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Sage advice for doctors
new to implants
1
Enroll in an introductory
course. Get a feel for whether implant
dentistry is right for you.
2
3
Educate yourself by enrolling
in multiple courses. If implant
dentistry is something you want to
pursue, take an adequate number
of courses — and wait until you feel
confident in doing implant procedures.
Learn basic surgical
techniques. Aside from identifying
important anatomical structures,
diagnosis, treatment planning,
radiographic interpretation and basic
implant prosthetic principles — it’s
critical that you understand basic
surgical techniques.
Start with an ideal case. Look
for cases that have a good level of
height and width of bone. Also, you
want anatomical safe regions, such
as the anterior mandible and single
tooth replacements in both arches,
eliminating three-unit bridges.
Implant dentistry
changed my life,
as well as the
lives of thousands
of my patients.
I started the procedure at 1:30 p.m. and had the provisional
cemented by 3:30 p.m. Everything went absolutely perfectly.
I was so excited that I said to my partner, “I don’t
want to do anything else.” Replacing what nature had taken
away was, from that instant on, exactly what I wanted to
do for the rest of my professional life. Four weeks later, I
placed her final bridge and placed the other implant on the
opposite side. I told her that I’d have to charge her for that
one because now I was an expert. We both laughed. She
hugged me and said that I changed her life. Irma passed
away in October 2000, 30 years later, with her implants and
bridge still functioning until the day she died.
After that first time, I went on to place many implant
restorations, all types and various systems, over the next
42 years. I estimate that I have placed and restored more
than 30,000 implants. IM
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