Ruddle with the Residents: Loma Linda University & Long Beach VA

I am really pleased to share with you a little glimpse of a day I had recently.  The day I’m speaking of was a day where we had the post-graduate residents from Loma Linda University and the Long Beach VA come to Santa Barbara and spend the day with me in my private office.  Advanced Endodontics, my educational company, likes to do this and we offer, on an ongoing basis, training for the nation’s post-graduate students. 

Well, on that particular day, the students were very fired up and, of course, they were given directions by my dear friends Drs. Mahmoud Torabinejad and Steve Davis to really hit me hard and try to learn as much as they possibly could in the one day we had together.  I have great admiration and respect for Mahmoud and Steve, and it was really great that particular day that Steve could actually accompany his residents when he was with us.

Well, that day was geared towards all things Shape, Clean and Pack.  Rather than give a canned lecture, the students like to go in multiple different directions and they have many, many questions that are not really conducive to a lecture flow.  So, I have them write down two things that they want to learn, that if they could learn those things they could go home with more confidence.  So, we wrote down all the things that about ten of them wanted to learn and then we spent all day going through those things.  You can imagine what we went through.  Diagnostics, access cavities, glide path management, working length, patency, apical diameter, what’s the appropriate deep shape, all things disinfection, and of course, many questions on three-dimensional filling of root canal systems. 

At the end of that day, we were all very happy.  We all had a great time and the kids left with complete confidence that they could go back to their respective schools and better approach their everyday endodontics. 

Like those students that are committed to learn, I want to compel all of you to keep learning because remember G.V. Black’s famous quote, (to paraphrase) “No doctor has any right other than to be a professional student for life”.