New and Improved

Copyright 2003 Robert E. Horseman, DDS

In the beginning, there was red compound. It was widely used by dentists of the day, not because of its uncanny ability to raise enormous blisters on skin and mucosa, nor its tendency to become a permanent fixture on any article of clothing it contacted, but because there wasn’t anything else.

In a small laboratory on the outskirts of Peoria, Ill., amateur chemist and part-time tarot card reader Farley Krautzmeyer accidentally calcined some gypsum and ended up with slightly hydrated calcium sulfate. He called it “plaster of Peoria” in honor of his mother, Margie, and tried to flog it as a cure for hemorrhagic fever. It was not until he was persuaded to change the name to a classier sounding “plaster of Paris” did it find a ready outlet to the dental profession, strengthening the widely held belief that you could sell dentists anything.

Scores of old-time dentists who are now deceased or seriously deranged were brought up on red compound and plaster of Paris before they graduated to alginates, hydrocolloids and polyvinylsiloxanes. They have always had to take a lot on faith. When dentists were told that alginates were made out of seaweed, nobody questioned the patent absurdity of that any more than they doubted that polyvinylsiloxane was a real word.

Modern technology has far exceeded the ability of the average practitioner to grasp the scope and limitations of the materials he is offered. The profession is at the mercy of people who have nothing to do with dentistry except to exploit the gullibility of its members.

Dentists make this exploitation easy because basic to the soul of every one of them is the belief that there has always got to be a better way of doing things -- a superior material, a slicker machine or instrument, or, when you get right down to it, a better way of making a living.

So when a company tells us it has a better product than the one we are currently using, we can’t dump the old issue fast enough.

The brand loyalty that manufacturers are so anxious to build isn’t any more substantial than a patient’s vow to floss daily. Some manufacturers understand this fickleness very well and play up to it by releasing a “new” product every few weeks that either supplements or displaces last month’s offering.

Where they go wrong is offering the new product with a 30-day free trial period or promising to cheerfully refund the purchase price if you mail back the unused portion to them. If they would check more carefully, they would find that sort of generosity unnecessary.

Every dentist has shelves of stuff that he will never get around to returning. By the time he finds the original invoice, tries to imagine what he did with the box the stuff came in, and then contemplates dealing with UPS or FedEx or, worse yet, standing in line at the post office, the incentive to get his money back has evaporated.

The rate at which new materials are offered leaves him little time to reflect on his inability to understand the ones he already has. So the dentist tucks the material away, promising himself to use it some time in the future that, of course, never comes.

The point is that we should all be more cognizant vis-à-vis the way we are being manipulated. Once we understand that, we can have more discretionary income and more cupboard space for the denture adhesives that come every month.

We picture the process something like this:

The executives of Big Dental Manufacturing Co. are sitting around the boardroom table brainstorming ideas for increasing their pensions and perhaps choosing a venue for the company picnic.

Chairman: Any ideas? Anybody?

Chemist: As you know, we haven’t introduced a new product for two weeks. Our new thrixotopic, hydrophobic ENAMELASTIC cross-linked monomer with the controlled durometer for easy mouth removal is doing well on the market, but showing early signs of faltering toward the end of the month.

Advertising: He’s right. Company espionage reports that SUPERIOR SILICONES is introducing its biocompatible, nontoxic, self-limiting bite relaxer this week. It could be a tough week product-wise.

Chemist: What if we shift the benzene ring counter-clockwise two points, add a microminum of Yellow #2 to ENAMELASTIC, and push it as a state-of-the-art breakthrough in cosmetic bonding?

Chairman: Not bad, Charlie. It could fly, but will it have legs? What do you say, Art?

Advertising: Well, it worked in April, but Lorelei here has a better scam, I think.

Marketing: I say we go to three eight-hour shifts, change the packaging to predominately periwinkle blue and product color to a contrasting cerise. If Charlie can give us a viscosity change of 0.2 either up or down, we can market it as the most advanced, reinforced -- ah, what is this stuff anyway?

Chairman: It doesn’t matter. If we can beat SUPERIOR’s deadline by 24 hours, we can get hot on the introduction of our light-cured prophy paste.

And that, friends, is how you come to have packages of 50 variations on a theme on your shelves. Maybe with a little bit of luck, we’ll come full circle and only have to choose between red or black compound again. Of course, it will come in 10 different kinds of packages.