Useful Links

As a prac­tic­ing den­tist for almost 13 years (as of 2011, in case I for­get to update this sen­tence annu­ally ), and as a per­son with a real pas­sion for learn­ing and grow­ing, I have been blessed to meet many peo­ple and learn a great many things.  Hope­fully, that will only con­tinue.  And as a per­son who truly believes in the phi­los­o­phy of “Give Gen­er­ously, for in Giv­ing, We Receive,” this page is ded­i­cated to shar­ing some of the peo­ple, places, tech­niques, tech­nolo­gies, that have most influ­enced me over the years, both in Den­tistry and Photography.

Den­tal Links:

As THE largest and most active online forum for den­tal pro­fes­sion­als only, DT has been an amaz­ing source of infor­ma­tion on both the busi­ness and clin­i­cal aspects of den­tistry in all dis­ci­plines.  I’ve met more friends and men­tors all over the world through DT than all other means combined.

Dr. Mike Melk­ers is one of the guys from Den­tal­Town who has pro­foundly influ­enced my prac­tice and the way I approach treat­ment plan­ning cases.  His prac­ti­cal approach to using the NTI-tss as a diag­nos­tic, pal­lia­tive, and pro­tec­tive device lit­er­ally changed my prac­tice phi­los­o­phy and thought process, and he’s flat out one of the best guys you could ever want to meet.  His Con­tin­u­ing Ed courses are also among the best you could pos­si­bly take, too.

And along those lines.….Dr. Jim Boyd and the NTI-tss.  I’m not going to get into a debate about CR vs. NM vs. what­ever here on my pho­tog­ra­phy site, but I per­son­ally wear the NTI and do well with it, as have MANY of my patients, whether as a pro­tec­tive night­guard only, or as part of the diag­nos­tic process for com­pre­hen­sive restorative/cosmetic treat­ment, or as amaz­ing relief from migraines and chronic ten­sion headaches.

Peri­o­lase MVP-7 laser

Mil­le­nium Den­tal Tech­nolo­gies and LANAP: while I love my micro­scope and CEREC, and 6MonthSmiles is a great practice-builder, one of my favorite pro­ce­dures nowa­days is Laser Peri­odon­tal Ther­apy^TM, with the Peri­o­lase MVP-7 free-running pulsed Nd:YAG laser.   I got it in Aug. 2009 and now think perio is the great­est thing to treat ever!  I know a lot of peri­odon­tists still don’t think there’s enough research to back it up, but all I can tell you is this: I’ve never seen such a con­sis­tently awe­some treat­ment for even severe cases of perio.  Patients THANK me for sav­ing their teeth, and that’s even the ones whom every­one else had con­demned to den­tures.  ‘Nuff said.

Zeiss Den­tal Oper­at­ing Micro­scope Ever had excru­ci­at­ing back pain after a hard day of den­tistry?  If so, while there are cer­tainly a num­ber of other steps you can take, I HIGHLY rec­om­mend you look at a Den­tal Oper­at­ing Micro­scope (DOM).  After wak­ing up one Sat­ur­day in 2007 with such pain that I could barely get up, I took the plunge.  Besides the bet­ter pos­ture, though, I now find that it SUCKS look­ing at teeth at less than 5x mag, and most of the time I work at 8-12x mag­ni­fi­ca­tion.  You have no idea how much bet­ter your den­tistry can be if you haven’t tried a scope, I promise.

Pho­tog­ra­phy Links

Of all the dif­fer­ent sources I’ve found for online learn­ing, THE most help­ful has been Lynda.com.  This incred­i­ble site has more than 1,000 videos for learn­ing almost every kind of sofware you might even con­sider.  Their tuto­ri­als on Adobe Pho­to­shop Light­room are noth­ing short of fan­tas­tic, and I reg­u­larly refer back to them.

(lots more com­ing soon)