Peder Kold: interview with an EAO Member

Dr Kold has been a dentist since 1968. He and his wife started their own practice, the Herning Implantatcenter, in 1970 in a small town called Herning, in the middle of Jutland, Denmark. It is now transforming into a family practice.

“Today we employ seven dentists, including my son and my daughter-in-law, so you could say it is a sort of family practice. I have always done most of the surgery and in the 1980s I started with implantology. I ought to retire but I still find my work very, very interesting. There are so many developments in the field and every year after the EAO Congress you just want to go back and try everything you have discovered.“

“I went to my first EAO meeting many years ago – almost when it was launched. It is a wonderful idea because you get to meet lots of different people: general practitioners, surgeons, prostodontists, lab technicians, dental nurses as well as people who work on the more scientific side of things. It is important for those of us who are working with patients to meet the people who create the products and tools that we work with, so we can discuss the work that we do.”

“The atmosphere at the congress is always great. I remember attending the Berlin meeting ten years ago where the hot topic was implant surfaces. There were two outstanding scientists who were having a very passionate discussion about these surfaces and they were really hard on each other. But just two hours later we were at the evening party and the same two people were having great fun, dancing around like women! There is this feeling at the conference so that even if you do not agree with your colleagues, everyone still gets along.”

“I joined the EAO because it does excellent work and it is important that we support it. As a member, you receive journals such as the Clinical Oral Implants Research, which allows you to keep up with what is happening in the field. I have been working in implantology since the late 1980s and I think the most important change since then is that now we have a much better understanding of the science behind our treatments. This not only means the outcomes are more predictable but that our treatments are safer for patients. Our great old mentor, Professor Brånemark, who is the father of oral implantology, always said: “Never try to fool Mother Nature or she will punish you, or worse your patient.” For me this is the most
crucial thing to remember in our line of work.”

“The next step in implantology as I see it is the development of digital scanning, so that instead of taking a normal impression you can just take a scan of the mouth and finish preparing the implant on your computer using CAD/CAM techniques. It is not free on the market for implants yet, but it is for crown procedures so it is only a matter of time before it will be available to implantologists. This will make our work easier because there will be less discomfort for the patients and greater precision so that is what we are looking forward to now.”