Dr.Alan Paradis: At what point in your dental career, at what point in a patient’s life should they consider themselves ready to see a specialist?

Dr.David McFadden: Ok well I think many times patients come to me and tell me that they figure it out that they needed to see me because I am a specialist
So What is it about their mouth?
Well there are several things that are driven people to seek out higher level of care.
Number one I think is a great deal of experience with dental treatment, the more dental treatment you have had in your mouth, the more you are going to need a specialist to have more treatment. As we age our dental treatment ages and as dental treatment needs to be redone, its complexity greatly multiplies. The experience in training of prosthodontist is I believe required to be able to achieve the best outcome when you have already have a lot of dental treatment done.

Dr. Alan Paradis: I agree, let’s talk about the word prosthodontics or prosthetic dentistry. Maybe that’s a better way to qualify yourself as a patient for our specialty. A prosthetic is man-made. So if you think about crowns, bridges, dentures, partials, implants, anything that is made by another person that a dentist wants or need to put it into your mouth. That’s our specialty. Prosthetic dentistry.

Dr. David McFadden: That sums it up well. And I think this sums it up well too something you just said and that is You should see a prosthodontist as it’s the best thing for your mouth and it to take that little further, and when you feel that you have not a tooth problem but a problem with your mouth then you see a prosthodontist.