When it comes to oral surgery – it’s about the quality, predictability and reliability of your equipment
Chris Leech, partner at Clear Dentistry, Hampshire is passionate about the provision of high quality dental care. Here he talks about the essential role that having the right equipment, the right ethos and the right training plays in delivering exactly this.
Clear Dentistry is a private practice based in the village of Bishop Waltham in Hampshire where we cover all bases of dentistry, from general dentistry to orthodontics, cosmetic dentistry and implants with a special emphasis on oral hygiene care and prevention. My personal area of interest is in oral surgery dealing with issues such as impacted wisdom teeth, bone and gum grafting as well as placing and restoring implants.
When it comes to oral surgery, as with any aspect of dentistry, having the right equipment in place is essential to delivering the right treatment outcomes and that is why I rely totally on NSK. There’s hardly any piece of surgical equipment that NSK makes that I don’t use on a regular basis.
On the surgical side I’ve been using the Surgic Pro micromotor for over six years and it’s never put a foot wrong for me. I also use the VarioSurg3 when I’m performing bone surgery which also is a wonderful piece of equipment that links to the Surgic Pro with a single foot control on the Link Stand, making it easy to move them both around the surgery as required.
Electric contra-angles v. air turbines
For restorative dentistry I always rely on the Ti-Max Z95L (1:5 increasing) contra-angle which is second to none. Being a speed increasing handpiece it runs very differently to a traditional turbine as turbines are powered by air and consequently you have less control over the speed of the bur because of the resistance course of the pressure versus the air.
What’s so good about the Ti-Max Z95L is that you can enter the speed of the handpiece into the control terminal, which in my case is built into my chair. When you apply pressure onto the handpiece, the torque is so superior it allows you to cut far more accurately with a lot more tactile feedback of what’s going on, whereas with a turbine I find there’s little tactile sensation at all. Consequently we don’t even have air turbines in the practice anymore, we exclusively use electric handpieces and why I choose to use the Ti-Max Z95L above them all.
Handpiece care and maintenance
Once you’ve invested in good quality handpieces, you need to look after them and for me the NSK iCare is an absolutely essential piece of kit in this regard. The iCare is designed to quickly and effectively remove dirt and debris from the internal workings of handpieces and deliver the precise amount of lubricant in preparation for sterilisation.
We also rely on the NSK iClave plus vacuum autoclave to care for our handpieces while maintaining the very best standards of infection control. It is reliable and cost-effective, delivering fast cycles with a large chamber volume that is ideal even for implant kits, making a considerable difference to instrument turnaround and practice efficiency.
Oral hygiene care
Just like for any practice, at Clear Dentistry oral hygiene is key. We encourage and educate our patients to improve their standards of oral care, especially if they’ve had implant or restorative work and ensure there is a maintenance programme in place. The majority of our patients routinely see our highly experienced hygienist for this treatment where the NSK Perio-Mate biofilm eraser is particularly useful for getting into tricky subgingival pockets and removing biofilm without injury to the soft tissues and root surfaces.
One of the most popular hygiene services we provide is air polishing using the NSK Prophy-Mate neo which is superb for removing stubborn stains and plaque build-up while making teeth look and feel fresh and clean. It’s effective, fast and extremely comfortable compared to alternative polishing methods and is my personal treatment of choice every time I have hygiene treatment.
Industry support
NSK products are not just fantastic quality, for me it is also about customer support. Our local NSK product specialist, Steve Barnes is always on hand when we need him, including setting up any new equipment and making sure the team are fully trained on their use.
NSK has also been a great supporter to the British Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry (BACD) where I sit on the Board of Directors, supplying equipment for our Annual Conference and other hands-on events. The BACD is extremely grateful for this support, because especially with speakers flying in from all over the world, we need equipment we can rely on every time. NSK are always there, they deliver on time and all the equipment works without fail and we would not be able to run events of this size without them.
The future is bright
I believe that dentistry is moving in the right direction year by year. The public are realising the value of good quality dental care and I think that will only continue to grow. It’s not about the speed of health care, it is about quality, predictability and reliability. And if you want that you need to have the right equipment, the right ethos and the right training in place. Using high quality equipment from leading manufacturers like NSK makes this possible so we can deliver the highest standard of care to every one of our patients.
Chris Leech BDS
Chris originally qualified from Newcastle University in 2007. He is passionate about dentistry and has studied internationally to learn the most advanced modern techniques. He believes that education is lifelong and wants to see the UK continue to raise its level of dental provision making for happier patients and practitioners alike. He is a joint partner in a private practice in Bishops Waltham, Hampshire where the team tackle all aspects of dentistry delivering a true concept of complete oral health and wellbeing.
