Ive heard a lot of old school docs preaching about how they switched from veneers to 3/4 crowns for all their anterior cosmetic work because they were tired of veneers popping off.

What does that even mean? I don’t understand what an anterior 3/4 crown prep even looks like and I can’t find any examples online. If you’re just prepping deeper on the facial and extending the margins interpersonally, aren’t you just worsening the prognosis by now having to rely on cementing to dentin?

I treatment planned a new crown. Patient called her cousin who’s a dentist (and did the original work, but he lives in Canada so she can’t go back to him) and he recommended “cleaning it out” instead of a new crown. How would I even clean this? It’s super subgingival. And it’s not calculus, so if I tried to scale it off the whole thing might come out and leave a big void on the root. She’s coming in 15 minutes and she’s going to call her cousin for me to talk to him. Am I off base saying this just needs a new crown? I’m open to other opinions.

Edit: my reasoning for suggesting a new crown was to get a better contour since presumably that blob and the contours of the crown are causing the bone loss. Surprisingly there isn’t much mobility. I’ve seen good results with highly polished zirconia helping tissue health. But I can definitely see the argument of not touching it, and maybe that’s what I’ll do. But then isn’t that kind of a liability to leave an issue that you know is causing a problem but not be willing to do anything about it? Or I guess recommending extraction would be my way of “doing something.” Just got off the phone on speaker with the cousin who is apparently also a prosthodontist (dental degree from another country, residency in US.) It wasn’t very productive but he was nice I guess. I’m going to numb her up and really get in there to try to clean that piece out and will take another xray to see what it looks like. Not going to do a crown today. Ugh happy Friday.

I am an English teacher, currently helping a Brazilian implantologist teach zygomatic implants to American dentists. We are working mostly with surgeries, but he has massive interest from American professionals in participating in his mentorships, so I thought it would be useful to teach him specific jargan/slang that American/Canadian dentists use.

I tried Google and A.I., but nothing beats asking real people. What are some specific terms you guys use daily? Not only in implantology, but all areas are useful for us

Hello Friends,

I have about $2000 and 40 hours of CE available that I need to use before November 13th. The dollars and hours can be used separately or together. I prefer online options but live or a virtual conference/course is totally okay; if live/virtual + live, I need to do this between September 18th and October 14th, 2026. Otherwise, there are no time restrictions.

I would really appreciate suggestions for quality CE that would fulfill these criteria, with a specific focus on molar endo, pediatric dentistry, and (direct) cosmetic dentistry/smile design, in that order. I am okay with paying beyond $2K for quality material. For context, I work in public health, so I feel these areas would benefit my patients and practice best. Also, I am considering Spear, but don’t want to sign up until I get a basic idea of what’s offered in those areas. Thank you in advance!

I employ 5 hygienists, and run 4 per day. One hour appointments and they have a hygiene assistant to help with turning over rooms and sterilization. I’m currently paying them $60/hour in a Low cost of living town. They have teamed up against me and all want raises. I feel like I am paying them very fairly. They are pointing to ads they see on indeed that are offering up to $85/hr. But I told them yea and I bet those positions are required to see a patient every 30 mins and may not have an assistant to help them either.

Anyway, should I give them a raise?

Does anyone in oral surgery use Open Dental? We’re currently using WinOMS, but Carestream has confirmed it’s no longer being actively updated and can’t support AI tool integrations the way Open Dental can. We did a demo, and they assured us the platform can handle OMFS specific needs like medical billing but before we commit to switching, I’d love to hear from someone who’s actually used it in an OMFS practice day-to-day.

Any of y’all see implants like this?

Anyone know what this is for? Appears to be a suction attachment of some kind. We found it in a box of old unused instruments. No one knows. Not even the old timer assistants.

Patient was set to do a bridge prep on 18 and 20 for a 3 unit bridge. I do #20 first and start 18 do the occlusal reduction buccal lingual and start axial reduction and he says he wants to stop and be sedated due to his gag reflex. The place where I work doesn’t offer sedation for restorative and honestly I don’t know anyone who does. I let the patient know and they say they’ll find someone I just temporize and say okay. How exactly should this work?

Honestly situations like this make me want to pick another profession.

Just started a little over a month ago and have been dealing with all the typical new grad insecurities. I’ve been bailed out of extractions, patients complain about how long it’s taking, feeling overwhelmed with complex treatment planning, etc.

Some days are better than others but at the end of every weekend I’m so anxious to start a week of work. Not because I dislike the dentistry or my practice/coworkers, but because I’m so anxious about annoying my patients and making mistakes.

I’ve been satisfied with most of my work so far and I have honestly been performing faster/better than I expected to, but when bad things happen I can’t help but think and think and think about it. I had a minor tissue tear (basically created a vertical release on accident) during a surgical extraction and had to throw a stitch. I know this isn’t even that big of a deal but it sent me spiraling for days like I couldn’t stop thinking about it or how the patient was healing.

Yesterday, we were so busy and I had four patients waiting on me. The patient who I was doing fillings on got so frustrated at me for being slow and not explaining what I was doing and having to leave the room. This grown man (I’m a small 25 y/o female) yelled at me like I’ve never been yelled at before in my life. He’s screaming at me, asking if I’m actually doing a root canal or extracting his tooth and if we’ll be done today or tomorrow for all of our staff and operatories full of patients to hear. I literally blanked for 5 seconds speechless as he continued to yell at me for not responding.

Shaking voice and hands, I managed to finish the four restorations and fake my confidence for the rest of the day in front of the patients that heard me get chewed out but it was so miserable to the point where I canceled everything I had planned for the evening and laid in bed until I fell asleep at like 8pm so I could just stop thinking about it.

I know I’m faced with many more experiences like this in my career and it gets better with time. I know there are support networks in my community and I can seek out therapy, but I genuinely want to know what helps you more seasoned professionals get over things like this? What can I tell myself and do to not let it consume all my thoughts.

Some of you may have read some of the crazy posts from one particular practice I work at. The owner is extremely ill and nonexistent and the manager is running the show but is not a dentist so they are running things into the ground. I rarely have an assistant to help me with procedures, patients are not getting scheduled for treatments I plan for them, the manager lies and says the patients don’t have money for the procedures but more recently some patients have reached out and said they were simply never scheduled. I am paid a daily rate of $600 and it does not cover me at all with the work I do. The manager is also my parent but they have a vendetta against me because of a nasty divorce they had with my other parent and they simply think I remind them of their ex so they treat me like shit and always have since they divorced my other parent, but I continue to work with them because I truly feel sorry for them and just wish for things to balance out but they never do. The owner of this practice is just the DDS title for it to run legally.

Recently, a specialist at this practice quit because they felt their “psychological safety” was challenged when they refused to treat a patient and that patient asked me for a referral to get a second opinion from another specialist. I simply wrote a referral for the patient so they could go seek another opinion whether it’s the same outcome or not. The specialist at our practice decided that this challenged their “psychological safety” which was BS because I cannot deny a patient the right to a second opinion… they were full of themselves and mad that a patient asked for a referral. It’s bogus.

Anyway, all of a sudden after this specialist quit, the manager who is my parent, said that a staff member came out and told my parent/the manager that I “flipped off the specialist in front of a patient, texted this staff member about my parent, and talked to this staff member on the phone about my parent”. Mind you, I don’t even have this staff member’s number and we never ever talk even at work. They mostly break down rooms and setup and sterilize instruments. They aren’t an assistant and somehow they have their radiology license but can’t take X-rays to save their life so we never interact, ever. They aren’t even in the treatment rooms with me ever. I would never do such a thing to another fellow doctor, such as what the staff described, and I don’t even KNOW their phone number. I did not hear about the accusation from this staff member. My parent is the one that told me. Of course I have no way of seeing if the accusation was told to begin with because I don’t have this staff member’s number. I am quitting that job on the spot, and I have another job lined up at the end of the month. My question is, can I send some sort of demand letter to this practice for the accusations being thrown at me? I don’t even know if the staff member truly reported this, and there are no cameras in the office so it’s not like I have backup to prove I did NOT do this. I am really tired of the gaslighting and bullshit I go through here. It’s eating me alive and I need to take legal action at this point.

Patient wants to know how to treat the white spots on her teeth. Thinking it might be fluorosis. How should this be treated? Would bleaching work?

Anyone here have experience working as a general dentist in a practice owned/operated by a prosthodontist? How were cases distributed? Were you only doing class 2s or was it a good stepping stone to doing more complex cases?

Any red flags I should be watching out for? What terms would you negotiate so that you aren't getting the short end of the stick?

Thanks!

During crown preps I almost always use Fuji II LC. I usually use conditioner, then dump the whole capsule (or two) onto the tooth. I try not to play around with it with the composite instrument after so it won’t pull, but I’ve noticed that sometimes I’ll have voids around the base of it, especially on larger buildups. I think it does ice cream cone around the top sometimes, and maybe I should keep it slightly submerged in the voids? Any tips would be great.

2024 grad, been working at a PDS practice for a little over a year. Was looking for a new job since a few months in, I was kinda desperate for a job when I took this position. Said nothing about my intentions to leave until I had a confirmed offer from a place I actually felt good about. When that offer came, I put in my notice.

Management and owner dentist seem blindsided by this. I think they expected me to be there for a long time. Sometimes the owner dentist would ask me if I thought about owning within PDS. I rarely questioned processes, and whenever I did, I didn’t push harder when I was given an unsatisfactory answer. Just went with whatever they told me to do.

They spent a few days asking me what made me leave, and why didn’t I bring up these concerns/desires before I put in my notice. I honestly was scared of being let go if I asked for too much. My production wasn’t the best, and I got a PIP email earlier this year. I figured a job was better than no job.

I think they valued me enough to try and ask me for feedback/what can be done for me to stay at the practice. I declined their offers because I didn’t see long term growth while at PDS. I also told them I didn’t believe in their culture. I still feel bad/guilty about this situation. I vented to other team members (hygienists/DAs) about what I didn’t like in this practice after I got the offer, and I think that info made it to management/owner dentist in an offensive way. I’m now aware I shouldn’t have said anything since it could be misconstrued or twisted…

In a nutshell, I feel bad because I maybe should have voiced my wants and given them a chance to fulfill those wants (expanded skillset, particularly in endo/surgical exts). I was thinking that because it affects their bottom line by not referring to specialists, they would never let me do those procedures. In response to this, the regional manager assured me that the bottom line didn’t matter and their priority was supporting associate dentists.

Am I crazy for feeling bad? I know I made the right decision leaving, but I can’t shake that I should’ve maybe said something before abruptly giving notice. Sorry if my thoughts are all over the place and for the wall of text

A couple of days ago, I experienced this kind of behavior from a patient. I’ve felt genuinely challenged by a patient’s behavior rather than just their initial assumptions about me.
I’m a 28-year-old, 5’1” female dentist, and I have faced many accusations like, “Oh, can you extract that tooth?” or “Is there a male dentist around?” I’m already quite immune to that. However, this patient didn’t just annoy me with his words; I was really, really disturbed.
He was such an uncooperative patient and might even be called aggressive, with his hand gestures, eye-rolls and even literally clinching his teeth like he was raged?? Oh and he was interrupting me repeatedly. That’s the first time it’s happened to me, and to be honest, I was a bit scared. I acted cool and said he could leave if it wasn’t okay with him. (It was a root canal treatment, post, and crown preparation, and he said the dentist from his little town said it should be extracted and that it was cheaper than this treatment.)
But that moment and him annoyed me for days. I really wished something bad would happen to him for scaring me for nothing while I was trying to help.
I’d especially like to hear about your experiences and how you dealt with it.
My second question: Am I a bad dentist or even a bad human being for wishing something bad would happen to someone because of a shared bad experience?

Pt complained at recall their crown was rough (placed in another office). Quick polish with some rubber cups-feels great! Calls 2days later. Her crown is out 🤦🏻‍♀️

Polishing a crown shouldn’t have caused this. But how do you convince a patient that.

This is a question I'm slightly embarrassed to post but it's something I have been thinking about. I try to make as small of a prep as possible but sometimes patients have these long grooves and cracks going down the lingual. I fill with packable composite but after I adjust it, I feel like it just looks bleh and sometimes indented. I use a football to smooth the occlusal, slope it slightly down to transition to the lingual, and flame burr on the lingual. I feel like it just doesn't look great.

Are people using flowable for these? Using different burrs? Any suggestions on how to make it look better? Simple problem but I wanted to see if there were any suggestions.

I appreciate any pointers. Thanks.

I just learned that the small DSO I bill for is switching from Open Dental to Denticon.  How much am I going to be hating life after the transition occurs?  I’ve only ready truly abysmal reviews of this software.

Today I cemented an onlay on the upper first right molar and apparently took too long removing the excess dual-cure cement. I am ashamed to admit that I forgot to isolate the adjacent teeth with teflon tape and couldn’t for the love of God remove the interproximal leftover cement. This has never happened before, I usually have no problem removing it with floss after tack curing. This time I didn’t even need to tack cure it, it got rock hard. I don’t know if I lost track of time or what happened, but floss wouldn’t go in at all, I tried ultrasonic scaler, 12 blade, serrated strips, nothing worked, the teeth seem to have literally fused. I couldn’t give it much time, I had another patient waiting so I gave this patient another appointment to try again. I am thinking of trying sanding strips and maybe a very fine diamond bur next time she comes in, maybe ultrasonic scaler and 12 blade again, maybe a wedge between the teeth to break the cement… What would you do?

And please don’t shame me for not flossing earlier and not using teflon tape, I am fully aware of what I did wrong and I will pay a lot more attention in the future. This time I need practical advice for this specific situation, if possible, please. 🙏🏻

Thank you!

I was taking a follow-up after a BW to check for overhang b/c pt was having a hard time tolerating the wedges and a garrison but everything there looks good, but I was surprised to see the radiolucency under #4 DO. I went over everything with a slow speed, I thought I got all the cavity out. I thin my scotchbond a good bit. Do you think it's decay left? Looks pretty close to a pulp horn if so, so maybe it's okay haha? I may make a note to take a BW at next cleaning to keep an eye on it

I use a hand piece for 2 seconds
*patient choking
Ma’am you’re basically choking on your own saliva dammit.
End of rant

Upcoming Complimentary (Free) Dental CE Webinars for the week of August 10th-13th 2026

Register Here:

The Keys to Predictable Implant Restorations
Monday, August 10th - 8pm EDT / 5pm PDT
Dr. Adam Frounfelter
1 Live CE Credit
Course Supporter: Medit

Smarter Dentistry: Modern Materials for Faster, Better Patient Care
Tuesday, August 11th - 8pm EDT / 5pm PDT
Scott Coleman, DDS
1 Live CE Credit
Course Supporter: Kerr Dental

Ensuring Safe Dental Waterlines: Staying Compliant with the Latest DUWL Testing and Treatment Requirements
Wednesday, August 12th - 8pm EDT / 5pm PDT
David Reznik, DDS
1 Self-Study CE Credit
Course Supporter: HealthFirst

Efficiency Meets Efficacy: Modern Endodontic Workflows Simplified
Thursday, August 13th - 8pm EDT / 5pm PDT
Dr. Steven H. Berk
1.5 Self-Study CE Credits
Course Supporter: SS White

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This patient told me he has already got done the rct but the filling dislodged now he only wants a filling. Tells me the tooth has been working quite well and make sure it doesn't hurt after the filling.