In the professional world of communication, it’s said that language creates reality. In dentistry, this operation is easier and more evident than ever. To understand how things stand, just think of the first three concepts the word evokes immediately after being uttered. If I say “Barilla,” the first things that come to mind are: pasta, Italy, lunch. If I say “McDonald’s”: hamburgers, fries, family, etc. Now let’s try it in our area and see what happens.
If I say “DENTIST”: pain, drill, pliers, needle, lots of money! For older people, like me, that typical clove smell that used to stink up waiting rooms with eugenol would arrive first.
“DENTIST” is better; it’s the same thing, but the sound is more recent and distant from the popular scene, where the previously mentioned associations, at least, are slow to appear.
The situation is dramatic for “DENTAL TECHNICIAN.”
The first popular reaction is “dental mechanic.” It’s hard to imagine two worse associations, adding to the aforementioned nightmares: wrenches, hammers, parrots, and screwdrivers. The second reaction is “illegal,” perhaps even with two Bs, and here some idiot, the media, and politicians have had a hand in it, and I’ll stop here otherwise I’ll be left with 30 years of battles where I risked too much for what the system truly deserved. The third is “savings,” and it’s directly linked to the second, but so be it! The fourth is “scapegoat.” Obviously, if something goes wrong with the prosthetics, whose fault will it be? For my part, the term “dental technician” should be changed by carefully considering a new name that instinctively evokes something different.
I also abhor, imitating Mughini, the expression used by many dentists in front of patients or even at conferences that goes something like this: “MY TECHNICIAN!” As soon as this sound reaches the average citizen’s ears, a man in a blue overalls, with a wrench, appears before their eyes, looking for the heating boiler. All wrong! “TECHNICIAN,” indeed, but above all “MY”: those with a VAT number belong to themselves and not to others, especially when they have no collaboration contract and can change it for five euros regardless. This way of speaking immediately evokes subservience. When not even their first and last name are mentioned, rudeness and disrespect reign! The first sign of a polite and elegant person is when they respect the most humble of jobs, such as those of a waiter at a restaurant table. In the case of a dental technician with a capital “O,” it’s a higher art, therefore even worse.
I also abhor the term “MANUFACTURER” completely; in my opinion, it’s appropriate for turning operations, such as milling centers, but certainly not for those who work with the tip of a brush. I therefore hope that young people will also fight over terms and clearly distinguish, with the right words, those who “produce” from those who “CREATE.”
Language generates reality, and by doing so, perhaps even certain legislative changes could be facilitated.
The “mechanical dentist,” on the other hand, “slips” my ears when he tries to explain the shape of the teeth he will propose to the patient, both aesthetically and functionally. Let’s make it more square, more triangular, more egg-shaped, longer, wider, plumper, yellower, with a more pot-bellied shape, etc. And then screws, torque wrenches, abutments, all-on-fours, latero-laterality, latero-protrusions—they seem like a celebration of complicating to subdue, of explaining so as not to make anyone understand, of boasting about values that often aren’t there; the comedian Cevoli in his imitation of the mayor of Romagna would be more clear. I’ve always been interested in transforming teeth into symbols and simple numbers controlled by commas, to speak to people with a language we all learned in third grade. This is why AFG (anatomical functional geometry) isn’t just another modeling technique that’s outdated, but a system of the future that allows patients to understand what a human tooth is and what it actually does: through, points, lines, and triangles. A play of symbols similar to children’s playthings, far removed from the imaginative convolutions of secondary ridges that are so popular on social media with their associated likes, where the right side is then swapped with the left! Numerical abstraction, though it may seem complicated in words, is in fact what we’ve used since the Greeks to see things in an organized way with a geometric eye. This is what we’re taught in elementary school. The heart of form, even in digital form, is triangulation, and with triangles AFG explains the entire tooth and its function, especially when the teeth are separated, which is systematically forgotten. This true function is linked to the sides of the triangles and decides how we chew and where the food goes. With a scanner and a monitor, the patient can easily see and understand the difference between a “plug – filling” and a “global rebirth” of the tooth, through the restoration of the geometric shapes within the tooth itself.
Miscommunication in the dental field also involves the term “PROSTHESIS,” which evokes “artificial hardware in the mouth.” Patients don’t go to the dentist for dentures, but to have their TEETH restored. Therefore, knowing how to talk about teeth and avoiding the term “prosthesis” should be a cult. Let’s look at how a sommelier helps you taste wine before you even taste it, or how a perfume expert praises fragrances: they certainly don’t explain the technical and mechanical aspects behind it, but rather emphasize the final experience, the benefit, or the emotion. This is why AFG is so important; if they made wine, they would make Barolo or Amarone, and they would let you taste it before you drink it, not just after.
For AFG, who understands the concepts of visual perception, such as Marcolli’s Arnheim Gestalt, a rectangular incisor has emotional connections that derive from geometry itself, and it is described with words that evoke that shape. These words relate to how a person will feel and appear, “wearing” that tooth, like a play of lines that interface with those of the face and personality, because there is also a psychology of form. Without these common foundations of composition, no architect, no stylist, etc., could furnish a space, even a face and a mouth.
In the dental field, basic training on these fundamental aspects is completely lacking, and everything is left to the simple acceptance of many patients, rather than to taste: “It can’t be any better,” they hear. Often, even celebrities are victims of these lack of knowledge, as I noted in a previous article in this magazine. The right words create reality. Doing well alone is no longer enough!
INFOMEDIX ITALIAN DENTISTRY 4 2025
