To start with, get a mentor. Education is essential, and courses, congresses, degrees will all prepare you well. But outside the classroom and into your clinic, you will need someone to support you through your first steps. After all, we all need a critical friend to challenge us and support us as we gradually grow out of our comfort zone. It can be a university teacher, an experienced clinician, a specialist, or a general practitioner. A mentoring relationship is something that could follow you for all your professional life. Select the right patient. Patient selection and risk assessment remains the single most important determinant for success. Select a healthy patient with good oral hygiene and good understanding of what an implant treatment can provide. From an anatomic point of view, find a straightforward case. A single premolar, or first molar, in the mandible with good access. Look for good bone availability, proper width of keratinized tissues. Use the SAC classification from the International Team of Implantology to help you choose the right case. Look for minimal complexity. I can guarantee you, you will have enough excitement anyway. Make sure you understand how implants are restored. Remember, implant placement that is not restorative driven, is a recipe for trouble! A lot of dentists when they want to start dental implant, they start with implant surgery, because they think that this is the most difficult part. I don't think so. The most difficult part is the planning. If you skip the treatment planning part, and you jump into the surgical part and placing the implant and then try to restore that, then you start, you then will realise how difficult it is going to be. After that, gain some clinical experience in implant orthodontics first by working with an oral surgeon or a periodontist treating rather straightforward cases. Know the field you will operate. Use radiographs and cone beam CT to get a full understanding of the bone and anatomic structures and prepare a surgical stent to visualize the prosthetic position during the surgery. Ensure your patient is well informed and he has a good understanding of the procedures that will follow, risks and discomforts involved, as well as, the potential and the limitations of implant therapy. Rehearse well every procedure. Know all steps, instruments, and surgical procedures involved from incision to suturing. This will take away some of the stress and will allow you to focus and save time during your surgery. The best way is to rehearse every procedure on models in the simulation lab. Always evaluate. Debriefing is maybe the most critical part of learning. Spend some time to reflect on the procedures. Go through every step and review what you have done with your mentor. Do not focus just on the outcome. Look at every small act and try to identify what could you improve and what do you need to know in order to perform better, faster, and safer next time. Use a video footage or photos from the surgery, as these will help you see better each step and remember what to focus on. Remember, improvement is a continual journey, and self-assessment is the first essential step.
