Magnification? If you don't use it you're missing out.

A while ago I did some clinical demonstrating and was amazed that none of the students used magnification. When I asked them about it they told me they all had loupes (it was a requirement of enrollment) but they had got into the habit of not using them.

The same applies to many dentists.

I'm someone who uses loupes for everything, even extractions and polishing teeth. Here are three reasons why I think it's essential and that you too should wear loupes.

1. Your quality will improve.
   I still remember the shock I got when I started wearing loupes. Work that I previously thought was fantastic suddenly looked rough and poorly finished. Loupes definitely improved my dentistry.

2. You will work faster.
   With greater ability to see comes greater precision and confidence. For example, with loupes you can see the difference between decayed dentine and stained dentine so you don't have to keep picking up a probe or using caries detector to check.

3. Patients love the fact you wear loupes.
   They equate the fact you wear loupes with greater precision and higher quality. They rightly believe that you are delivering better work and care more about the results.

Is there a learning curve? Yes, a couple of weeks.

Do they take time to put on? Yes, 10 seconds.

Should you wear them for every procedure on every patient? Absolutely!