Goodbyes mean different things for different people. It may be a sigh of relief and it maybe a sign of remorse. But what’s certain in every goodbye is confusion and curiosity of – what next? It’s difficult to leave a comfort cushion and venture into an unknown territory. Quite often it’s a mandatory step to be taken!

As we compulsorily bid goodbye to this year, let’s see what the last issue of DR 2019 has in store for you – on one condition – switch on your imagination mode and envision all the situations I place in front of you!

Imagine you enter a dental clinic to find out the operating dentist is a robot.

Robots minimise human error, increase work efficiency and decrease the working time for a specified task. Did you know that dental robotics is actually a reality and its applications now range from patient robots to robots being used in endodontics, oral surgery, implantology, prosthodontics & orthodontics?

Imagine you are giving the best treatment in your clinic today and you are in prison tomorrow.

There may be unintentional circumstances where dentists land up in unfortunate situations. IPC sections like 304A, 336, 337, 338, 420 in the Indian judiciary system exist to encounter any dreadful act committed either by the patient or the dentist. Be a vigilant civilian – know your law & your rights.

Imagine your patient develops malocclusion because of the extraction you performed in his childhood.

Some spaces in dentition are crucial, even in a child. Managing spaces early can prevent malocclusion later. With knowledge regarding the pattern & sequence of eruption , the clinician must design an appropriate appliance for maintaining the space for premature loss of any tooth in a child.

Imagine a co-operative patient with well healed, non resorbed ridges is expecting a denture of the highest quality and price – but just has no saliva!

A prostho patient with the right amount and quality of saliva is a blessing! But if not, we have the power to still make the prosthesis comfortable and functional. Lifestyle modification advices and alterations to conventional prosthesis with intelligent denture base extensions enable this.

Imagine an HIV patient walks into your clinic and you can educate him that he won’t necessarily progress to AIDS.

Not all HIV patients progress to AIDS – if FDA-approved HIV drugs and anti- retroviral therapies (ART) are used in the correct way. Lifestyle factors may cause non-adherence to ART therapy resulting in some not responding well to therapy unless they modify them.

Imagine you now have the finances to upgrade your practice and buy a dental microscope but you don’t know how to select the right one!

Only by using the right microscope can dentists benefit from excellent visualisation, ideal treatment ergonomics and see the quality of treatment increase significantly. Our mentor of the month, Dr. B Sunil Rao explains dental microscopes elaboratively in an educative video, along with a perfect year – end review write up, enlisting all the available brands and their comparative key configurations by our fantastic founder, Dr. Rockson Samuel.