Where are you from? Born and raised in California. I have lived in Utah for the past 13 years. How long have you worked at Ultradent? Two years. Where did you take the photo that appears in Ultradent’s November calendar and on our Facebook cover photo? I took the photo with my family on a vacation to Zion National Park at the top of the mountain, just through a narrow tunnel at the top during a light snow storm

The holidays are always special. What better way to kick them off than with an attitude of gratitude? Here are a few things that some of us here at Ultradent are grateful for:

Dr. Sean Lee, the owner of Newtown Smile Dentistry in Newtown, Connecticut, believes in doing things right the first time. It’s this philosophy that guides how he treats his patients, performs the many dental procedures in his everyday work, and how he chooses products.

Children and their sippy cups and toddlers with their bottles are a well-known recipe for disaster when it comes to tooth decay, but with the rise in popularity of adult sports like road biking, mountain biking, and long-distance running, the risk once only assigned to toddlers has increased for adults. The culprit? Sports drinks and energy bars. Thus, —fluoride varnish and dental sealants—once considered preventive treatments for kids, have become just as important for many adults, and the impetus for these extra measures of care lies with the dental hygienist.

“If we make our vision the conservation of tooth structure, but we never mention prevention or oral hygiene, we are hypocrites.” – Dr. Dan Fischer Here at Ultradent, proper dental hygiene plays a key role in achieving our vision to improve oral health globally through minimally invasive dentistry. Without proper dental hygiene procedures and skilled hygienists to administer them, Ultradent’s vision and goal would, as Dr. Fischer says, not only be hypocritical…but in the end, futile.

When you use something every day, it’s important that you love it, and even more important that you trust it. That’s how Dr. Shea Bess of Autumn Ridge Dental in South Jordan, Utah, feels about Ultradent’s UltraSeal XT® plus sealant .

This photo appears in our calendar for September and as our Facebook cover photo. Where was it taken? That’s in Jericho, Utah at a place called Little Sahara. Jericho, Utah Tell me the story behind this image. Jericho is about an hour or 45 minutes southwest from Eureka, Utah. One day I just drove down there with my dog to shoot some desert shots because I really love photography, and I snapped this photo. I love the negative space in this photo and the composition of it, and that’s why I submitted it. Were you born and raised here in Utah? Oh yes. What do you like about living in Utah? Well, I love the outdoors. I get outside every day and walk or bike or exercise. It’s just so nice here.

Why should a clinician use the Triodent® V3 Sectional Matrix System for Class II restorations instead of using one of the other systems out there? The reason I recommend the Triodent V3 Sectional Matrix System the very most is because it is so simple and quick. With the unique reverse s-curve cross-sectional shape to the matrix band, it provides the appropriate contour as it approaches the contact area. The band helps facilitate not only the correct anatomical shapes relative to anterior and posterior aspects but also buccal to lingual just above the contact point. In the formation of the marginal ridge, it helps to shape the proximal aspect of that marginal ridge.

Utah is world-renowned for its breathtaking beauty, and that includes the pristine streets of Salt Lake City. But venture into certain parts of town and it’s clear that every rose has its thorn, and for Salt Lake, that thorn has been finding the best way to assist the homeless. It’s been a growing conundrum in certain parts of town for a number of years, angering citizens and sending politicians scrambling for solutions. However, amidst the despair, chaos, and hopelessness, there’s a place that stands as a beacon of help; a place that offers the promise of a better future to the hundreds of people living on the streets. That place is the Fourth Street Clinic.

When Dr. Patrick Yoshikane of Orange, California, graduated in 1989 from the Loyola University School of Dentistry in Chicago, all he knew was the tofflemire system. “As general dentists, we’re trained to use a tofflemire [band] for amalgams or proximal surface restorations,” Dr. Yoshikane says. However, Dr. Yoshikane found that again and again, in many different situations, the tofflemire system just wasn’t cutting it. The best he could do, he says, was “hope our contacts are good,” and “wedge it harder to spread the contact.” But unfortunately, too many times his contacts “were too flat and always open.”