Finding ways to restore teeth to health takes a considerable amount of skill and effort. Most restoration treatments focus on tackling simple tooth problems that can be easily managed for the patient’s wellbeing in general dentistry. Still, when tackling more complex cases, general dentists can often lack the disciplines necessary to treat them. Interdisciplinary dentistry attempts to tackle these problems by combining their field of dentistry with others, working with multiple aspects of tooth care to handle challenging tooth problems.
How Does Interdisciplinary Dentistry Work?
Many dental problems can be handled in multiple ways. For example, one of the most incredible things about dentistry is the variety of approaches that can be taken to tackle the same problem. However, these approaches also depend highly on the circumstances, including the patient’s health and the dentist’s expertise. For instance, even with the most straightforward treatment options out there, sometimes it doesn’t allow for aesthetic or cost considerations for the patient. Replacing an affected tooth with an implant can affect the gum tissue areas, leading to aesthetic issues for the patient that requires additional treatments.
Multidisciplinary dentistry attempts to resolve those problems by incorporating multiple disciplines of dentistry into one practice. This allows dentists to consider the patient’s problem from many perspectives and help better personalize their treatment for better outcomes. In the case of implants, if gum tissue irritation is a risk, then other treatments from other practices can be utilized to resolve the problem more thoroughly.
So, how does multidisciplinary dentistry work? In the various scenarios that endodontists and others who have incorporated endodontics into their practice often have to ask questions about the patient’s treatment, outcomes, and long-term results, including:
- What are the goals and aspirations of the patient? More specifically, what does the patient desire for their outcome, and how can that be incorporated into treatment? This includes planning out procedures that are safe, effective, and meet their needs aesthetically.
- What’s the biological stance for their condition? This is about looking at the diseases and conditions and their pathologies to understand their cause better and narrow down the proper treatment.
- What would I do if it were me? This question is more about combining all aspects of diagnosis and treatment and determining clinical approaches based on the dentist’s judgment, preferences, and areas of the dental discipline.
Improving Dental Care With A Multidiscipline Approach
Overall, interdisciplinary approaches to dental care can provide more valuable treatment for patients and give any dentist in the field more advantages when it comes to providing care. Interdisciplinary approaches can help bridge the gap between dental success and treatment failure and can help better formulate treatment plans for patients who don’t fit the usual mold of problems. The best way to find out how treatments can be made for your teeth is by seeking out dentists with multidisciplinary backgrounds and scheduling an appointment with them to learn about how they approach dental care.