I want to perform full smile restorations. Can I do this with CE courses, or must I choose a prosthodontic (or other) residency?
CE courses vs prosthodontic residency
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You do not need a prosth residency to do full mouth reconstructions. There are dozens of courses and pathways you can take. However, as a generalist, it will take you many, many years to build a reputation and client base to do it exclusively. If you do attend a prosth residency, you will start getting these cases sooner, and more frequently. Being a specialist also means you're dealing with the difficult patients that GPs don't want to deal with, so keep that in mind as well. Pros and Cons.
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I'm in a prosth residency. I get what you say about patients and yes, we do get more difficult patients. BUT a large portion of my patients are the nicest, most thankful people. these patients are referred when their primary is SOL or they have been passed from provider to provider. by just offering a treatment plan, these patients are so excited someone is finally giving them a solution to their complex problem.
Prosth resident here as well. May be a slightly controversial opinion, but I think CE courses can be nice, but I would take CE courses with a grain of salt. A lot of high end CE courses like Kois and Spear are taught by Prosthodontists which can teach you how to start full mouth reconstructions, but in my opinion they really aren't comprehensive enough since they have to tailor them to the general public, especially with complications and indications (and by the time you pay for the full set of courses, its almost a residency cost anyway but for a small amount of information taught comparatively). Eventually a lot of full mouth reconstructions end up in our hands to be re-done. Most CE courses are very biased and will cherry pick literature to fit their restorative narrative.
I was a GP before entering residency and I constantly remember some cases I started that I probably shouldn't have or did not do enough for.
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Of course, I didn't mean to imply that specialists exclusively get problem patients haha
they both have their pros and cons. if you wanna treat simple cases where you dont need to adjust occlusion, CE courses might be enough. in a pros residency you'll learn how to deal with all sorts of cases and you'll likely be exposed to a multidisciplinary environment so youll have experience working on complex full mouth rehabs. I highly doubt a CE course will teach you that if thats what youre planning on doing. plus you'll also learn a lot about occlusion, the tmj, and how to manage any malocclusion. You'll also be better at identifying when your patient needs their occlusion to be adjusted.
The potential issue with a residency is that you'll also probably have to work on a lot of cases that are unrelated to the above, since prosth is a lot more than just that, and you'll also have to spend a lot of time studying the literature. Whether or not this is a problem depends entirely on what sort of cases you see yourself doing. The other thing is not all programs focus on esthetics, in fact, some programs rarely ever take esthetic cases, so you need to be selective with where you go. if youre not going to get a high volume of these cases then why spend 3 years on a residency. I hear the programs at the university of washington, nyu and rochester are good for that.
consider restorative or esthetics programs if thats the route you want to take, but keep in mind that theyre not coda approved.
The potential issue with a residency is that you'll also probably have to work on a lot of cases that are unrelated to the above, since prosth is a lot more than just that, and you'll also have to spend a lot of time studying the literature. Whether or not this is a problem depends entirely on what sort of cases you see yourself doing. The other thing is not all programs focus on esthetics, in fact, some programs rarely ever take esthetic cases, so you need to be selective with where you go. if youre not going to get a high volume of these cases then why spend 3 years on a residency. I hear the programs at the university of washington, nyu and rochester are good for that.
consider restorative or esthetics programs if thats the route you want to take, but keep in mind that theyre not coda approved.
