the doctor prescribed was an a1.5 and the technician came down to me and said what's a
1.5 i said it's a made-up shade and she said oh so what should i do i said well call the doctor back
and tell him you think the shade should be a g7 and she said what's a g7 i said
it's another made up shade we're gonna fight fire with fire two can play at this game and
that's the frustration that dennis have with the vena classic system
welcome to shade selection shade selection is one of those things that i find to be
possibly one of the most nebulous things that we do in dentistry frankly the shade selection
system most of us are using and certainly the one we were taught in dental school
has some real limitations and the company who makes this shade guide is the first one to kind
of mention these limitations and in a sense they're kind of a victim of their own success
because it has become the default color language that we speak in dentistry and nobody wants to
learn a second language especially americans you know we just want to speak our one language
whether it's english or whether it's the veda classic shade systems these are all anterior
shade returns because that's where the majority of shade returns that we see here at the laboratory
are i'm going to show you towards the end of this module probably the best thing
you can do to ensure that not only will the shade of your crowns match but the technician working
on that crown will spend more time and put more effort into it than they would for another dentist
and you're not going to have to pay a penny more so it's a good little pro tip for how to get
your dental technician whoever it might be more engaged with working on your crown
let's take a look in black and white at these two shade guides next to each other so again on
the left is just straight out of the box uh how it appears but on the right is the way that vita
recommends putting them in terms of value and you can see as if you get over to the one two
three four fifth shade over there that a2 the value is higher than the d2 next to it it looks
like a clunker and if you go over a couple more you can see another one where the value's off too
and that's why i love the linear guide so this is the vita linear guide this i want
to make a very strong suggestion that this be the next shade guide that you purchase
this is an rx that a technician here at the lab brought to me and she said what what's this you
know you can see that the the doctor has uh prescribed uh it was an emax crown and the
shade the doctor prescribed was an a 1.5 and the technician came down to me and said what's a 1.5 i
said it's a made-up shade and she said oh so what should i do i said well call the doctor back and
tell him you think the shade should be a g7 and she said what's a g7 i said it's another made up
shade we're going to fight fire with fire two can play at this game and that's the frustration that
dentists have with the vena classic system they've resorted to making up their own shades you know
yeah there's 16 on there but that's not enough they're going to have to choose something else
so let me ask you a question before i advance to the next slide and that is
just answer to yourself or answer out loud if you're with a group
what is the most common shade that we see in the lab what's the most i'd say the most
popular shade but i guess it's popular as well but it's also common what shade do you think that is
if you guessed um a2 you are correct that's a pretty easy one although the reason why it is
the most popular is going to kind of surprise you well maybe it won't from what we've said already
but it's separated on an island by itself there's really not that many other good shades kind of
around it and so a2 becomes this big bucket where lots of teeth that are in the a2 vicinity fall
but that's not true when you see the 3d master shades we have names for all those shades around
there in the 3d master shades look at number two it's a3 look at the third most popular shade a1
no look at the fourth most popular shade b1 what's b1 doing there that's not a real tooth
color thanks california thanks new york i'm going to blame those two states for this this
is a bleaching shade that's the fourth most popular shade so if you remember we've got
a2 a3 a1 b1 a3.5 and we're going to have them we'll put the numbers down here at the bottom
we're going to have them rearrange their shade guide in the order of and that that last study was
based on 4 million crowns that came through the lab so it wasn't just 10 crowns you're reordering
your shade guide in terms of popularity or the most common shades from left to right
now i just mentioned you should always be taking when you're doing anterior cases taking a picture
of the shade tab in place next to the tooth that you're trying to match and dennis for a long
time have had an excuse saying well we don't have a camera and i don't want to go buy one
an expensive dslr with a 100 millimeter macro lens just to kind of take these shade pictures
well that excuse is gone it's officially over thanks to this italian company
called smile line who now makes something where you can take shade pictures with your iphone and
i know that you or somebody else in your office has an iphone and can take shape pictures with
it there's a smile light as part of the system as well now that you can use this with an iphone to
take these kind of pictures there's just no excuse anymore now you just have to admit you're too lazy
to do it or you don't care enough to do it to send a photograph to the technician of what they're
trying to match and if you really want to make the technician loyal to you and work hard for you
send them a picture of the restoration once it's placed in the mount
do you realize most dental technicians spend their whole life working on yellowstone models
and have never been in a dental office to watch dentistry actually be done and very few have ever
seen their restorations go to place in the mouth so here's what i want you to do here's
your homework your commitment your commitment to me is you're going to stop cold sterilizing
your shade taps you're going to throw away all the ones that have been in the cold sterile
and so you're going to get a new shade guide and you're going to get the linear guide
with the 3d master shades and you're going to find out how much easier it is to take
shades when they're accurately represented all throughout that space equally spaced from the top
to the bottom and left to right and it just makes sense there's a shade in there for every natural
tooth that you're going to see and if you get the value right you're 85 percent of the way there and
you're going to figure out a way to start using your iphone to be able to send shade tests for
all anterior restorations to your laboratory and you're also going to commit to start sending them
pictures of their work in the mouth afterwards you will become their favorite doctor and i guarantee
they work harder and longer for you on your cases because they know you care and you've closed that
circle and you've truly made them part of the team now by letting them see the results of their work
are you enjoying this instructional video i hope so if you'd like to receive additional
clinical instruction with agd and ada approved ce credits all at no charge be sure to visit
glidewelldental.com forward slash education where in addition to over 60 on-demand clinical courses
you can also access our weekly webinars along with other valuable content least popular shade d4 all
the way down there we call this a 100 year shade and like a 100 year flood this is a shade that
only happens once every 100 years so if one of your grandparents was a dentist and they didn't
use d4 and when your parents was a dentist and they didn't use it and you're a dentist
you can use it once every 100 years so go ahead and feel free to use d4 once
it'll be a remake but go ahead and feel free to use it i don't even know why it's on there