Sergiu, you are working now as an endodontist, however – as i remember well – you planned to choose another: proffession. is it right? Why to be an endodontist?
Indeed, I have a background for engeneering – I finished a famous high – school in my hometown in Pitesti in 1994 that was preparing young teenagers as me to go for engeneering or computer sciences. Although I I have tried to become a pilot as I was very young and naiv, somehow providence arranged something different for me – dental school of Carol Davila Bucharest/ Romania.
Why to be an endodontist? Whay not an oral surgeon for ex? Home made loops, 3d printed devices, hacked endomotors, combined shaping etc.- I name you as an „endopolihistor”. Would you be so kind to tell us about your invetions?
Since I developed a lot of skills regarding electronics and I was passionate for gadgets and tehnical stuff in high school , endodontics fitted my needs perfectly. I was dealing with a lot of high tech gear – microscopes, lightsources, adapters, optics, and I wanted to refine them all at one point. Even now I still use a LED light source developed by me and a friend of mine that suits exaclty my needs – regarding the colour temperature and the colour rendering index – allowing me to take as realistic as possible pics and movies of my work, Since our speciality deals with a lot of equipment I just felt the need of modifiying them or making them more accessible to other coleagues. For example nowadays there is a huge industry focused on separated instrument removal systems – lassos and loops. Thinking wisely there is no need for an expensive equipment , thats why I developed some alternative techniques and tools for this purpose – like my famous loop made out of a plain syringe body. As I gained more xperience in my work I just realised that every aspect of our endodontic work can be improved . My future plans are onto making a cheap and affordable documentation port that
would be available for every microscope in the market, with 3d printed parts and maybe even a free 3d library available for endodontists around the world that coul print and build their own equipment .
It’s not going to be your first visit in Hungary, please tell us about your experience.
Indeed I Visited Hungary many times, and I have to confess – I Love Budapest. I felt in love with this marvelous city 20 years ago when I first visited it. Now that your lovely city holds this amazing yearly event – there is a huge opportunity for everybody to combine knowledge with pleasure of discovering one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
What is you hobby, how do you relax after working?
Well, I love engineering , thats for sure – so in my spare time I build autonomous machines – robots or drones that are capable of doing different tasks, I often go fishing and I love to travel and to discover new places. I have visited 54 countries so far and I plan to visit the rest of them until the age of 60 🙂
Do you have a mentor?
This is such a hard question – if I look back at my mentors – I can define a mentor everey person that helped me during my life to achieve knowledge . If you ask me about my mentors in my profession – for sure probably my favourite is my friend and ex office colleague Dr. Roberto Cristescu that now runs a successful practice in Asterdam Nedherlands – his passion for endodontics was a real catalyst for me. I first had a contact with a dental microscope in his office back in 2006 in Bucharest, and since then I felt completely in love with endodontics and microscope enhanced dentistry .
What would you suggest for students, planning to be an endodontist?
First of all I have to point them out that they are so lucky – the tehnology that we have today is so advanced and affordable compared with what we had 10 -15 years ago that their life will be more easy compared to ours back then. Second of all I have to draw them attention to look with criticism at any “ new” and innovative device presented as a great tool for improving the success / success rate , since now the companies can afford huge publicity budgets but very often there is no solid medical evidence behind their statements.
Do you think that digital technology and AI once could replace human cooperation while root canal treatments?
If we take a look at how technology develops we see that a lot of manned work now is replaced by AI and robotic work. Fortunately in the medical field AI will never replaced the human brain, the best scenario possible would be new devices that will help human decisions and actions to perform better and more accurate. Robotic medicine si a new field – and for example there is a famous robotic surgery add on called DA VINCI that allows a human surgeon to operate safer and more precise – but not to replace him. And in dentistry we will soon have systems like that – let’s take a look at Navident for example – that aids the operator to perform more precise and minim invasive procedures like inserting implants or finding canals.
Why do you combine rotary and reciprocating unstruments?
To answer this question we have to take a look at the literature – and there is clear evidence that reciprocation makes endodontic files more resistant to fracture – some studies shown a up to 4 times increase in resistance. But I still use rotation – and I combine the movements , for instance rotation pushes less debries over the apex – thus minimizing the postoperative pain. Reciprocating old file systems that are now a lot cheaper on the market gives them new powers, and in this way we can lower the overall cost of the instruments we use, in this way , the patient will benefit too.
What is your startegy for file removal?
There is such a big fuss nowadays about file removal techniques, but in fact I teach my students file removal techniques with other purpose – the same techniques allows us to reveal and bypass apical ledges. That means an intentional straightening a canal to visualise deeper, and past the curvature, exactly as revealing a broken instrument in the apical portion of the root in order to prepare it for retrieval.
What is your vision about the future of endodontics?
Honestly I have a blurred vison – the future of endodontics should be new materials that would alllow us to inprove the clinical outcome – the ultimate thing that really matter for the patient. But if we take a look at the last 50 years of endodontic development – we standardised the files, we started to use microscopes , there are superior metal alloys that decrease the file separation a lot, a whole new generation of biologic materials available on the market and yet – the outcome didn;t improved at all in the last 50 years . But at least we
decreased the chair time a lot for the patient – making him more comfortable and making and endodontic procedure faster, safer, and ultimately less expensive for the patient. So I think that the future of endodontics will be focused on speed and safety and easy teachable
techniques for young doctors.
Thank you very much for giving me the chance to express my opinions and see you soon my friend.