The team at Shine Dental Care are all looking forward to the upcoming year and our Open Day on 28th January. It will be a great way to share just some of the many ways we can help our patients with modern dentistry.
It has been a very busy year for myself in 2016 and at times it has felt like I have been permanently packing and unpacking a suitcase in between working full time with a focus on implants at Shine Dental Care. I have always had a commitment to further Dental Education but this last year has seen me covering more miles than ever before. You would have thought that after more than 20 years in dentistry, and many thousands of hours of further education and quite a few more grey hairs, that I would be taking it a little easier by now, but every time I finish one course I just find myself booked on another!
Why you might ask? Well, quite simply, I do not feel that you can afford to stand still in dentistry and I am just the kind of person who always feels that there is always more to discover. We have received lots of fantastic feedback from our patients in the last year so more importantly they are seeing the benefit of this investment. So, what have I been up to in the last year?
In the spring and summer I spent several long weekends in London working towards a Diploma in Implantology with the FGDP at the Royal College of Surgeons. At times, this has been very demanding and family life has been a little disrupted, but the breadth of Knowledge that I have gained has made it worthwhile. As part of this course I took my first trip of the year to Germany to attend the Bone and Tissue Conference in Berlin. Dental implants are far more commonplace in many parts of Europe than here in the UK, with many more being placed and I was very impressed by the level of organisation at this conference and some of the developments that seem quite routine in Germany.
I soon found myself back in Germany to find out more. It may seem odd but much of current thinking is about developing good bone levels around dental implants. Whilst this may sound a little boring it is fundamental foundation to successful implant placement and can not only help with the functionality of the implant but can also help improve the final cosmetic appearance. I am pleased to say that the patients at Shine have already benefited from some of these techniques both by having more choices and avoiding the time and cost of some of the additional surgery that is sometime required for more complex cases. I also took part in a course in Harrogate demonstrating how implants can be placed and restored with teeth in just one day, as well as attending numerous Association of Dental Implantology meetings.
Many of you are aware that we have a very strong team ethos at Shine Dental Care and we work very closely together. Coire is now placing implants within the practice and I joined him on an dental implant course with a Local Specialist Oral Surgeon with whom I work closely with. I will let Coire tell you more about that but it is also a good time to mention that as from December, Matt is now officially our Implant Coordinator and will be working alongside Sally overseeing the implant records, stock and of course supporting the rest of the team.
I have also joined Coire on the Chris Orr Aesthetic Dentistry Course that I first attended in 2003 and subsequently led to the formation of the British Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry. I am the oldest dentist there and the only one attending second time around, but it is still worthwhile and fits very well alongside the Shine ethos of minimal intervention maintaining as much of your own natural tooth, whilst enhancing your smile. Faith is also completing the same course but on a different day just to make sure that it is business as usual back at Shine Dental Care and that we are there to look after you.
Additionally, Faith and Mark have also been on the extensive Invisalign invisible braces program and Paul has successfully been awarded a Diploma in Endodontics (complex root canal problems). As you can see, our dentists at Shine Dental Care have a passion for providing the best care they can for our patients and never rest on their laurels.
If you would like to become a patient of Shine, please call us on 01623 629391