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Dental Jargon The More You Know By Dr. John F. Miller DDS - SMILE MONTANA
I recently went on a snowboarding trip up to Revelstoke, British Columbia with a couple of friends from the Flathead. This is a seven hour trip each way assuming the weather is good, which is a coin flip in the winter considering the last hour is Roger’s Pass in the Canadian Glacier National Park. There is no commercial flying option that would put us there any faster considering the closest airport is 2 hours from Revelstoke and it would require two flights and a rental car or shuttle to get there. Either way, one of my travel companions is very good at time management and uses these seven hours to get a lot of work done. Work that is conducted out loud over the vehicle's audio system for all to hear. Not only was he our driver, but quite often during these calls he had a phone in each hand. It was more impressive than terrifying...barely. Said individual is in the world of finance so it’s a lot of jargon and acronyms. Honestly it’s very interesting to me even though it sounds like a different language. I pay close attention then ask him a bunch of questions when the call is over. And just like anyone passionate about their career he was happy to answer my questions.
door and see that box you can physically see 5 of its 6 sides if you move around it. The top and the 4 sides. This is how we describe a tooth. These surfaces, like a lot of human anatomy, have names derived from their Latin root words. Let’s go through them.
As dentists, we were instructed in our dental training to limit the amount of dental jargon we use with our patients. Jargon just means terminology specific to your industry that the lay person might not understand. On occasion I will have the more inquisitive patient listen to me discuss treatment with my hygienist or assistant, then ask follow up questions. Like, “what does ‘distal-buccal class five’ mean.” Let’s answer this question for you, the reader.
Now that we know what distal means we can deduce that mesial means towards the center of the body, or midline. In that healthy mouth full of teeth, the mesial surface is in contact with the distal surface of the tooth in front of it. It is the other surface that gets cleaned when we floss.
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Every tooth has 5 surfaces. We just made it through the holidays right? So, I imagine a lot of amazon boxes being delivered to front porches. When you open your 96 406
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• Distal
The term distal is defined as being away from the center of the body. When we refer to the mouth we tend to use the term “midline.” In a healthy mouth full of teeth, the distal surface of a tooth is in contact with the tooth behind it. It is a surface that gets cleaned when we floss.
• Mesial
• Lingual
This is the Latin term for the tongue. So, this describes the teeth surfaces that face the tongue. Right now, rub your tongue against the insides of your teeth. You are touching the lingual surfaces. These surfaces tend to experience the least amount of dental decay
due to exposure to greater amounts of saliva which neutralizes acids.
• Buccal/Facial
So now we are going to differentiate between the teeth in the back of our mouths and the teeth in the front. Also referred to as posterior and anterior teeth respectively. Posterior teeth are called molars and premolars. These teeth have a buccal surface. Buccal is Latin for cheek so obviously this is the surface touching the cheek. Anterior teeth, our canines and incisors, do not touch our cheeks and their forwardfacing surfaces are called facial surfaces. They are touching our lips but for some reason we do not refer to them as labial surfaces...I wasn’t around when that decision was being made so I can’t tell you why.
• Occlusal/Incisal
On to our last surface. This is the functional surface of our teeth. The surface that does all the work when it comes to chewing. This is the top of the box in my box analogy. The surface opposite the surface touching the porch. In the posterior this surface is called the occlusal surface and in the anterior we simply refer to this surface as the incisal surface. Occlusal surfaces grind food while incisal surfaces cut food. Incise is the Latin term meaning “to cut.”