Dental Health Check with Dr. Linda Niessen
Dental health topics from Dr. Linda Niessen of Baylor College of Dentistry
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 Practice Patients

By Dr. Linda Niessen
Monday, May 16, 2005

STORY:  PRACTICE PATIENTS

Do you get nervous just thinking about going to the dentist? Well, it should be reassuring to learn that dental students are practicing techniques to make you feel more comfortable. That's before they treat a real patient. Dr. Linda Niessen has details in today's Dental Health Check.

These dental students at Baylor College of Dentistry are NOT yet prepared to treat real patients. But in a year, they'll be ready, because they've studied with the next best thing: a mannequin that simulates the movement of a person.

According to Dr. Tom McKinney of Baylor College of Dentistry, "They are not going to develop bad habits because the patient's head can only be positioned like a real patient's. And these mannequins have head rests just like the dental chairs so we learn to adjust those for the comfort of the patient."

So from the very beginning of a dental student's training, they learn that they are caring for patients not teeth.

"With the simulator, it has everything that you have in the actual clinic. It's every single feature with hand pieces, with aspiration, water, air, everything. So it is absolutely state of the art," said dental student Todd Williams. Todd will be the fourth generation in his family to practice dentistry.

Julia Hawthorne, also a BCD dental student, said, "There's going to be a transition in learning what hurts the patient, how to react when they say it hurts, and how to manipulate their tissues so we don't hurt them."

And this state of the art teaching lab funding by the Hillcrest and Baylor Oral Health Foundations uses computer graphics.

Dr. McKinney added, "I think it will be a natural transition into the clinic because of the experience they have in this lab."
 
Dentistry today can be virtually pain free because dentists are trained to provide a high level of care that above all keeps the patient comfortable. For Baylor College of Dentistry Texas A & M Health Science Center, I'm Dr. Linda Niessen, Channel 8 News.

Dr. Linda Niessen, clinical professor in the Department of Restorative Sciences and  the Office of Communications and Development at Baylor College of Dentistry, hosts Dental Health Check, the only weekly dental feature shot on location in the nation.

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