Digital Radiography Austin – Dr Mark Sweeney
DR. MARK SWEENEY: I was first exposed to digital radiography in 1993. I heard about it. They were giving a course on it and there were only five dentists that showed up because nobody believed it would really work and that it was ready for primetime.
At the 10:00 break that morning, I sat down and signed the order for it while the other four dentists stood behind me and watched me fill out the paperwork. It’s been one of the most incredible things still that we have at Austin Dental Spa. I believe I was the 16th dentist in the United States to buy this technology back in 1993. If nothing else, just the fact that it requires 10% of the radiation that a normal film x-ray requires is enough in and of itself to warrant the use of this technology.
Ninety percent less radiation to the patient. The other advantages are you’re able to manipulate the image so you can enlarge it. You can change the contrast on it and you’re able to see decayed areas much more readily. We can print these copies of these x-rays and yet we still have the original on our hard drive. And so it makes it very simple to correspond with other dentist by sending the x-rays by email or to print a copy out and give it the patient if they need to take it home and show their husband/wife what it is that we discovered at the dentist office. So there’s no downside to digital radiography and if you’re having x-rays taken with films at a dental office, you need to find a new dental office.