Dermal Fillers for Dental Professionals 2021

This book presents a clinical experience–based
framework for the incorporation of dermal fillers
for facial rejuvenation procedures into a general
dental practice or dental specialty practice. These procedures
are a natural progression in the evolution of cosmetic
dentistry. The dentist’s and dental specialist’s existing skill
set of esthetic assessment, administration of local anesthesia,
and making patients comfortable in the office setting
make this type of treatment fairly easy to incorporate into
the practice routine.
Today, providing dermal filler and/or cosmetic neurotoxin
injections is permitted by an overwhelming majority
of the state dental licensing boards in the United States and
abroad. What’s more, the American Dental Association
and state associations have been sponsoring courses that
train dentists in these procedures for many years. And why
not? Under U.S. medical licensing guidelines, any physician
with a medical degree from an accredited institution—
regardless of specialty—can offer cosmetic facial injections
as a service to their patients with no additional training.
Does anyone really believe that the average obstetrician
or rheumatologist has greater expertise in facial anatomy
than a dentist? What about estheticians? In some states,
an individual with no medical education can take a weekend
course and then give facial injections, provided they
are under the “delegation” of a physician.
Dental training and skills make the group exceedingly
well qualified to provide safe and esthetically pleasing

dermal filler injections. Like most dental procedures,
administering facial injections for cosmetic purposes
requires a combination of excellent technical and artistic
skills, as well as comprehensive understanding of head and
neck anatomy and knowledge of current materials and
treatment modalities.
We are certainly not suggesting that the average dentist
or dental specialist does not require additional training to
learn how to select an appropriate dermal filler product,
practice safe facial injection techniques, or prevent complications.
On the contrary, our goal in writing this book is to
provide the information that the dental clinician needs—
and none of the information that dentists, by virtue of their
training, already possess—to become qualified providers
in the highly rewarding (and potentially lucrative) area of
facial rejuvenation.
The scope of dental and dental specialty practice has
never been static. The purpose of this book is not to
promote the need for all dentists and dental specialists to
provide these cosmetic services. But rather the objective is
to present how numerous dermal filler procedures can be
successfully and safely incorporated into an existing practice
using the model that we, as both practicing clinicians
and academicians, have developed and taught to hundreds
of others over many years.