The risk issue

From Volume 44, Issue 10, November 2017 | Page 917

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It seems like every time we get out of bed there is a risk issue. Recently, I saw a female patient who was walking her dog along a road, minding her own business, when a lorry carrying a length of pipe came around the corner of the road: the pipe had been propped up on the top of the cab of the lorry but, on turning the corner, it swung to the left, hitting the woman in the face and causing severe injuries to her face and to her mouth and teeth, the latter actually being the lesser of her life-changing injuries. I also recently saw a longstanding patient, whose tooth wear had been treated ten years ago, when I bonded resin composite restorations to his worn and wearing dentition in a minimally invasive way à la Dahl. He, unfortunately, slipped getting out of the shower and smashed many of the 15 restorations that I had placed. I am now in the process of replacing these, but reflect that, if I had crowned the worn and wearing teeth, the fall-back position would have been much less favourable and, rather than the resin composite restorations fracturing or de-bonding, crowns would have been sheared off, leaving an altogether much more difficult restorative position. By the way, I now get out of the shower much more carefully these days!

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