These lessons are not for everyone.  We have been fortunate to practice in Boca Raton, Florida, a community full of forward thinking individuals who appreciate what we have been doing.  I am not sure how these lessons would apply on a larger, broader scale.

For our first lesson, we need to comment on the basic purpose of dental care.

In every endeavor (that we undertake) such as dental care, there has to be an ideal goal or perfect outcome, which gives us THE MEASURE for success of that endeavor.  For your teeth, it is simply this.  The ideal goal for each individual is to keep all teeth in good health for an entire lifetime.  The ideal goal for each dental professional is to assist patients in this regard.

For me, personally, this was so simple and obvious.  Even as a brand new dental student at the University of Pittsburgh in 1969, the idea of keeping all teeth in good health seemed to be the most self-evident goal for our efforts.

Afterwards, in the early 70s during graduate study, conservative ideas taught at Indiana University and University of Michigan provided the perfect fit for me. Just listen to this quote from Michigan’s Professor Ramfjord.  “If you want to learn something new, pick up an old book.”  “1979…beyond all we are committed to doing everything within our power to maintain the natural dentition in health and comfortable function throughout the lifetime of the individual.”

I am sorry to say that in 2016, both individuals and dental professionals are no closer to achieving that ideal goal or perfect outcome than they were long ago.  For whatever reasons, personal neglect, life’s distractions, or maybe just plain ignorance, diseases of teeth remain a serious epidemic, a dental tsunami, to this day.

What ever happened to our basic concepts? The ideal goal for each individual is to keep all teeth in good health for an entire lifetime.  The ideal goal for each dental professional is to assist patients in this regard.

Political dental organizations today, like the American Dental Association, seem to have lost their way.  They have become stuck in a detour that is really a dead end.  Look at this program of a recent annual meeting of the American Dental Association.

There are 336 continuing education courses being offered to dentists and their staff personnel over four days in October.  Among them are dozens of classes about repairing broken down teeth.  There are dozens about taking out teeth and putting titanium implants into the bone.  And there are a lot more courses about computer-assisted technology, about using lasers, and about improving practice profitability.

But in all of these 336 courses, there is not one that is dedicated to new ideas or new ways of teaching patients to keep their teeth for life.  And there are absolutely no courses dedicated to assisting patients in preventing and avoiding diseases.

And this is not a unique situation.  Course after continuing education course.  Convention after convention.  It’s always the same.  More courses on repairing teeth.  More on techniques about dental implants.  More technology.  More business.  Year after year after year.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, it’s not surprising that most dental offices continue to be repair shops, where broken down, damaged teeth get fixed.  And just look at the whole world of implants.  Millions of them have been placed.  And for every single one of them, there used to be a live tooth in that very same space.  Implants are little metal tombstones, marking graves of neglected teeth, missing in action.

Well, in contrast to this prevailing, mainstream dental mindset, our practice philosophy is all about taking care of yourself and your teeth, about what we learned over the course of our practice, what we found to be important.  We endeavored to master the science and the art of helping patients keep their teeth.

No dental practice, that we are aware of, has ever focused as much on teaching patients how they need to take care of themselves.  Together we have saved more teeth with fewer repairs than ever before.  This is not meant to sound bragging.  It is our mission, the reason why we practice.  It’s a beautiful idea.

These are forward-thinking ideas.  After all, some day our descendents actually will keep all their teeth.  Dental repair work for them will be uncommon.  And the use of dental implants will be quite rare.

Why not us?  Why not now?

In the following video lessons, you will find all of the ideas that you need for a potential change in your own philosophy as an individual, as well as a patient.  These are not trivial ideas, but rather large ones.

They range from an overall philosophy of well-being, to realizing your personal potentials, defining the proper doctor/patient relationship, looking at the magic of healing, in addition to keeping your teeth.  We are happy to give them to you for your consideration.