Social Media in Dentistry

On average, people spend 151 minutes per day on social media. We can finish a whole crown prep appointment in significantly less time than that! Whether you are a big fan of social media or not, you have to accept the fact that it has become a huge part of our world and should become at least a small part of your practice. But how do you get started? First, you must answer these important questions.

How many times in dental school were you told that if you had to pay for marketing then you weren’t running a successful practice? All we need to do is recycle our overdue patients, treat our current patients well and internal marketing will bring the numbers in, right? Wrong! We are in the era of social media. You can be the most incredible dentist, but because someone saw a dentist they liked better on their Instagram they’ll pick them over you, all skills aside. Whether you go big or small, social media needs to become a part of your practice. Here are my top tips on how to be successful in doing that.

Midway through my career, I was totally burnt out from dentistry. I was always nervous and afraid of getting sued all the time. I was swept up in the false belief that dentistry was just a stressful high-performance job and there was nothing I could do to change this. It was just the profession that I chose, and I would have to deal with my anxieties and regret by waiting until my kids were out of college. Maybe by then I would have paid off my loans and have enough money saved so I could retire and then do something else.

As I have been using OMNICHROMA Flow more routinely in daily dentistry, my confidence in its capabilities has increased. I am continually striving to do the least invasive dentistry I possibly can and having a direct composite material that is versatile across the broad spectrum of procedures is exceedingly helpful. In this blog article, I will share why and how I use OMNICHROMA, OMNICHROMA Flow, and BLOCKER Flow in posterior restorative cases.

Written By: Dr. Kevin Brown, Bellevue, WA, & Michelle Chan

Written By: Dr. Kevin Brown, Bellevue, WA, & Michelle Chan

When OMNICHROMA first came out and I started using it, I was blown away at how well it worked. Direct composite restorations in the smile zone are what I love to do, and I have always followed the principles of polychromatic layering to achieve ultimate esthetic results. So, it was difficult for me to believe that I could achieve ultimate esthetic results with a single shade composite system. Nevertheless, as I began to practice using OMNICHROMA and the supplemental Blocker in different applications, I quickly learned I could get equal and even sometimes better results than the polychromatic layering method. As time went by, I started asking my contacts at Tokuyama Dental America if and when they were going to come out with a flowable version of OMNICHROMA. To my delight it has finally come to pass, and I wanted to share a few case examples of how I have been using OMNICHROMA FLOW in my daily practice

For this case, I’d like to show how well OMNICHROMA FLOW works on posterior restorations. The patient had small interproximal caries and I did very conservative slot preps [figure 1 and figure 2].

The case shows a common issue with many patients, which is gingival erosion on the anterior teeth which can affect their smile confidence [figure 1, figure 2].

Written by: Abir Bou Khouzam, Michelle Chan

A 56-year-old female patient complained of a chipped upper right central incisor. Tooth #8 had a chip on the incisal edge and was very sharp. The patient also didn’t like the looks of the chipped tooth. The patient was informed that when the front teeth wear down, the remaining enamel is thin, brittle, and unsupported. That way if the restoration chips again, the patient won’t be too surprised. This also helps to encourage the patient to not chew hard food, bite fingernails, or other deleterious habits that may cause the restoration to fail. The material selected for this procedure was OMNICHROMA FLOW and complementary OMNICHROMA BLOCKER FLOW (Tokuyama Dental). This material will take on the shade of the surrounding enamel and works extremely well for small restorations, such as this clinical case.