Dental Tribune U.S. Edition No.6, 2017

ENDO TRIBUNE The World’s Endodontic Newspaper · U.S. Edition JUNE 2017 — Vol. 12, No. 2 www.dental-tribune.com Looking back on AAE17 Annual session in New Orleans gives endodontists plenty to celebrate By Fred Michmershuizen, Managing Editor The 2017 annual session of the Ameri- can Association of Endodontists — AAE17 — offered the perfect opportunity for attendees to partake in educational of- ferings, to learn about the latest techno- logical advances and to have some fun. The lecture halls offered a wide range of possibilities, and there were lots of prod- ucts and new technology available from exhibiting companies. The meeting, held April 26 to 29 at the Er- nest N. Morial Convention Center, gave en- dodontists a chance to talk shop, to make new friends and reconnect with school col- leagues, and to recharge batteries. During the President’s Breakfast, AAE President Dr. Linda G. Levin summed it up well when she reminded her fellow specialists of their important work by saying, “Saving teeth is what we do — and we do it well.” In what will certainly be considered a highlight of AAE17, two live endodon- tic microsurgeries — one mandibular, one maxillary — were performed by Dr. Syngcuk Kim as hundreds of attendees watched in 3-D. The General Session featured local resi- dents James Carville and Mary Matalin, who regaled attendees in a no-holds- barred back and forth on today’s charged political climate. At left: Dr. Frederic Barnett, center, receives the Edward M. Osetek Educator Award from Dr. Linda G. Levin and Dr. Gerald N. Glickman during the Edgar D. Coolidge Jazz Brunch, where a number of other leading endodon- tists were also honored. Photo/Provided by AAE Below: During a lecture on the exhibit hall ﬂoor sponsored by Sonendo, meeting attendees listen to a presentation by Dr. Thomas McClammy on using GentleWave Technology to minimize treatment failure. Photo/Provided by Sonendo AAE17 attendees march behind a brass band during ‘Celebrate New Orleans!’ — an event that brought participants to Generations Hall, where there was plenty of food and drink plus entertainment provided by Rebirth Brass Band and Savoy. Photo/Provided by AAE The story of Munce Discovery Burs By C. John Munce, DDS, FICD From the time I completed my residen- cy in 1988, and even into the early 2000s, no long/stiff/narrow-shafted troughing bur existed. To meet this ongoing need for a troughing bur, in 2003 I began mod- ifying the shafts of existing latch-type, slow-speed round carbide burs by neck- ing them down at chairside as needed for a speciﬁc clinical case (Figs. 1, 2). long/stiff/narrow-shafted round trough- ing burs were made at chairside using both high- and slow-speed handpieces operating simultaneously to “hand-mill” the shaft to a 1 mm diameter, and I suggested that col- leagues should do the same. To ensure interested colleagues would be able to see and test these ﬂedgling troughing burs, and then make the burs themselves as demonstrated, I had 1,000 of them manufactured and handed to at- tendees as they exited the hall. At the pre-session meeting of the 2005 AAE Annual Session in Dallas, I demon- strated in clinical videos how these unique To that point, it had never been my intent to venture into the bur design and manu- facturing arena, but during the next year I was told by colleagues who had been at the Dallas AAE that they still had that sample bur, and sometimes they would pull it from a pocket to prove it. They explained how they jealously guarded the bur from clini- cal staff members for fear that it could be misplaced, leaving them seriously handi- capped. They begged me to manufacture these burs for them, as they confessed they were never going to make them at chairside as I had demonstrated. I already had a small clinical products company, CJM Engineering, and so in early 2006, after trying to literally “give” the troughing bur idea to several bur manu- facturing companies without success — in one instance, the new-products committee of a large dental bur company concluded there was simply no market for such a bur — I decided to begin manufacturing and distributing these burs myself through CJM Engineering (Fig. 3), still the manufac- turer and exclusive worldwide distributor of Munce Discovery Burs today. Here’s a timeline of the introduction of signiﬁcant features of the Munce Discov- ery Bur line since its inception. Each of the modiﬁcations was born of my own experi- ” See MUNCE, page D2

Dental Tribune U.S. Edition No.6, 2017

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