Never judge a tooth by it’s xray

I don’t know if this has happened to you – but until 3:30 PM today my day had been – for the most part – wonderful and smooth. After a holiday weekend it is hard to return to work but you get back into the groove of work very quickly. Flux of patients in… treatment… patients out and thankfully smiling all throughout. It was, so far, a great day. Then, imagine it – the last patient of the day – an emergency walk-in. I had been efficient throughout the day, writing notes, reviewing charts – not just because I wanted to but I had to return to the bay area (a drive over 90 minutes for an evening meeting) and I needed to “make like a tree and leave.”
So after examination, appropriate xrays, and evaluation – it was decided that the lower right tooth was broken below the gumline and bone) and it was to be extracted. Consent was achieved, BP and no blood thinners or allergies, and we proceeded with the extraction.

I have done a few thousand extractions – from full mouth to root tips and I’ve only had three teeth that were truly circumferentially ANKYLOSED – meaning FUSED WITH THE BONE ALL the way around the root. And today, I had the joy of meeting another.

Xrays tell us SO much information in the dental world - it is one more diagnostic tool that helps us in our profession. But today, I was reminded again, that while xrays tell us a lot, they do NOT tell us everything...sorry Superman with your xray vision. On the film the tooth looked thin and the extraction straightforward. But as I started to try to move the tooth, it was breaking and breaking and coming out in pieces -it was SO BRITTLE!!! I was ready to put a stick of dynamite in there but that would have had other repercussions right?

Thankfully, in the end we eventually got all the tooth out – drilling it into little pieces, but I had forgotten, given all the straightforward extractions I had, to never judge a tooth by its x-ray.

image courtesy of: pmsoden.com

Free Storage Options – for your own virtual cloud

I was speaking to one of my very tech-savvy employers today and I told him about my last post regarding my last almost crisis with loss of information and how it helped me realize the need to always backup all your information, your work, pictures, documents…everything that is important to you. From previous work done before (for documentation and history) to the equally precious immediate work that consumes your more recent hours, days, and thoughts.


I told you yesterday that I was going to go out to Fry’s Electronics to buy a backup hard drive. But today I learned of a virtual cloud program called Dropbox (their website: www.dropbox.com). He saves work files to it so he can access patient files from home. He is able to have a safe place to backup patient charts, safety and documentation.

After finding out about it I did a lot of research and found this website: http://techsplurge.com/910/top-5-free-cloud-storage-options/ that discusses the TOP 5 free cloud storage options and I wanted to share this information with you!!! All of the different cloud options have the ability to expand their storage amounts for a fee – but you have to start somewhere right? Included in the article is SugarSync (which is fantastic because you can sync it through your mobile phones, ipads, everything, in addition to your computer). Also, GoogleDocs (only 1 GB free), MemoPal (3GB for free and 200 GB for $50 per year), and Amazon Cloud Drive (5 GB of free storage).

Since my employer recommended Dropbox and he is all about efficiency, technology updates, and anything paperless I decided to check it out. And I was NOT disappointed! It was SO easy to use!! With dropbox you get 2 GB for free (if you have a lot of information or pictures or PATIENT FILES you need then it is 50 GB $9.99 per month, and 100 GB for $19.99 per month). If you use it for your business you can possibly write off part of the expense for keeping your work data safe. But If you have a lot of high quality photos or videos that take up a lot of space – then maybe the external hard drives are the way to go for you – because 2 GB isn’t enough. But if you have word documents, documents for work, powerpoints – then 2GB will suffice!

So what do you do to use this?? All you have to do is go to the website, download the program to your computer and install it. Once you have it, you can put any files you want just like a computer folder, and you can access them FROM ANY COMPUTER that you have installed the Dropbox program to! You can share files, you can share pictures in the “public file” folder with anyone YOU want making file-sharing quicker than you say file share!!!

So take a look at these free storage options for your data (and I’m sure there are a LOT more available). But the more information that you have at your fingertips and the easier access to your information – the better!!! With any of the free storage options – “the cloud” is useful, efficient, easy-as-pie to use, AND a smart bargain – for your info AND your peace of mind!

Would love to hear what you use for your storage backups!

Image courtesy of: cloudcomputingsys-con. com