Prior to his upcoming course at ADA House, we caught up with Dr Michael Frazis.
Dr Michael Frazis graduated from Adelaide University in 2012 and says he spent the first five years of practise honing his basic restorative skills, before focusing on complex restorative and surgical skills and undertaking implant training.
For several years, he has been taking part in hands-on courses and teaching basic restorative skills, and has been an educator and trainer for RIPEGlobal since their inception in 2020.
For Michael, being able to educate others has been an important and rewarding part of his work. “It all stems from being shy when I was a teenager,” he says. “I knew when I got into dentistry that it involves a lot of interaction with the general public, and I needed to increase my own confidence.
“I started teaching first aid to improve my confidence and ended up falling in love with the process of seeing students grow and develop their skills. It is very rewarding. A lot of people in my family are teachers or educators so it too was a natural progression for me. I started teaching dentistry with Dr Lincoln Harris back in 2016 and haven’t looked back ever since.”
Michael will be coming to Perth to present his course, Non-Implant Replacement Options for Single Missing Teeth, in July.
The course aims to add tools to the dentist’s treatment options so they can best manage their patient’s needs no matter the circumstances or complicating factors, and will discuss dentures, cantilever bridges, Maryland bridges and everything in-between. Learning outcomes include:
“The non-implant replacement options course that I created with the help of Dr Sravan Chunduru (prosthodontist) is designed to fill a gap in people’s dental education,” Michael explains. “Most courses focus on how to keep a tooth in the mouth or how to replace it with an implant. For a lot of patients this is not only impractical but also contraindicated due to cultural, budget and medical reasons.
“I will be outlining the various options available to replace a missing tooth without implants. Rotational path of insert dentures, sectional bridges, cantilever and resin bonded bridges will all be discussed along with more traditional options.”
Michael hopes the course opens attendees’ eyes to a few more treatment planning options that they can use for complex patients, as well as helping to delay the need for implants in young patients. He says it is important for dentists to have other options for missing teeth aside from implants.
“Dentists treat a whole mix of people from all ages and with a range of medical conditions,” he says. “Having only one treatment pathway for all these patients is illogical. The treatment options for a 14-year-old patient to replace congenitally missing laterals are not the same as for a 60-year-old patient missing their lower incisors with a large soft and hard tissue defect.”
Michael is developing his Non-Implant Replacement Options course into a cloud-based course so it can reach more people around the world, as he believes patients are missing out on great alternative treatment options.
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