A restorative assessement

A wide variety of research projects may be considered to be appropriate to general dental practice.  In this respect, the volume of clinical material seen in general dental practice makes it  an ideal area for the assessment of new techniques and materials.  Central to good performance of dental materials are  their physical properties and also their ease of use, given that it could be suggested that a restorative which handles easily will be more likely to produce an optimally performing restoration than one which is technique sensitive. The assessment of the handling of a new dental material is therefore important. 

The handling of a given material by one operator is necessarily subjective, but when practitioners band together to form a group to assess the handling of new materials in dental practice, the results are likely to be more objective and generalisable.   All of this is possible when practitioner-based research groups are teamed with the expertise available in academic institutions.