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Do Not Assume anything……it makes an ‘Ass’ of ‘U’ and ‘Me’
Here are a couple of dental situations where my assumptions have landed me in various temperatures of hot water!
Years ago I was fitting 2 upper central incisor porcelain veneers. I thought about the treatment, had everything ready, laid out all the materials myself and reviewed the cementing process with my nurse. All going well, first veneer fitted, looking good. Next veneer, not fitting AT ALL. Why not? I assumed that the nurse was passing the right one first and then the left one. Yes, I really did that and had to cut it off and make a new one. Worse than that was admitting to the patient that I had really done it. So, I now (try) never to assume that the nurse knows what I am going to do and in what order!
More recently, as a practice, we have changed from using cement-retained implant crowns to screw-retained. I had completed a few and, on this particular case, with a nurse who was unfamiliar with the treatment, I could not fit the crown in at the try-in appointment. I went back to the model, it was fine. The nurse then told me she had trouble getting it off the model to sterilize it when she arrived. I looked at the screw, was it damaged? I asked the nurse to get me another one from the implant components box. Nope. I asked my implant team colleague for assistance. Wrong screwdriver! So simple and yet….even with loupes magnification I failed to see that. I had assumed that the lab had sent me the same as all the previous straightforward cases…. but no….five cases with a hex headed screw and now one with an angle-change headed screw, even though it was not indicated for this case. Just to keep me on my toes!
