Don't knock the CE route before you try it. Implantology will continue to emerge as a huge part of dentistry in the future. The manufacturers of various implant systems are continuing to perfect their design with respect to proper smooth collar length, taper, and surface roughness to the point where the success rate in a healthy individual is essentially 100% with success rates of about 90% running in "poor candidate" patients (i.e. Type 4 bone, uncontrolled diabetics, smokers, etc, etc, etc)
True, a great way to learn hands on implantology can be achieved in certain GPR's/AEGD's or even better in the growing number of Implantology fellowships/residencies. There are also a great number of GOOD, hands-on courses (I'm talking 2 to 3 day weekend/weekends courses and courses such as NYU's mini implantology residency.)
The thing that you need to ask yourself, is do you want to place as well as restore implants, or just restore them???
If you want to restore them only and let your local oral surgeon/periodontist place them, then essentially all the hands-on knowledge you need to know is being taught to you in your crown and bridge courses. (In all honesty all that is involved in taking a implant final impression is unscrewing the healing cap {if you can use a screw driver you can do this}, snapping an impression coping over the implant, taking a standard crown and bridge final impression, and then back to your screw driver to tighten the abutment onto the implant body, and making a standard temporary. we're talking not even 15 minutes of chair time
If your going to place them also, then it's a bit more involved. If no grafting of the implant site is needed, then it's just raising a small flap, leveling the height of the alveolar ridge if needed, and then preparing the osteotomy site with the series of sequetional bone drills, inserting the implant, and suturing the site closed. I had one placed in my #29 region (congenitally missing/failed Maryland Bridge after 12 years), and I was in the chair a total of 25 minutes from local anesthesia injection to walking out the door. It's that quick and easy in a standard site. Some other patients require much more involved bone grafting and/or sinus lift procedures. While more challenging than just restoring the implant, it is easily doable by a G.P. with proper training.
Personally my partner and I just restore our patient's implants. Here's why. First off, lower liability, if an implant is going to fail, it's most commonly due to a surgical issue, not ours. Two, between the 2 of us, we restore between 75 and 100 implants per year, wich would mean we would place that many. The surgeon we use places over 600 implants per year
You can't argue with extra experience. This scenario of the G.P. just restoring implants and not placing them probably describer between 75 and 80% of all G.P.'s practicing implant dentistry
On an asside, this past week, one of the bigs names in Implant dentistry, Dr Dennis Tarnow, a dually boarded periodontist/ prosthodontist, and chairman of the department of Implantology out of NYU, spoke in my State dentals association C.E. lecture series. He had a few great radiographic pieces of evidence of implants being much more resistant to perio disease than natural teeth
Think about it this way, you can now give your patient's a restoration that is truely decay and perio resistant. Now thats great stuff
