Periodontology
Tissue Flap Surgery at Dr. Mangelson’s Office.
Hayley and I had a good experience at Dr. Mangelson’s office. The staff was extremely friendly and welcoming. While we waited for the doctor to prepare for his surgery, one of the hygienists, Karen, let us into her operatory to observe her scaling a patient’s teeth. She showed us a couple of instruments she loves and gave us some tips on working in private practice. She told us about how she and some other hygienists get together in a “study group” for continuing education. An interesting thing she told us is that Dr. Stanley Malamed was one of her professors at USC so she invited him to Utah to speak to several dentists in the area in two weeks.
The actual surgery was very interesting. Dr. Mangelson was nice enough to show us the patient’s chart and point out the areas of concern. He also explained what the surgery would entail. Essentially, the patient had gingival hyperplasia in her upper right quadrant, so she had pseudopocketing. His plan was to perform a flap surgery and root planing as well as to recontour the gingiva- essentially a gingivectomy. He also planned to extract tooth #5. The patient had recently had tooth #13 extracted because of bone loss and a poor prognosis for that tooth, and she needed to have #5 extracted due to lack of space and planned orthodontic treatment- she still had her 3rd molars.
The patient was nervous from the start; she was afraid of the local anesthesia injection, and although the assistant tried to pass the syringe to the doctor away from the patient’s line of sight, the patient saw it and her eyes bulged. However, she was cooperative and stayed fairly still. Dr. Mangelson used a large scalpal to cut the gingiva away from the teeth using the sulcus as a guide. He made flaps on the buccal and lingual sides. He cut out the areas of excess tissue just distal to tooth #1. During the procedure, he convinced the patient to let him use that excess tissue to do a
Hayley and I had a good experience at Dr. Mangelson’s office. The staff was extremely friendly and welcoming. While we waited for the doctor to prepare for his surgery, one of the hygienists, Karen, let us into her operatory to observe her scaling a patient’s teeth. She showed us a couple of instruments she loves and gave us some tips on working in private practice. She told us about how she and some other hygienists get together in a “study group” for continuing education. An interesting thing she told us is that Dr. Stanley Malamed was one of her professors at USC so she invited him to Utah to speak to several dentists in the area in two weeks.
The actual surgery was very interesting. Dr. Mangelson was nice enough to show us the patient’s chart and point out the areas of concern. He also explained what the surgery would entail. Essentially, the patient had gingival hyperplasia in her upper right quadrant, so she had pseudopocketing. His plan was to perform a flap surgery and root planing as well as to recontour the gingiva- essentially a gingivectomy. He also planned to extract tooth #5. The patient had recently had tooth #13 extracted because of bone loss and a poor prognosis for that tooth, and she needed to have #5 extracted due to lack of space and planned orthodontic treatment- she still had her 3rd molars.
The patient was nervous from the start; she was afraid of the local anesthesia injection, and although the assistant tried to pass the syringe to the doctor away from the patient’s line of sight, the patient saw it and her eyes bulged. However, she was cooperative and stayed fairly still. Dr. Mangelson used a large scalpal to cut the gingiva away from the teeth using the sulcus as a guide. He made flaps on the buccal and lingual sides. He cut out the areas of excess tissue just distal to tooth #1. During the procedure, he convinced the patient to let him use that excess tissue to do a