SDS Occlusion Blog

STOCKPORT DENTAL SEMINARS

The Complete TMD and Occlusion Teaching Programme

SDS have been running occlusion courses since 1982, bringing training to the UK that had previously only been available by travelling to the USA. Roy Higson had studied at the Pankey Institute in Florida for several years, but was frustrated that it was so difficult to translate laboratory training to treating patients in the practice. In his own words, he had become an expert in adjusting plaster teeth. Despite being called “Stockport” Dental Seminars we are now based in Saddleworth and course venues are scattered around the UK for the convenience of delegates.

Clinical Training on your own patients

It was for this reason that he invited Niles Guichet and the NGA Seminars team to teach in the UK in 1985. Uniquely, NGA courses included a clinical element run in real dental practices so that delegates could bring along their own patients for treatment. The first of these courses ran in Walsall, at Peter Mason’s practice, and they have run every year since then around the UK.

The Introduction to Occlusion

This comprises 5 Distance Learning Modules and a 2-day hands-on, lab -based course (POISE) Practical Occlusal Instrumentation, Splints and Equilibration.

POS (1st Year)

This 8-day course, 4 x 2-day clinical sessions, known as the Principles of Occlusion Seminars (POS) follows the Introduction Course. Here delegates learn to apply occlusal principles through the use of appliances, moving onto the equilibration of the natural dentition on 2 cases and the management of temporomandibular disorders on one patient. Max. 10 delegates.

IRS (2nd Year)

Next comes an intermediate course, where the principles learned in POS are transferred into more complex  restorative dentistry. The Intermediate
Restorative Seminars (IRS) comprise of 4 x 2-day clinical sessions interspersed with lectures and distance learning projects. Here two patients are treated, one an anterior case and the other a posterior case. Max 8 delegates.

ARS (3rd Year)

Finally everything comes together for the Advanced Restorative Seminars (ARS), another 4 2-day clinical session course, this time treating a complex restorative case including a change in vertical dimension. This patient would normally require a full mouth rehabilitation, or at least a full arch, all carried out under close clinical and technical supervision from the experienced SDS team of instructors. Max 8 delegates.