Tag: technology

Are We Adapting Technology to Treatment, or Treatment to Technology?

~ Shadi Samawi ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes technology is a better way to do the wrong thing. Be careful!

Dr. Bill Arnett | FABKnoweldge

With the recent growth and explosion of important technologies in 3D printing and scanning, we are also seeing a concomitant quantitative “explosion” of cases – mostly shared through social media – that are being treated through adapting these technologies to the manufacturing of customized appliances. This is an excellent and most welcome advancement for sure, yet it does seem – at least to me and a number of like-minded colleagues – that we are going through a period of initial hyper-excitement over the capabilities we have at hand at the moment, and that many seem to be using them practically on every patient they treat, simply because they can! The above quote from Dr. Bill Arnett is a real philosophical eye opener. Although he is an avid user of new technologies in the field of Orthodontics, he is very much aware of the potential pitfalls.

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Diagnostics-Driven Orthodontics: The Real Driver for Progress

~ Shadi Samawi ~ 9 Comments

There is nothing so useless as doing, efficiently, that which should not be done at all.

Peter Drucker

The concept that mere technological innovation in a certain field can drive rapid progress within that field is not a new concept; and this has certainly been accepted as “the norm” in this era of rapid – or shall I say rabid – pace of technological innovation in both the medical and dental field in general, and Orthodontics in particular.

That’s all well and good, and is much appreciated and needed, of course. However, it seems that – despite all the advances in dental technology over the past decade or so – many practitioners seem to be suffering from what we can only term: Diagnostic Paralysis. This lack of diagnostic skills in this era of rapid technological advancement is alarming!

Let’s have a closer look at this in this blog post.

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Enlightenment In Orthodontics : Entropy, Evolution & Information

~ Shadi Samawi ~ 5 Comments

WARNING: This Blog Post Will Make You THINK!

We start the new year with a mind-provoking, philosophical Guest Blog post by Prof. Dr Anmol Kalha, Professor Emeritus, Distinguished Professor and Advisor / CIDS, Associate Director & Advisor / Max Health Care, and Chief Architect and Cofounder of Smart Health.ai. He is also widely known among his contemporaries as The Orthodontic Philosopher. 

“Dare to understand : one age cannot conclude a pact that would prevent succeeding ages from extending their insights, increasing their knowledge and purging their errors.” ~ Immanuel Kant

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The Rise of the “Misguided” Online Consultation: Patient Expectations vs. Reality

~ Shadi Samawi ~ 1 Comment

“Blindness and Error can change a life as surely as Judgement and Reason can.”  ~ M. Morris

As social media and the internet in general take hold of almost every aspect of our lives, with their apparent ease of access and speed of response, we tend to infer that we can really do EVERYTHING in the virtual world. This notion has clearly spread throughout all fields of industry, marketing and certainly impacting the field of health services in general. In this blog post I’d like to discuss the downsides of people’s misguided perceptions that online medical/dental consultations are a viable and reliable form of enquiry into their health issues.

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Truth… or Dare?

~ Shadi Samawi ~ 1 Comment

“If Truth is Your Enemy, Then You Have a Major Marketing Problem!”

~ Prof. William Proffit

Interesting news this week, where dentistrytoday.com reported that OrthoAccel Technologies – the company manufacturing and marketing Acceledent; its product that the company “claims” speeds up orthodontic tooth movement by up to %50 – has been found to be pushing out “misleading marketing” to the public, as ruled by The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the United Kingdom, after reviewing available evidence.

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There’s Something About MDP (Mobile Dental Photography)!..

~ Shadi Samawi ~ 3 Comments

“Every photograph is a battle of form versus content.” ~ Garry Winogrand

As many of you probably know, Mobile Dental Photography (MDP) has been gaining track in recent years as smartphone technology advances in terms of sensor quality, resolution, and lens sophistication, leading to much improved image quality over the last few years. MDP has also caught on mainly due to smartphones being relatively smaller and lighter than a Digital SLR camera and so many clinicians prefer the “lighthearted” nature of it.

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To Master or Not to Master?.. That is the Dilemma!

~ Shadi Samawi ~ 4 Comments

In this post, I would like to share my brief opinion regarding what I view as the dilemma of choice between true mastery versus the trend of relentless adoption of new technologies in Orthodontics and Dentistry in general.

“Plowing through complexities without first mastering the basics is a trap even the most intelligent can fall into. “

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