do not offer the requested treatments or belittle their effectiveness

without offering an alternative. The fact is, all esthetic treatment

modalities work on indicated patients. A good example would be
a patient with teeth yellowed due to aging. If you do not provide
vital tooth bleaching as one of your routine esthetic dentistry
treatments, refer to a colleague who does provide this service.
Most likely, the patient will return to your office for routine treatment.
Patients may actually appreciate you more, realizing that
you are more concerned with their well‐being than your own.
Two questions seem in order. On the basis of the previous
premise linking a great smile to overall success in life, are we as
dentists doing all we should to motivate our patients to improve
their smiles? Are we as a profession doing all we should to motivate
the 50% of the population who do not normally visit the
dentist to have their smiles esthetically improved? Based on the
enormous amount of research showing the advantages of an
attractive smile, the answer to both questions would seem to be
“No.” We can and should do much more to inform the public
about why a great smile is an important asset and that we as a