Putting old models to good use

From Volume 44, Issue 9, October 2017 | Page 909

Authors

Colum Durkan

Specialty Registrar in Dental Public Health, Public Health England, Seaton House, City Link, Nottingham, NG2 4LA, UK

Articles by Colum Durkan

Article

Most dentists will have a collection of old models in their surgery. Some will be study models, others old working models, duplicates or opposing models returned from the laboratory along with completed crowns or bridges. Finding a way to put these to good use can be challenging. The ideal solution is to convert them into bespoke oral hygiene guides for patients (Figure 1). This is easily achieved, by adding a coloured dot to denote the correct size of interdental brush for each interdental space. Patients then have a three-dimensional guide to refer to when undertaking their daily oral hygiene regimen; gauging or remembering the correct size of interdental brush for each space is no longer a problem.

Figure 1. Bespoke oral hygiene guide.