By W. Baxter Perkinson, Jr., DDS
It amazes me, and I lived through it one day at a time. The revolution and innovations that occurred in dentistry in my career of 45 years (and still going) are astounding.
Many things I learned in dental school, like anatomy and other basic sciences, have not seen the dramatic changes that attitudes, materials, and technologies have seen.
Dentists in the era before me were basically taught to maintain teeth until they were “bad” and then make dentures or removable false teeth. A great deal of my dental education was about extracting teeth and making false teeth. Dental floss, extensive fluoride use, and overall dental hygiene were not everyday things in the mid-twentieth century (1950-1975).
Composite resin, which replaced silver fillings, happened during the journey to the moon. Metals like titanium and bone grafts became the basis for implant dentistry today because its properties were not known earlier. I’ll only mention the computer and the internet, which even daily, change my work as a dentist.
They used to say that there was a golden age of dentistry, but then it became the platinum age, and today I believe it would have to be called the digital-titanium age.
What will the future hold for dentistry? I can only imagine!
