Abstract

A recipe is like a strategy. It’s the how you will do the thing you’re doing, or in the case of cooking, it’s how you will make the thing you’re making. It has directions and a clearly defined input and output. It also has an anticipated outcome that can easily be measured – both qualitatively and quantitatively.

The recipe to be successful and lead to a tasty dish, beyond the basic ingredients that needs to be mixed together it also needs a positive mindset, a worthy goal and an inspired action. By choosing the right recipe to start with and then following it carefully, we can greatly increase the chances of making a tasty dish.

Does this description remind you of something? Endodontic treatment can easily be compared to preparing a recipe. It clearly has a strategy, it has stages that must be performed in the correct order, and of course it also has a specific goal with a result, which is the elimination of the patient's symptoms and the preservation of the tooth in the mouth.

So, what makes a great dish? What elevates the ordinary and turns it into wonderful and delicious?

It's choosing the right recipe and using the right ingredients. Likewise in the case of endodontic treatment, the correct diagnosis and planning of an adequate treatment plan is the starting point of a successful treatment. Through the appropriate diagnostic information, a clinician can improve the success rates of the treatment by choosing the right "ingredients", the appropriate preparation technique, thorough chemical-mechanical cleaning of the root system and, of course, a proper filling of the canals.

Creativity and skill are obviously important factors. You can take two chefs, give them the same ingredients, tell them to cook the same dish, and one will always be better than the other.

The dentist's skill in performing the procedure is clearly critical. Experience and training are essential 'ingredients' to achieve a successful result. Aristotle said that "knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom."

So, just like in the preparation of a meal, in endodontic treatment we must read the case correctly, establish an accurate diagnosis and then use the right "ingredients" that will lead us to a "delicious" result, a successful endodontic outcome.

By neglecting an ingredient or a step, our "meal" will come out unsalted, tasteless, a failure the least.

In this webinar, using cooking, which I love, as an analogy, we will talk and refer to the basic "ingredients" that are important for the outcome of a successful endodontic treatment, to which we usually do not give the importance they deserve, but without them we cannot talk about endodontic treatment success. The diagnosis, the clinical examination, the selection of the case, the patient's expectations, the knowledge and skill of the dentist, and final restoration are some of the "ingredients" that we will analyze. We will also refer to small tips and tricks that will give us that ‘’something extra’’ to the success of our recipe.