To teach or not to teach: making the transition from dental practice to dental faculty.

The authors, with more than forty years of combined private practice experience, discuss professional satisfaction in the private practice setting. A change to an academic career may provide job satisfaction and revitalize a dental career, while simultaneously satisfying the need for faculty in our dental schools.

Amalgam and composite posterior restorations: curriculum versus practice in operative dentistry at a US dental school.

This study recorded the number of preclinical lecture and simulation laboratory sessions spent teaching the preparation and placement of amalgam and resin composite posterior restorations. These data were compared to the use of both materials in the operative clinic as placed by third- and fourth-year students. The number of posterior restorations inserted by the students, expressed as a function of the number of restoration surfaces, was also evaluated. The results show that the teaching of posterior restorations pre-clinically has consistently favored amalgam 2.5 to 1 during the last three years. However, clinically, resin composite is being used for posterior restorations 2.3 times more often than amalgam. The only instance that favored amalgam over composite during the last year was in the placement of four surface posterior restorations. This shift in emphasis from amalgam to composite needs to be addressed within dental educational institutions so that newly graduated dentists are prepared to place composite restorations properly.