Going back to the basics of dentistry

Heather Duncan, DVM, DAVDC, founder and CEO of Crown Veterinary Dental Specialists in Charlotte, North Carolina, talks about her lecture “Basics of Dentistry and Extractions: What You May Have Missed in Vet School,” which she presented at the Fetch dvm360 Conference in Charlotte, and is now available on Fetch On-Demand for CE credit.

Below is a partial transcript:

Heather Duncan, DVM, DAVDC: I am Dr Heather Duncan, I am a board-certified veterinary dentist. I am originally from North Carolina. I went to [North Carolina State University] for undergrad and then Purdue University for vet school. I was in private practice for a couple years after vet school and then I decided that I wanted to do a dental residency. So, I did my residency at the Animal Dental Center in Baltimore, Maryland, and then I moved back to North Carolina, where I've been working with veterinary dentistry for years now, and just opened a veterinary dental specialty group called Crown Veterinary Dental Specialists in Charlotte, North Carolina. I co-own that with another boarded dentist, Dr Kristin Scott, [DVM, DAVDC].

We are really proud of our lecture “Basics of Dentistry and Extractions: What You May Have Missed in Vet School” because there is a big gap between what we learn in vet school and then what we are doing in private practice. A lot of us didn't get a lot of dentistry in vet school. I was lucky enough that we had a veterinary dentist at Purdue, and I was able to spend a few weeks in dentistry. But so many others aren't that lucky. And then when we get out into practice, dental disease is one of the main diseases we see with our patients.

So, this presentation and lecture is going to walk us through the basics, the basics of anatomy of the teeth, of how many teeth a pet should have [and] when do we decide to extract the teeth. And then how do we start planning for that extraction.