Dr Geoff Wan’s interest in dentistry was sparked during his experience working a summer job in North America for his uncle. “I was lucky enough to replace my family friend’s dental assistant who went overseas,” he recalls. “I got some chairside experience and realised how fascinating dentists were. It was an opportunity to work with one’s hands. Me being rather introverted and antisocial and I found that the dentists didn't have to do that much talking, and it seemed like a really noble profession.
“Little did I know that we have to learn to love to talk to our patients and that's how we end up allowing ourselves to get greater case acceptance, but that's a topic for another discussion.”
Geoff will be coming to Perth for the first time in April 2024 to present a course for WA Dental CPD. “The course that I'll be presenting is the Introduction to the Bioclear Method,” Geoff explains. “Many people have purchased the Bioclear kits from suppliers in Australia and I found great utilisation with them. There's a lot of new concepts that are going to be introduced in the course including the removal of biofilm, the Infinity Edge Tooth Restoration Interface and the actual hands-on use of the heat-injected over moulding of the composites. It's unlike any course I've ever taken in the past and I'm excited to be able to roll this out for the first time ever in WA.
“I hope that the attendees are able to at least action one or two of the concepts that are going to be introduced in the Bioclear introductory course, whether it is more regular use of air abrasion to remove biofilm or whether to use more Infinity Edge Tooth Restoration Interfaces in their preps to maximise adhesive dentistry,” he adds.
“Most importantly, it's the correct or appropriate selection and use of the various matrices. The kit includes quite a number of different shaped matrices for different clinical scenarios. With the introductory course, hopefully it can help simplify and clarify the conditions for which certain matrices are used and how to get the most out of them.”
This will be Geoff’s first visit to WA. “I've heard a lot of good things about WA; even in Dental School we had a few students from WA and all they could talk about was how great Perth was,” he says. “I really look forward to being able to experience that myself. I'm going to stay for a few more days afterwards to really be able to take a look around.”
Geoff says he is still relatively new to the lecture circuit but enjoys being able to add value in everything he does. “One of the coolest things is being able to simplify the process that is Bioclear and being able to achieve outcomes that were once thought to be much more difficult or impossible,” he says. “Examples of this would include deep margin class two restorations, where traditionally we'd either end up with an open margin because the matrix wasn't able to go deep enough or we would resort to using a Toffelmier matrix, which sometimes was able to wrap down deep enough to actually get that apical seal. The problem then was because the matrix was so tight it was impossible to form a decent enough contact that would stop getting food stuck between the restored tooth and its neighbour.
“This was a very common frustration for myself as a dentist and ever since I've been using the Bioclear Method, I found that we've been able to achieve these deep margin restorations with good apical seal and also tight thick contact it seems so basic and mundane because otherwise the only other option would have been spinning the tooth down for a crown at a much higher biologic and financial cost of the patient and now we do have this additional option to be able to predictably create better restorations.”
Geoff hopes there will be a greater uptake of the method and demand to advance dentists’ education. “Ultimately I'd love to see this method to be presented in the dental schools so that way we can advance ourselves from the old GV black prep design, which was totally appropriate for gold inlays and of albums 60 years ago and may not be the best for resin-based dentistry of today.”
To book Dr Wan's course
visit adawa.com.au/product/bioclear-method
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