To the dental graduates and new Dentists, I say ...

you have it so easy.

Chances are you haven’t cast your own crowns, dispensed elemental mercury, nor hand-dipped your radiographs. I cast and miscast my first crown in 1965. That same year I mishandled my first amalgam and under-fixed my first radiographs. Maybe I could’ve done better if I had not been so tired walking from Broadway Elementary school to my father’s dental office. After all, I was only eight years old.

Back then, a “casting machine” was a small 1-inch bucket attached to a 10-inch chain, which in turn was joined to a short wooden handle, forming a spinnable sling. A good “cast” was timed such that the very second one ounce of torched glowing gold turned liquid. The bucket was yanked off the counter and spun overhead in the same fashion that David slew Goliath with a rock. A bad cast (as in that bad day in 1965) meant the bucket, in mid-flight was interrupted by a protruding shelf which scattered the molten 2000° metal down in a shower of 100 golden flaming meteorites. Oops. t

My father’s dental office was only about four blocks away from school, and at least once a week, I would go there in the afternoon and “help” my father in his practice — that and the fact that he had a “candy drawer” for pedo-patients that I could pilfer. And yes … it was a happier time. However, when I was not burning down the lab by casting crowns, I was processing radiographs in his dark room converted closet. The films were clipped to a metal rack and made a ba-da-bada blop sound when dipped into a series of tanks. A dim 10-watt red bulb was the only light guiding the rack from developer to fixer to water. Ba-daba blop ba-da-ba-blop. I would then run the wet films down the hallway for my father to read before they turned an unreadable green. What a great “help” I was.

Of course, my mishandled amalgam was really playing with elemental mercury. Back then, it was fun to squirt liquid mercury into a dime-sized glob from a mercury Pez dispenser and cascade it slinky between your cupped bare hands. This was great fun for a long time, maybe seven seconds, until the silver prize slipped away and scattered into 1 billion beads on the floor. Oddly no hazmat cleanup was required.

Things much improved in the ‘70s. Your self-etching self-priming self-tax paying light-cured composite has not arrived as yet. You had to scoop a brown base material out of a white plastic jelly jar and mix it by hand on a paper pad with an equal glob of white catalytic goop. Using a Chinet knife, you gently slop the sticky mess over an overly desiccated cavity preparation, then you would handhold the patient and the material motionless for five minutes until the material was set. At this point, the finished restoration stuck to your gloveless finger and pulled out. So, you placed the gold foil instead. Who doesn’t like to flash their new gold tooth? Thus, was born the wonderful world of pins. Need to get that MODBL amalgam or cold-cure composite to stick? Tack it down by placing a pin in the pulp chamber or the interproximal bone that should hold it. Oh, and what about dental boards? We had to do a class IV gold foil on a live badger … in the snow … uphill … both ways.

With the advent of new materials and techniques, more procedures can be performed in a shorter time and to the greater satisfaction of your patients. Interest rates and practices to purchase have never been better. But do not expect the world to appear at your feet automatically. It will take hard work, and you’re only entitled to what you earn. But now, as it was then, there will always be room for a good dentist. Your diploma is yours, and nobody can take that away, but your license to practice dentistry is on loan to you from the state. Just because you were legally allowed to place implants doesn’t mean you should. Stay within a conservative yet expanding comfort zone of knowledge. Think your education is over? Think again. You will get a big dose of education on your first day, and it never ends. Maybe find a friend or a mentor you can call upon. Chances are they will always be more than happy to share their experiences with you — the good and the bad. Even better yet, dedicate a line item and budget for continuing education every year. Did I mention FDC is right around the corner? This is just another reason to be in the fold and fellowship of organized dentistry.

Now about that badger, I was lying … it wasn’t snowing.