This course is aimed at the clinician/technician/assistant who would like to elevate their skills with a digital single reflex lens (DSLR), mirrorless, or smartphone camera. No experience is necessary. Theory and hands-on course work will allow even the novice photographer to produce professional level photographs within a few hours of instruction, enabling the user an easy method for marketing their dental practice to potential patients, or dental laboratory to potential clients. Basics of lighting, camera gear, lenses, and composition are covered, and cost-effective ways to acquire all the necessary tools and equipment are explained in detail.

At some point in the career of every dentist, they will be asked to give a PowerPoint/Keynote presentation to their colleagues. As these dentists begin to move into advanced education and become key opinion leaders, the need to lecture becomes increasingly significant. For many of these clinicians, public speaking represents a fate worse than death and causes panic. Additionally, the lack of formal training devoted to developing an engaging presentation leaves many educators feeling helpless. This lecture outlines many of scientific principles as well as the tried-and-true methods for creating compelling content/imagery, managing contemporary slideshow technology, and reducing personal anxiety while speaking to colleagues in a meaningful way. 

Restorative and prosthetic dentistry is in a state of crisis. With more and more individuals in need of complete dentures therapy - social media, corporate advertising, and even the most reputable dental symposiums continue to focus a heavy emphasis on conventional fixed treatments (i.e., cosmetic crown and bridge dentistry). Much of what students have learned during their dental school education about dentures is flawed, and based on outdated, dogmatic principles. There is a new wave of clinicians/technicians that are  challenging the status quo and are pushing for bold updates to the education and training of complete dentures/implant overdentures in an effort to rekindle the love affair with the original full-mouth rehabilitation. This course will go through several cases studies and outline the low-cost materials and easy to follow techniques necessary for treating edentulous patients with efficacious, predictable, and profitable outcomes. 

With the move toward minimally invasive cosmetic dental treatments and the ever-expanding variety of tooth whitening products on the market today, internal, and external bleaching options are now able to afford the clinician with a predictable, safe, and effective means to lighten and bright a patient’s natural dentition. Many of these products, such as low concentration carbamide peroxide, have additional revenue generating potential outside of cosmetic dentistry that are available for every dental specialist, including Oral Surgeons, Periodontists, Endodontists, Orthodontists, Pediatric Dentists, and of course, Prosthodontists. This presentation will outline the most up-to-date materials, procedures, and protocols, dispel the myths, and reveal many outside-the-box marketing strategies that exist for the contemporary dental practice. 

Conventional shade matching protocols involve intraoral photographs taken with porcelain tabs held in the patient’s mouth adjacent to the natural dentition or restorations. Frequently, however, the limits of shade tabs are exposed when the teeth that need to be emulated rapidly dehydrate, possess color variations, and the intrinsic properties not covered by the range of the currently available shade guides makes color analysis impossible. This presentation will demonstrate predictable and economical methods to easily communicate with the dental laboratory utilizing value-based shade guides, cross-polarized filters, custom shade tabs, and spectrophotometers for all fixed, implant, and removable restorations. These techniques and protocols will serve the clinician to facilitate more effective communication with the laboratory, decreasing costly remakes, and improve the overall patient experience.

The ongoing advancement of new procedures and technology within the dental profession continues to grow at an accelerated rate. The comprehensive volume of information that must be maintained to remain competent in the respective fields of study as a dentist or a dental technician, therefore, becomes increasingly difficult to sustain. Although an exhaustive knowledge base for either specialty is simply not possible, numerous overlapping philosophies and techniques have been recognized that are able to improve the daily workflow of the restorative clinician.

Traditional crown and bridge restorations, removable prosthetics, and endoesseous implant therapy all begin with a sound treatment plan and continue through the various phases of care, including diagnosis, laboratory communication, impressions, provisionalization, final delivery, and on-going oral-health maintenance. The advancement of new procedures and technology within the specialty of Prosthodontics continues to evolve and grow at an accelerated rate, and an exhaustive knowledge base for any aspect of prosthodontics is simply not possible. This presentation, however, will cover many of the overlapping protocols, philosophies and materials that are currently available to achieve predictable long-term result, produce high-end aesthetics, and ensure successful patient outcomes.

Many dentists are blissfully unaware that the clinical work they produce chairside is not up to the laboratory standard to produce a successful definitive restoration. Lines of communication between the clinician and the dental technician are often marked by antagonism and derision and carry potential untoward negative ramifications to the patients being treated. The presentation takes a deep dive behind the scenes to find out what candid information laboratory technicians would tell the dentists they work with if the repercussion of losing a client didn’t loom over their head. Meant to inform, not humiliate, clinicians will find that the quickest way to self-improvement, is self-reflection.