Page 50 - CEREC Q4|2012

46 | cerecdoctors.com | quarter 2 | 2013
as dentists we practice an art and
a science — a healing art and a caring
science.
In the age of digital dentistry, I am
comfortable stating that CBCT will
someday be the standard of care. The
Standard of Care is often defined as a
diagnostic and treatment process that a
clinician should follow for a certain type
of patient, illness, or clinical circumstance.
For example, adjuvant chemotherapy for
lung cancer is "a new standard of care,
but not necessarily the only standard of
care." (New England Journal of Medicine,
2004). In legal terms, the standard of care
is the level at which an ordinary, prudent
professional having the same training and
experience in good standing in a same or
similar community would practice under
the same or similar circumstances.
We have hopefully all done our
research. We have started the journey of
integrating CAD/CAM techniques and
protocols in hopes of reaching mastery.
In our minds, we have locked every pearl
and piece of advice we have received
from trusted cerecdoctors.com faculty,
mentors and respected colleagues.
Sometimes we are misled into believing
that dentistry is black and white … that
dentistry can follow a simple equation
and result in ideal treatment. Are we
forgetting something? What about the
Hippocratic Oath, the Golden Rule, or
the advice from our loved ones! We often
get confused as to how we
should serve others: the
Hippocratic Oath says to do
no harm, while the Golden
CBCT and Sirona Bring Dentistry
to a Completely Different Level
Setting the Standard
at cerecdoctors.com
C A S E S T U D Y | | | b y n e a l pat e l , d . d . s .
thought it was the correct” are all excuses
that we might come up with in our own
defense. Unfortunately, there is a group
of equally dedicated professionals who
carve their time understanding how to
protect the consumer within a lawsuit
alleging dental malpractice.
A universally agreeable written “stan-
dard of care” may never come to exist.
Often, the term will be thrown around in
pockets of the world among like-minded
clinicians. It sometimes takes a clinician
to declare and be vocal by literally stating
a concept of treatment as the “standard
of care.” Let me be the clinician. Mark my
word, CBCT is the standard of care among
our dedicated group of like-minded clini-
cians, the cerecdoctors.com doctors! We
for one, see the challenges of restoring
mal-positioned implants within our CAD/
1
Rule says do unto others as you would
have done to you, while our loved ones
expect us to use our best judgment for
any given situation. I for one have come
to realize that the best way to practice,
is to practice the art of dentistry as if
you were providing treatment on your
own mouth or the mouths of our loved
ones. In following this moral compass,
you will always “do the right thing” for
any given situation. Sirona 3D Imaging
and Cone Beam Computed Tomography
(CBCT) technology has become part of
my compass in treating patients. In fact,
as I have mentioned many times before,
CBCT is the cornerstone of my practice
as it is useful in ALL facets of dentistry
(Fig. 2). To date, there are hundreds of
clinically relevant articles from universi-
ties and studies from around the world
reviewing the various clinical applica-
tions of CBCT technology. So is it the
standard of care?
We must reflect upon the reasons why
we have chosen the career of dentistry.
Hopefully, it was chosen as your profes-
sion out of a deep desire to help people, to
help improve thewell-being andquality of
life for patients and to help ease their pain
by curing their disease. We spend our life
dedicating our efforts, energy, and time to
understanding and treating the oral cavity.
What I find unfortunate is that we could
find themost educated, talented andwell-
intentioned clinician liable if something
goes wrong. It could happen to anyone of
us. The excuses of “I did my best,” or “this
is what has worked formy other patients,”
or “this is what I my colleagues do and I
Fig. 1: The
Galileos
CBCT