[asdff]

This is why I like going to dental schools faculty or student practices. They are all about saving the teeth if it can be saved and will need to see sufficient evidence in the imaging before moving forward with just about anything. Things seem to take longer and involve more appointments (e.g. i have to schedule a separate appointment with dept of radiology vs the private practice dentist walking me to the next room with the xray), but it seems like every decision involves multiple dental professors looking at my imagery or feeling up my teeth or gums before anything is done, which definitely boosts my confidence. I like having a committee and hearing them discuss the evidence in this war room setting when I'm laying there on the chair mouth open

[argonaut]

I've looked into this myself and one negative is that students still have some pressure to overtreat because students have graduation requirements (e.g. must do a certain number of fillings, crowns, etc.). Granted, having to run everything by a supervisor will eliminate the egregious cases.

[asdff]

They can't overtreat due to the nature of it with literally all work needing a professor looking at the mouth or the work in progress and validating. If anything they need too much evidence to go forward and will want to see things like a CT to validate something in a traditional xray. When they want to do a certain amount of required things, they screen the local community for cavities and turn up plenty, including mine when I went and they were sure to point out the cavity to me on the imagery and go over my options and relative risks. Most of the times they are overburdened with demand of patients since this is about the only place where low income people can afford dental care so I expect they see plenty of examples to study. Oddly though my student told me he hoards extracted teeth to study and practice with.

[argonaut]

There are a lot of decisions in dentistry that are subjective. There are a ton of borderline cases of cavities where you ask 5 dentists what they think, and 2 say to treat and 3 say to wait and see. This is what I'm talking about where dental schools will probably lean towards treating.