human teeth

[anonymouse1]

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can anyone clarify if we still need to have extracted human teeth for dental school? And if we do need them, do they have to be from different positions. Thanks!

 

[Vicviper]

As far as I know, most, if not all schools still require you to collect teeth - it's actually much easier than you'd expect. And yes, you want to try to get a variety of teeth - often, if you go to an oral surgeon, you'll get primarily molars, but you also want to try to get quality anterior teeth as well.

Also, it's important to collect as many teeth as possible, because in all likeliness, at least half of the teeth you get, you won't be able to use for a variety of reasons.

 

[Vapor1122]

There were 3-4 occasions where we used them at NYU. I only had to collect once since I had plenty left over from the first time we used them.

 

[Flipper405]

I needed to get some this year for endo; however, they emailed us months in advance about it.

I just searched Google for the nearest oral surgeons - dropped off jars with diluted bleach at 5 different offices and picked them up about 6 weeks later. This gets you a ton, but lets you really pick out some quality teeth.

 

[GeauxVu]

Most of the schools that still require collection of extracted teeth use them for both dental anatomy and endodontics. It's easy to use typodont teeth for operative and prosth courses, but you really can't simulate endo with plastic teeth. A word of advice if you happen to collect quite a few and you do use extracted teeth prior to preclinical endo labs (whether for operative or anatomy or whatever), try to save good teeth for Endo (i.e. teeth with fairly straight, complete roots and in-tact crowns). It's just miles easier to get through Endo lab with the "ideal" teeth (granted it's tough to say something's ideal until you get a radiograph).

 

[Flipper405]

Most of the schools that still require collection of extracted teeth use them for both dental anatomy and endodontics. It's easy to use typodont teeth for operative and prosth courses, but you really can't simulate endo with plastic teeth. A word of advice if you happen to collect quite a few and you do use extracted teeth prior to preclinical endo labs (whether for operative or anatomy or whatever), try to save good teeth for Endo (i.e. teeth with fairly straight, complete roots and in-tact crowns). It's just miles easier to get through Endo lab with the "ideal" teeth (granted it's tough to say something's ideal until you get a radiograph).

agreed, i had all good teeth but one of my classmates gave me a tooth to use that had a couple of composite restorations around the neck of the crown. One wrong move, and it fractured into two pieces. Do yourself a favor and get as many teeth as you can so you can pick the best ones out... i ended up with about 20 good ones out of probably several hundred teeth.

 

[BenDentalMatrix]

agreed, i had all good teeth but one of my classmates gave me a tooth to use that had a couple of composite restorations around the neck of the crown. One wrong move, and it fractured into two pieces. Do yourself a favor and get as many teeth as you can so you can pick the best ones out... i ended up with about 20 good ones out of probably several hundred teeth.

Wow, how do you pick out the best ones, just by eyeballing it?

 

[Flipper405]

Wow, how do you pick out the best ones, just by eyeballing it?

straight roots, closed apices, no restorations/caries, and no calculus is always nice too

it may be less obvious to spot composites, but amalgam = trash can (can't autoclave)


...so yeah, pretty much eyeballing it. we x-rayed them when we first started endo to check them out with the resident TAs

 

[USCbiograd]

A great place to get teeth is a "denture mill", these guys pull teeth all day. Every time I go to one I get at least a jar full of teeth. Granted alot are in poor condition but some are in great shape.