Women in Dentistry – Dentistry & Your Body – ‘One for the Girls’

entistry and Your body; focus on positioning and posturing, ergonomics for the female body. Perfect posture, ergonomics and efficiency – are they really possible? ‘Dental Pain … It’s not just limited to the patients!’ – Are you your own headache?! Dental ergonomics - prevention of work related musculoskeletal disorders and overall holistic approach to prevention of injury and illness. Is it possible? – it certainly is! Overall prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders in dental professionals may be as high as 96% … and patients think they are the only ones who will feel pain! This session will bring awareness and provide some necessary tools to feel better and maintain productivity with minimal practice related pain and considerably reduced end of day fatigue. Ensure you are practicing dentistry efficiently and effectively - review the 7 ways to perfect posture and consider other ways to make improvements to your clinical practice. One for the girls - select appropriate products and use of efficient instruments and equipment to promote a better sense of wellbeing, enhance productivity and increase overall longevity and prosperity of a dental career. Review your working techniques to ensure you are working at your maximum potential and output, with as little stress on your body as possible. Challenge yourself to perhaps work in a different way – perform team approach dentistry. How effective are your operator, dental assistant and primary clinical zone interactions? Do you have an ergonomic operatory set up? Equipment should contribute towards, not impede effective implementation of dentistry. Who’s looking after you? What are you doing to ensure that your body is able to perform at an optimal level? Do you have ‘Hygiene Hunch?’ - Review ways to optimise your musculoskeletal health and perform clinical tasks more comfortably to either extend or future proof your career health. If you’re neglecting yourself and working through pain or discomfort then you’re doing so at the expense of your health and wellbeing. We will review an ‘Occupational Hygiene’ check-up; Posture – what is your overall posture like? Do you work in IOP (ideal operating posture)? Where are you positioned? Do you adhere to the principles of motion economy? How do you sit? – are you sitting actively or passively? What does that even mean? Are you slouched right now thinking about attending this session? What is your posture like? Are you happy with what you see in the mirror? You know what they say … Posture makes perfect!

Learning outcomes

NZDA Conference 2024 - Dentist Day 1

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