Dentaltown

Man, have I been crazy. My schedule has been packed. Let me run down my weekend for you. We stayed home on Friday and tried to recover from a stressful week. Let’s call this the calm before the storm.

Saturday morning started like any other day. My daughter had a piano lesson at 8 a.m.(don't ask me who makes the schedule). My 8-year-old’s baseball game was at 9 a.m. I am one of the coaches, so we have to get there at 8:30 a.m. or so. I dropped off my daughter, came home, and yelled and screamed until I had a baseball player and baseball stuff in the car.

My oldest son had a lacrosse game at 10:30 a.m. So straight from the baseball game (lost 15-1) to the other game on the other side of town. It took 40 minutes just to get to the lacrosse field. They ended up losing 9-7 (this was the playoffs, too). So far, 0-2 for the day.

We came home and we had lunch. My town puts on an Art and Foliage festival every year, and it was this was the weekend. I like going, but I just have to find time. After lunch, we got in the car and went to the festival. We were there from 2:30 until 5 p.m. Then at 6:30 p.m., there was a benefit dinner for the baseball league that we play in. We got home at about 11 p.m. How is that for a Saturday?

On Sunday, I was up at 5:30 a.m. to run 11 miles; I got home about 8 a.m. There was enough time to shower and help get ready for church at 9 a.m. We had breakfast after church, then baseball practice 1-3 p.m. A baseball party from 3-5 p.m. Then lacrosse practice 4-6 p.m. We had Church Community Group at 6 p.m. at our house (the last person left our house at 10:30 p.m.).

We usually don't like doing a lot on Sunday, like sports and stuff, but it just worked out that fields are tough to get and they were in a pinch. I am telling you, it is crazy at the Gammichia house. I won't bore you anymore with that; I just thought it was entertaining.

On to today’s topic. I know most of you are pretty computer savvy. That is why you are here on a blog. In the past, I have spoken about Dentaltown. I have not been to the site in over 3 years. I was talking to someone at Triodent; she suggested I give it another try.

Let me back up. I use to go on DT when it was first starting out. I felt like everyone with a computer was an expert. I would have a dentist fresh out of school trying to tell me I was doing it wrong, giving me his opinion like he was an expert. And not in a tone that was building up. I felt like people belittled others just to feel better about themselves. I got tired of the spirit of the whole thing.

I gave it another try last week. I didn't research to see if anything changed. I didn't read a couple of threads to see the lay of the land. I just went right to Case Presentation and uploaded an occlusal filling that I had done. It is an occlusal filling – what could they crucify me with?

Well, I wouldn't say they trashed me, but it got ugly in a couple spots. The first comment was about etching the enamel. Then they got on me about not using a rubber dam. Then they got on me about that little dark area on the occlusal surface, saying I should have taken it out in the prep. One guy said I had a white line on the distal facial part of the restoration in the final shot, saying I should have gone back and removed it and refilled.

There is still some attitude that if you are not doing it in one particular way, then you are doing it wrong. There are still guys that it seems just want to break you down. But this time around, I didn't take it so personally.

Taking this approach, I can look at DT in a different light. I have begun to see that most of the dentists on there are just trying to get guys like me to do it better. Now, it does seem like there are dentists on there who are untouchable (no one trashes them when they post). But now I find myself totally addicted.

Patients are waiting for me. Hygiene is waiting for me. And I am reading threads on DT. Kind of like you guys do with my blog. DT is fascinating. It is like a world unto itself. There are dentists on there that have 15,000 posts. That is like 10 years of 50 posts a day, EVERY DAY. This is not a well-rounded dentist.

I haven't gone to many of the threads yet. I have stuck mainly to the restorative dentistry threads so far, and have been quite impressed with the skill of the dentists. I think it is going to make me better. I mean, I think I am pretty good, but there are dentists on there that put me to shame (most of them are from Europe). I look at their stuff and wonder how they did that or I am convinced they guy must have photoshopped.

This could only make me better. And who knows? I might even try a rubber dam. Do any of you use DT? I would like to know what your thoughts are. Let me know.

Have a great Wednesday,

john