental materials - was a little difficult  - wished we were taken to dental labs to get a feel of how each of these materials were used. I had to learn material science in a very applicable way, from mistakes made by myself and colleauges, in the last 18 years of dentistry and reading up about it!

 

• It was only during my first year of  MClindent Pros at Kings that I really started valuing and understanding material science. In the first year, we had to do all of the lab work needed to work on patients ourselves and indeed it was a real eye-opener for me. I cannot believe how I did dentistry all those years without fully having a grasp as to why we etch/prime/bond/how GIC works /and how RMGIC works and all the other minute important details relating to dental materials!!

 

• We as dentists always have a tendency to blame the materials or the labs for failures !!! and it is mostly the lack of complete understanding by us dentist of protocols and techniques for each material and how to make preparations that are made for specific restorative materials. This is my basic understanding of how things work and how this has helped me adapt good techniques and manipulation of materials to get the optimum results for the patients.