Pearls for Your Practice: "Global Diagnosis" by J. William Robbins and Jeffrey S. Rouse

In my six or seven years with Dental Economics, I’ve never written about a book before. (Does this make me a book critic now? Should I apply for a job at the New Yorker? I feel so sophisticated.) What book could cause me to want to write about it? Literally the most important clinical textbook that I have ever read: Global Diagnosis by Bill Robbins, DDS, MA, and Jeff Rouse, DDS.

“Global Diagnosis” is a system for diagnosing and treatment planning comprehensive care patients. The system places a focus on patients with the dreaded “gummy smile.” The reason Global Diagnosis is needed is there are a few things that could cause a patient to present with excessive gingival display. Those differing etiologies have significantly different treatments and can drastically impact your plan. Utilizing a system such as Global Diagnosis will make it easy for you to spot a patient with vertical maxillary excess versus altered passive eruption, which simplifies and streamlines your treatment planning. After reading Global Diagnosis, you’ll be equipped with the steps and skills to integrate the Global Diagnosis form into your diagnosis and treatment planning with patients—and that form will make it easy to treat these patients.

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You might recognize the names of one or both authors of Global Diagnosis. Dr. Jeff Rouse is a prosthodontist and an instrumental faculty member at Spear. He has been championing the impacts on our patients’ airway for longer than almost anyone in our industry. Dr. Bill Robbins coauthored another famous book, Summitt’s Fundamentals of Operative Dentistry, and has published numerous articles on restorative dentistry throughout his career. They are both incredibly skilled dentists and tremendous communicators. Their passion for this subject comes across in the text, which makes it an easy read—this is not a textbooklike slog.

Global Diagnosis comes with numerous case presentations. This is incredibly valuable because when I am stumped on developing a treatment plan for a case, I simply flip through the cases and find one that looks similar. This almost always helps me get an idea of where to go and how to treat the patient. I keep Global Diagnosis on my office bookshelf and reference it at least weekly.

We all need a system to treatment plan. There are lots of ways to do it. For me, the one that makes the most sense is Global Diagnosis. It has been pivotal to my career, and I think it can do the same for you. Triple to deep right field for Drs. Robbins and Rouse for Global Diagnosis!