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with Dr Lincoln Harris
Location: Melbourne
Venue: Novotel Melbourne Central
Address: 399 Little Lonsdale Street
Dates: Friday 7th and Saturday 8th February 2020
Times: Doors open at 8:30am for Sign In. 9am Start to 5 pm Daily
Price: AUD$2500 inc GST
SOLD OUT
Should we treat patients the way we want to be treated?
It's a very seductive thought isn't it, you know this is what we would choose for our mouths so that's what we should advise our patients to do.
But is it really the right way to treatment plan?
Mostly we start out at dental school treatment planning by treating disease, we do diseased based treatment planning and then later we learn aesthetic based treatment planning. Facially generated or digital smile design, an aesthetic driven treatment plan. And there's many other ways to treat and maybe we could do functional training planning but the problem with treating our patients the way we want to be treated is that our patients are very different people.
It would be like if we went to buy a car and the man who's selling us the car has two children and so he wants to tell us that the car that we need is one that can hold two adults and two children but maybe we've got four children, or maybe we have no children, or maybe we are excited about cars and he's not.
You can see we're quite different to our patients, we're highly educated, we have high incomes and quite often teeth form a very big part of our life but the reality is for most people teeth don’t matter, that's just how it is. They're not that important to most people, the best way to treatment plan is to ask the patient about their values and their goals.
What do you want? What are your Values?
You see some people might value low maintenance, they don't want to have to see the dentist very often, so treating them for periodontal disease which needs three monthly follow-up is a bad idea for them, because they may just never do it and so our initial treatment will be wasted. Or they may have high caries rate and they really aren't interested in changing that the coke drinking and sugar eating habits, so doing 25 fillings in their teeth is just a bad idea for them. Or it may be that they're not really interested in straightening their teeth so doing aesthetic based treatment planning is a bad idea for them.
So you can see that the patient may have very different values to us, now they may want to have their teeth little whiter but don't want the maintenance of whitening, so they might not be a good candidate for whitening, they may be a better candidate with veneers, because if we do something that doesn't meet their goals and their values then our treatment plan might be a failure even though it's excellent.
What dentists are saying about this course...
We have to begin with treatment planning. No great dentistry is ever accomplished without it.
How to find the patient's goals:
Patients rarely tell us what they actually want. They tell us what they have. “My upper right tooth is broken and my lower one hurts” tells us nothing of what the patient wants. Learn efficient techniques to cut through to the patients prime motivation. Without finding a motivator, the patient just won’t go ahead with treatment.
Efficient consulting and examination:
These days, very comprehensive examination of the patient is required and very thorough documentation. Traditionally, this was so time consuming that it limited the number of new patients that could be seen. Learn how to do extremely thorough examinations very efficiently through high level training of auxiliary staff. How staff training can help you do much better notes. And how informed consent procedures can be improved with no extra time.
Photography:
Learn how to integrate photography into every single patient visit and why it’s incredibly important. Why it’s worth taking a full set of photographs for every toothache patient.
Rapid treatment planning:
Learn to treatment plan concepts before specifics. Find out why most dentists treatment plan back to front. How to keep the patients goal front and centre of the treatment plan. Balancing idealism with pragmatism. When you can compromise and when you can’t. Have the basics of your treatment plan in place before the end of the first appointment.
Consultation:
The biggest difficulty is marrying;
Talking about Money:
Learn techniques to talk about money. Discuss budgets with confidence. Scale up and down treatment plans without doing poor quality work. Learn staging techniques to break up the cost. Find ways to mix and match techniques to meet a budget.
When to present early and late:
Some patients are ready to go straight away and delay will just turn them off. Other patients will need time to process the information. How do you decide whether to go straight to final treatment plan, and when should you take time. What tactics have you got to delay treatment when necessary.
What records do you need:
What records do you need to treatment plan? What records do you need to demonstrate planning? How many radiographs?
Treatment planning practice:
Treatment planning only becomes second nature with a lot of practice. Much of the second day will be spent treatment planning cases. Initially slow detailed treatment plans will be done. Techniques to improve your speed will be studied and further exercises will be done to improve you skill and speed.
After many years of learning, teaching and observing students, Dr Lincoln Harris has developed a unique perspective on teaching and a more efficient teaching style.
Dr Lincoln Harris has been completely focused on excellence and quality from the beginning of his career as a dentist. He established the first private dental practice in Bargara - Harris Dental Boutique in 2000. Since graduation he has trained extensively in Aesthetic Implant Techniques and Full Mouth Rehabilitation to attain immense skill and knowledge.
With his vast dental knowledge Dr Harris coaches and trains dentists from all over the world on complex aesthetic dentistry, surgical techniques and business management.
Dr Harris is the founder of RIPE. Restorative Implant Practice Excellence: Full Protocol group, an international forum of over 70,000 members worldwide. The purpose of the group is to share information and excellence in the dental industry.
He has also lectured in multiple cities throughout Australia, North America, Asia, Singpore, United Kingdom and Europe.
What people are saying...
RETP- You'll want to stay to the end, not slope off after lunch. Nice to hear slightly different approaches from international audience.
I learned not not to be afraid to say expensive. Keep listening, don't just focus on patients first comment. If I get my nurse to write more during the appointment, I can go home sooner. There were loads of small tips, making small but significant changes easier to apply.
Felt terrified for 2 days that I would get asked to get up and talk. Phew phew
A must attend course for comprehensive treatment planning. I walked out with better knowledge and understanding and how I can contribute to a multidisciplinary approach in dentistry. Lincoln along with his successful cases have also demonstrated his failures and the ways to overcome them, I think it is a great opportunity one can have. Every case presented was an ah-ha moment for me. Lincoln is extensively informative, entertaining and knows very well how to present. I have really enjoyed and learned quite a lot at the course.
I learned how to discuss budget with the patient and the importance of goal orientated treatment planning. It would be very useful course if working in private practice but difficult if working mainly NHS. It is competitive for similar courses in the U.K. I could see improvement in planning cases throughout the weekend. Clearly a lot of effort was put into preparing RETP. A well-organized course that delivered what was expected.
Every minute of the course I've enjoyed. I came along a little reluctantly in the beginning. I'd been told about the course and then I thought "Uhhh, maybe it's not for me." But this course is really for every dentist, no matter at what stage of practice they're in.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and skills. I like your realistic and pragmatic approach to patient care.
The Restoring Excellence Academy is designated as an Approved PACE Program Provider by the Academy of General Dentistry. The formal continuing dental education programs of those program provider are accepted by AGD for Fellowship, mastership and membership maintenance credit. Approval does not imply acceptance by a state or provincial board of dentistry or any other applicable regulatory authority, or AGD endorsement. The current term of approval extends from 1st of September 2018 to 31st August 2020. Provider ID 386578