Experience, not just in dentistry, but the experience in doing the type of procedures that you are considering. You see, a dentist that’s practising for, say, 20 years but may only have been doing more demanding procedures for the last five years.

If you’re considering veneers, a smile makeover, a full mouth rehabilitation, or even an implant, All-on-4, you want to know that the dentist before you has been doing these for more than five years. If they’ve got 20 years of dental experience, that is.

The 20 years of experience is meaningless if they’ve only been doing these types of procedures recently. So, make sure you do your research and understand that the dentist that you are going to, the practitioner who’s going to be giving you advice, actually has tenure in doing these types of procedures.

By transparency, I mean that they are able to articulate the issues that they can see with how you present, and also how they plan to deal with potential complications that may arise in your case. So, ask them what their protocol is for complications. Essentially, if they have an understanding of the potential issues that may arise in your procedure of interest, then they will know how to fix it.

Then you know that that person has had the experience with the type of treatment that you want.

You also want to know that you are going to be supported during the process. Again, we are dealing with the human body, it’s not a machine. So there is always small issues that may arise. If your practitioner understands the inherent nature of the procedure that you are doing, you’ll know that there’ll need to be some slight adjustments and considerations in the treatment. You need to know that that person is willing to accommodate and support you and educate you through that adjustment period.

Finally, you want to have a look at a sample of their body of work and understand their workflow.

If you think that your case is slightly complicated, or even if it’s not, ask the questions. “Have you done a procedure similar to mine? Do you have examples where you can show me that you’ve treated a case the way that you are suggesting or proposing that my case should be treated?”

You see, any established and respectable cosmetic dentist will have a strict protocol of documenting their work as part of their checks and balances for every stage of their cosmetic enhancement. It is my practice for my team to take photos of everything that we do at every critical stage of treatment.