Don’t miss these 10 tips
In order to choose your dentist, at first you should know what the dental specialties are. According to American Dental Association, there are 9 dental specialties; each requires further post-graduate studies to achieve DDS (Doctor of Dental Surgery) and DMD (Doctor of Dental Medicine) degrees.
1. Dental Public Health; concerned with studying causes, patterns, prevention and treatment of all oral cavity diseases.
2. Endodontics; concerned with diagnosis, prevention and treatment of diseases of pulp and peri-apical tissues. Procedures of root canal treatment are performed by a specialized endodontist.
3. Oral Pathology; concentrates on diagnosis, prevention and treatment of diseases affecting hard oral structures (teeth, jaw bones, and bones of hard palate) and soft oral structures (lips, gingiva, oral mucosa, soft palate and tongue).
4. Oral Radiology; this dental branch is concerned with studying various techniques and imaging devices for radiographic interpretation of oral and maxilla-facial lesions.
5. Oral Surgery, there is a lot of dental procedures fall in the field of expertise of an oral surgeon; including routine tooth extraction, jaw fractures, cleft palate and cleft lip, dental implants, reconstructive surgery, ……..etc.
6. Orthodontia; focuses on ways to correct mal-occlusion and mal-posed teeth, by using dental braces and retainers.
7. Pedodontics or Pediatric Dentistry; focuses on studying the oral diseases of childhood.
8. Periodontics; concerned with studying the diseases of periodontal ligament and supporting tooth structure. A periodontist is the dentist specialized in the diagnosis and treatment of gingival and periodontal diseases.
9. Prosthodontia; this is the branch of dentistry concentered with fabrication of dental prosthesis, either fixed prosthesis (crown and bridge restoration), removable prosthesis (partial and complete dentures) as well as maxillo-facial prosthesis.
When you are selecting your dentist, you must keep in mind the following factors:
- Choose the proper dental specialist; find out how many years of experience the dentist has in practicing his/her dental specialty.
- Find out if the dentist is a member of certain professional dental societies or not, like membership of American Dental Association, or Membership of royal college of surgeons in England…etc.
- Find out the procedures the dentist takes for sterilization of dental instruments. Don’t be shy to ask the dentist about the hygiene measures followed in the clinic.
- Before you commit yourself to a dentist find out what types of emergency and post-operative care offered by the dentist. Don’t forget to ask about referral procedures followed by dentist.
- Seek for patients’ comfort measures offered by the dentist, sleep dentistry, music and hearing pads…etc.
- Find out what types of recent dental techniques the dentist might use, like using laser instead of tooth drill or surgical scalpels, CAD/CAM techniques….etc.
- If you are looking for cosmetic dental treatment; ask to see pre and post-operative photos for previous patients treated by the dentist.
- Of course, you should ask about dental costs and whether your dental insurance will cover the treatment procedures or not.
- It is always a benefit to choose a dentist whom clinic is nearby, especially if your dental treatment requires frequent regular visits.
- Finally, seek for a friendly dentist; the one you are comfortable with, if you hated your dentist, you will hate to visit dental clinic, and eventually you will neglect your oral hygiene.
