CME on Dental Implants

CONCERNED over the increasing number of people becoming Health and Esthetic conscious suffering from tooth decay and requiring implants, a cooperative efforts joint collaboration between Temple University- department of periodontology and oral implantology, 3323 N. Broad St. Philadelphia, PA 19140, USA, International Congress of Oral Implantologists (ICOI) and concerned dental practitioners in the UAE and Gulf countries resulted in the formation of the first ADA approved advanced specialized training course on dental implants for the Gulf region called Implant Dentistry-Study Consortium offered by the Oral Implantology Research Institute at the Knowledge Village-Dubai (ID-SC).

The establishment of this foundation comes in the wake of findings of a study which revealed that more than 12.5 million people in the USA have no teeth and 40 million with at least quadrant of missing back teeth are in desperate need of implants but have little access to facilities or knowledge about it.

            From a data collection on 1000 patients over a 8 year period from 1997-2005 patients in a private sector in Oral Implantology Medical Centre (OIMC), Dubai-UAE they extrapolated that 42 per cent of UAE residents above 65 years of age are totally toothless and 30% per cent of people above age 30 suffer from partial tooth loss necessitating one or more implants. In another questionnaire given to the UAE public sector  (by OIMC) out of 1000 participant 50.7% preferred dental implants on any other treatment, 37.2% preferred fixed bridges and 12.1% preferred removable dentures according to Dr. Souheil Hussaini, Director of Oral Implantology Medical Center, President, Chairman of scientific committee - Continuing Dental Education Implant Dentistry - Study Consortium (ID-SC) "Increased sharing of information on dental implant technology efforts of self-improvement among dental practitioners are a must with an increasing number of people requiring it”.

            The Implant Dentistry - Study Consortium will also bridge the gap created by the absence of a systematic protocol in the private  sector to evaluate implant dentistry prognosis in the UAE, explained Dr. Hussaini.

The program is available to all doctors and technicians in all fields of dentistry.

The enormous information available on dental implants today makes it difficult to educate and provide sufficient exercise sessions for a group of dentists in a period of a week or two to be able to confidently add implant dentistry in their routine practice. The repeated three-day introductory courses provided by different companies are the example and the proof for this fact. It has been repeatedly said by most of the participants after these condensed courses that “we come out, knowing a lot of information but do not have the confidence in applying them”.  This makes the decision making more difficult between different opinions and techniques for a particular case scenario. The available data on implant success rates and its relation to the anatomy of the ridge made our ID-SC classification logical. A consistent philosophy in a logical sequence during this course starts the training with the easiest most predictable procedure in the jaws. Then takes the trainees, step-by-step, from level-1 to level-4 in one year period and then to higher levels of complicated procedures.  Each level is a three day 30- ADA CERP credit hour lectures with hands-on experience which totals to 120 for all the 4 levels. The goal of the consortium is to give the participants total confidence in performing the procedure by them selves and publish their case in an international journal for their future records.

            The first session of the ID-SC course took place in December 2000 with the participation of seven practitioners from the gulf countries which have been an on going course till now where Level-4 group graduated on Dec 25^th 2004 which was followed by a new group of residents started Level-1 on 22-28^th December 2004.  And since then these courses are continuing up until today on systematic manner. Members of the study consortium will be accredited by ADA CERP- Temple University- department of periodontology and oral implantology, 3323 N. Broad St. Philadelphia, PA 19140, USA. Professors from New Jersey Dental School and New York University, USA are flying over to Dubai to teach the course. Also Ministry of Health, Department of Health, in UAE have approved these courses and supported the program.