Confident Diagnosis and Execution in Dental Care

So I had a little bit of a slower day and I had a few thoughts occur to me about procedures and how sometimes we doubt our diagnosis. You know, I think I mentioned this in other videos before, that I sometimes feel like I'm recommending too much and occasionally I will pull my punches with what I'm recommending and why. So here's my thought, hopefully that camera is not jiggling too much. Here's my thought. So tooth number 14, patient came in and had some extreme sensitivity in tooth number 14 and so I had recommended a crown on the tooth and afterwards, you know, I had my doubts like, well, maybe we can just put some desensitizer and all that jazz. So you know, I essentially was not backing off of the treatment, but feeling like maybe I over-recommended. She had a big MOD amalgam in the tooth with some visible recurrent caries under both mesial and distal box areas. So I'd recommended a crown, pretty significant sized MOD amalgam, recommended a crown and we went ahead and started the procedure. I'm taking out the filling and the filling is fractured, that's something I hadn't noticed before, even looking at the filling under my eight power surgital telescopes, I hadn't seen the fracture. So that's one thing to support my previous diagnosis, even though I hadn't seen it. The second item was on the lingual, going right down the lingual groove, there was a significant, definitely a fracture present, it was sustained and acquiring some catch with a tiny Explorer, and then of course taking the decay out, significant decay on the distal underneath the box, it was a lot bigger than I supposed it would be on the x-ray. So it was good that we did that, you know, and the thought of the day would be, if you see something that you think you see and it's based on your clinical experience, your judgment and your training, then proceed. We too often, at least maybe this is just me, but I doubt myself too frequently, I need to doubt myself less frequently with my diagnoses, and I think sometimes we're trying to save the patient the discomfort of paying a thousand dollars for a crown or whatever their insurance fee is, when in reality too much pulling of our punches is a disservice to our patients because we may recommend and execute a large composite filling that could compromise the tooth. We're much better off taking the harder right than the easier wrong, if you know what I mean, to quote Jeffrey Holland. Anyway, so that's the thought of the day, base your treatment plans and diagnoses on your clinical experience and your appropriate training and continuing education, and then move through the treatment in a way that is confident and supportive, and don't doubt yourself too much. Alright, thanks, bye.