by Michael DiTolla, DDS, FAGD
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I put a lot of emphasis on being painless. To me, it really is job No. 1.
Quality dentistry can be performed painfully or painlessly. Most patients have a difficult time distinguishing great dentistry from average dentistry. Patients wouldn't know how to check quality if we gave them an X-ray, an explorer, and a piece of articulating paper. But when it comes to evaluating pain, they are the only ones qualified to do it.
I also have noticed that when I speak to patients, some talk about a past dentist as though that person were the greatest. As I probe deeper into what they loved about the dentist, it relates to the same thing: this dentist was able to do something without it being painful. I have learned that patients never say their dentist is the best because there is a 25-micron margin on all their restorations.
For me, once we have painlessly anesthetized a patient, it becomes a concerted effort to do quality dentistry in the shortest amount of time possible. It is not quite a race, but it is close. We perform similar procedures repetitively throughout our careers. In addition to getting better over time, we should also get faster at these procedures. It's all about hand-eye coordination.
I also noticed that I took the painless administration of local anesthesia for granted. The more we work with needles, the more we tend to forget how stressful this part of the procedure can be for a patient. After having a medical procedure done a few years ago, I decided to refocus on being painless in my dentistry.