pandatigox

Hello! I am a practising dentist in Australia. I've been reading the comments and thought I'd add my own 2 cents in.

First, I think the reason for such variance in dentists' treatment planning is because of an increased clinical scope. I assume that the medical field is more hierarchal, so you increase your scope as you go along. For dentists, as soon as you graduate, you have an enormous scope as it's really dependent on your training and confidence in that procedure (obviously, overconfidence is akin to malpractice).

Why do some dentists overtreat? I think dentists fall into the bias of "if you have a hammer everything is a nail". Each dentist will have a preference for a specific treatment, but it's important at the end of the day for the treatment to align with the patient's objective. For example, a simple tooth replacement has so much options - dental implant, a 2-unit or 3-unit bridge, a Maryland/resin bonded bridge, a denture, or just do nothing! Each one has their pros and cons, and there is a risk where what the dentist thinks is ideal is not what the patient wants.

In terms of overdiagnosing cavities, I think it may arise from the dentists' training. Maybe in the past, any signs of decay indicated surgical drilling. However, modern training reinforces MID - minimally invasive dentistry - so we are taught to avoid drilling any decay that is confined to enamel.

Finally, I think dentists avoid throwing each other under the bus simply due to empathy. Working in a mouth is not easy, and each procedure comes with challenges. You're fighting against visibility - keeping the mouth open wide enough to see what you're doing; batting away saliva; constantly wiping your mirror from the handpiece water. Then you've got the gaggers, the anaesthetic doesn't work, etc etc. We will never know what someone else was going through in the moment of the procedure.

I think I would say a better variant would be "the importance of being still"

Sounds interesting, can you share some useful prompts for learning?

Sorry, on a side note, I've been noticing the artwork for each blog post. It looks very aesthetic - is this AI generated? or actual artwork? I don't seem to find a source...

Looks interesting! I'm curious what kind of editor you used.

I've been thinking of creating a text editor with AI support and have been thinking of implementing something like CRDT for the backend? So that user edits are not overwritten by AI

Are there any chances of open sourcing your project? Thanks!

Building a patient management software backed by AI clinical note taking. Built for dentists. I've been developing it whenever I don't have to be in the chair.

Hi, I loved your story! I also checked out the app, but it's giving me an error:

An error occurred in the Server Components render. The specific message is omitted in production builds to avoid leaking sensitive details. A digest property is included on this error instance which may provide additional details about the nature of the error.

Out of curiosity, what difficulties have you faced with Elixir LiveView? I am developing in it right now, and am enjoying managing state and interactivity in one codebase (I like how everything is channeled through the socket).

Has your experience been more negative?

Ok thank you!

Fillings are definitely a staple of the procedures a dentist would perform. The article does mention overtreatment, so really depends on your child's caries risk. As mentioned in another comment, healthy dose of skepticism is always required. I usually try to show signs of decay either intraorally or detected on radiographs.

I think that applies to any industry! Like nothing is stopping a car mechanic from overcharging you. But dental treatments need to be clinically justifiable, so I'm sure any well-meaning dentist will happily explain their reasoning for any treatment.

Patients regularly push back on some treatments I've recommended, and I've always enjoyed the discussion. If a dentist is offended, then something is not right

Current final year dental student pitching in here. While dentists of the past may push for unnecessary annual radiographs, the curriculum in dental school has changed to favour evidence-based dentistry. Annual bitewings are only indicated if you're a high caries risk, and, as the article mentions, 2-3 years if you're low caries risk. So your younger/newer dentist will be following much better protocols (and hopefully not scamming you)!

Thank you for the link! And congratulations on obtaining your PhD

I have skimmed through it and it's truly amazing how good annotation of the dataset can lead to impressive results.

I apologise in advance if the question seems ignorant: The blog post talked about fine-tuning models online. Given that BERT models can run comfortably on even iPhone hardware, were you able to finetune your models locally or did you have to do it online too? If so, are there any products that you recommend?