I chose to specialize in prosthodontics because I had questions I just couldn’t answer.
For years in GPR and general practice, I thought that drive and self-education were enough. Though the fact is, we’re only as good as our mentors. The benefit of experience is being able to say “I’ve been down this road, and I know where the pitfalls are.”
When I ran out of mentors that could teach me more, I stopped growing, despite hundreds of hours of CE a year. The fact is, it’s extremely difficult to implement new clinical approaches from online or weekend courses. So we tend to get complacent, and fall into ruts of accepting just ‘good enough.’ I didn’t mind doing the same procedures over and over again. I just couldn’t stand the feeling of stagnation.
I think most dentists are optimizers by nature. Certainly anyone who found their way to this corner of the web is. That’s why once we’ve been doing this challenging work for long enough, we either stagnate and burn out, or we rekindle that joy of learning and grow a little every day. We continually refine what we do to elevate our personal performance.
Once I entered a prosth residency, I couldn’t believe how much valuable info was being siloed away from the profession. Half of me had always wanted to believe that prosthodontists do all the same stuff as general dentists, just more of it. But in time I realized that the key to enjoying practice is in developing a level of insight into diagnosis, so you can do everything humanly possible to hedge against the likely modes of failure before the treatment even begins. That’s what I call Preparation Before You Prepare. With it, you can enter a positive feedback loop — you can explain all the risk factors to your patients, and if they choose not to take your advice, it was their decision up front. You give them what they want, and you get what you need to keep refining your skills for all the years of a long and satisfactory career, (relatively) free of surprises.
That’s why at ProsthConsult, I share that network of experienced prosthodontists with you. No secret handshake needed. When you order a consult, you have access to hundreds of years of cumulative big-case experience, and the assembled knowledge base of over a century of clinical dental evidence.
From the clinical concept that’s just never been explained to you properly, to the big case sitting on your desk that you just can’t decide how to start, that confidence in a solid foundation is exactly what ProsthConsult offers.
Best,
Paul Springs, DMD
Founder, ProsthConsult.com
