Dan Butterman I'm always amazed how often surgeons only look at bone when planning implants and spend little time looking at the future restoration. Carl Misch used to say that no one wants implants, they want teeth. This patient was a second opinion for an implant to replace #11, he was already scheduled for the implant in another office, but his wife is a patient and asked him to see me first. The surgeon told him this was a very straight forward implant case.
The first thing I do on every implant case, even before taking a CBCT, is scan the edentulous site, draw a margin, and get a crown proposal. If I see a problem with the proposal, the patient and I can have a conversation about how to move forward. This patient had plenty of bone for his implant, but he has some choices to make about creating room for the restoration. The point is, we can talk about it before surgery. I'm a firm believer in anything you tell the patient before treatment is an explanation, anything after is an excuse.
