Plost Dental (2024)

FAQs

Why is dental so hard? ›

Dental School

Students must master a wide range of skills, from diagnosing oral diseases to performing complex dental procedures. In addition to technical skills, they must also develop strong interpersonal skills to communicate effectively with patients and colleagues.

The Dental Admission Test (DAT) is a challenging exam that requires thorough preparation. While it may not be easy, with proper dedication and study, it is certainly achievable. The difficulty level of the DAT can vary depending on an individual's background, prior experience, and study habits.

The dentist's scoring between 0 to 4 indicates zero being the best you can get meaning your gums are in excellent condition, and four indicate gum disease. The numbers you hear your dentist calling are the depths of the pockets around the teeth in millimeters. Smaller, tighter pockets usually mean healthier gums.

If you hear numbers of 0 or 1, you are doing pretty well. 2 and 3 means we need to work on your gums a little more and 4 will require some deeper cleaning and closer monitoring.

However, the curriculum for medicine is generally more intense, with more hours spent in the classroom and clinical rotations. In contrast, dental students often have more flexible schedules and less time in class. Based on the curriculum alone, you can consider medicine the tougher educational path.

That is why in our opinion, root canal treatments are definitely the hardest. They take between 45 and 90 minutes on average. They also require the use of very fine instruments and extreme attention to detail (bear in mind we're working with half a millimeter here).

323… 222… 212...have you heard those numbers during your cleaning? Those are the numbers you will hear us record during a Periodontal Charting, in which we measure the pocket depth (in millimeters) around each tooth.

6=First molar. 7=Second molar. 8=Third molar or wisdom tooth. Your dentist may call out these numbers at the start of your visit as he or she inspects your teeth and enlists the dental assistant's help in charting your results.

“Four out of five dentists surveyed recommend sugarless gum for their patients who chew gum.” In the 1970s, Trident Gum came up with this slogan, and the idea of “four out of five dentists,” which is still widely used today to sell gum and toothpaste.

For deep pockets over 7mm, surgery may be needed. Pocket reduction surgery requires making small incisions in the gum to peel back the gum tissue. Deep cleaning is completed and any underlying bone loss is addressed. Finally, stitches are inserted.

How do I know if my dentist is good? ›

A dental hygiene job requires physical demands that will cause musculoskeletal problems, such as carpal tunnel syndrome and cubital tunnel syndrome. This is due to repetitive work, incorrect posture, and non-ideal instruments.

Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

This branch often involves collaboration with other medical professionals and requires specialized training, making it one of the most challenging fields in dentistry.

Dentists spend most of their days inside, and aside from an assistant in some cases, it is usually just the dentist, an assistant, and their patients. This isolation away from other people can lead to feelings of repetition and stress.

Finding quality staff is one of the biggest challenges of running a dental practice. It's compounded by the major risk of not being able to pay them long-term if patient billings and collections are insufficient to support their wages.