All Things Dental 2.0

Dentistry has sure changed over the last 25 years, hasn't it?
I would venture to say that only about 20% of what I do every day is directly what I learned in dental school!
Now, don't get me wrong. I went to a great dental school and learned a lot of great PRINCIPLES from some great teachers like Jack Preston, Harold Landesman, even got to be taught by Rex Ingraham, the old Gold master in his last years of teaching.
I felt I got the best of the old world (Dr Rex and even Dr Earl Pound lectured to us a few times!) and the best of the new. Jack Preston took over as the head of Prosthodontics right after Rex Ingraham and, as most of you know, he was a pioneer in color science and porcelain shade selection.
In fact I am pretty sure, if I have my facts straight, he was instrumental in the 3-D shade guide we all use a lot. (if he wasn't, he sure talked a lot about a need for a non-arbitrary shade guide that somehow involved more of the color wheel and "value" as a guide. )
The principles of color we learned from him still apply today.
In the operative department, great minds like Richard Kahn and even Albert Solnit were my mentors and I feel fortunate to learn from these gentlemen.
Those that know Dr. Solnit remember him as a sort of flamboyant and quite "self confident" individual. No matter what anyone says, the basics he and his staff taught us about tooth anatomy and contour became, in hindsight, as bonding came along and we did chairside resin, one of the most valuable skills we learned in school!
I remember being on the curriculum committee as a student representative and hearing the arguments pro and con about continuing to carve wax teeth. My son in law recently graduated from UNLV and didn't carve more than one tooth and we carved 16 full contour teeth, he didn't process one denture start to finish and we processed at least 6.
Anyway, the reason I bring this all up is not to remember the old times, but to point out how fundamentals are so important (as in sports) to our success in todays rapidly changing dental marketplace.
I want this blog to bring to you information of what is happening in dentistry and to form a bond among us, our vendors and suppliers and the educators who train the new generations of dentists.
In other words, a place where we talk about "ALL THINGS DENTAL" in our web 2.0 environment that emphasizes more interaction and discussion.
The growing trend of us learning "after school" is being supplied nicely as well from the educators I admire like John Kois and Frank Spear, among many others, that are dedicated to moving the art and science of dentistry forward.
I'm excited to share all I find out that is valuable to you, the practicianer of our profession, and all those individuals involved to make it all happen..
kind regards,
Frank M Nelson DDS