Introductory Lecture Removable Prosthodontics "DENT 343"

Dr.Esam Alem started his lecture by giving us a brief summary about prosthodentics course , the following notes can help you to stay tuned during the course : The Removable Prosthodontics course of this semester is considered one of a long series of seven prosthodontics courses that we will take in the upcoming years.

Removable Prosthodontics " 1 " will discuss mainly complete dentures which are used for patients who lost all their teeth, or for a child with no teeth at all.

Removable Prosthodontics " 2" discusses partial dentures which are used in the case of loosing less than 14 teeth in an individual jaw.

It's important to take a good care of the basic information that we will take during this semester specially in "Conservative and prosthodontics " courses ; since in the 4th and the 5th years we will have a comprehensive exams that will contain questions about the basic information that we will go throw this semester. Dr Esam advices us not to memorize information for the sake of this semester exams ;instead we should build up our basic information from here .

Prosthodontics is divided into two branches: 1- Removable Prosthodontics : that the course will discuss primarily. 2- Fixed Prosthodontics : which we will take some preclinical courses in the summer semester of the 4th year about them ,that will discuss replacement of one or two teeth using a fixed bridge.

Removable prosthesis: generally is replacement for something that is missing in the body .Where dental prosthesis is a replacement for something that is missing in " the oral cavity " ,e.g; if a full set of teeth are missing we will use complete dentures which are considered a prosthesis.

In complete denture we replace 28 teeth rather than 32 (No wisdom teeth); 14 teeth in the upper arch and 14 in the lower arch. The patient will need 5 visits in order to get his complete denture ready , so it will take time before the final results comes out. Therefore; we will spend a lot of time during this semester in the lectures and in the labs before seeing the final result of our work. In this course we will talk about :

The anatomy of the edentulous patient . The impression procedures . The relationship between the upper and the lower jaw .

How to place the teeth ,and how they suppose to meet each other when the patient chews . How to make the prosthesis and how to give it to the patient .

- - - So you will see the final results in the 13th or in the 14th week of the semester; therefore you have to be patient ! The midterm exam is composed of a practical and a theoretical parts, as well as the final exam .

The midterm exam will be in the 8th or in the 9th week of the semester; probably on Saturday .

The practical exam either it will be done by giving you an assignment that you must do in a limited period of time, or it can be a spot examination ( like the one that we took in dental anatomy labs ),or an online spot exam where you have a photograph and a question that you have to answer.

The theoretical final exam will be held in the first or the second week of January, but the practical final exam is going to be a week before it .

The division of marks : 1- The semester work is 40 % of the grade ,and the final is 60 %.

This 40 % will be divided like this : 15 % for the practical work that you will do in the lab ,similar to teeth carving ,but this time you will make a complete denture in the labs.
-

15 % for the theoretical midterm exam. 10 % for the practical midterm exam .

*** There will be pop quizzes in the lab .

There will be other doctors in the course :

Dr Sara Jaser,Dr Anas al Ibraheem ,Dr Saleh al Shannaq in addition to other lecturer guests.

the dental technicians will help us during the labs . *** The doctor advices us to treat the lab technicians right cause they are not lower than a dentist ,they just chose another specialty .

*** Then he said : "Dont under estimate people in front of you during life " . Dont assume that if you are in a medical specialty that you are better than anybody else .

Complete dentures are made in 5 steps : 1-Initial impression

2- A final (secondary impression ). 3- A jaw relationship record ( the bite ).

4- Try the waxy denture in the patient's mouth . 5- Give the denture to the patient .

In the lab ; sometimes we will do some works as a dentist but other times you will do a dental technicians' work ,so it's important to know the different .

* The most common question is : Why I should do a laboratory work while I am a dentist ? Well ;if you dont know how the laboratory steps are done you will not be able to communicate in a right way with the lab technicians, so if something goes wrong you will not be able to troubleshoot it. You must be able to do the work as well as the lab technician but not as fast as him . You are not expected to make a denture in the lab but you are expected to know how it is done .You should never feel that learning lab procedures is a waste of time .

Attendance is compulsory it is allowed to 10 % abscesses with no excuse ,which means 2 lectures and 2 labs, the Dr will take attendance and after 10 minutes of the lecture he will close the doors !!

The doctor's office is located in the floor under (10H3 and 10H4 ) computers lab .

His e-mail is :esamalem@yahoo.com

Good Luck

Done By : Enas Salameh