Doing odontograms and dentists in the classroom. Materiality and affect in dental education

Abstract

The odontogram is an instrument designed to identify the status of each tooth, which allows dental professionals to establish diagnoses, treatment plans and assess the evolution of their cases. Likewise, it can be used for forensic identification and epidemiological research. Its use demarcates this profession from other health sciences, since only dentists are certified to implement it. Our approach to this instrument was through education, for which we inhabited a dental training program for one year in the city of Pereira, Colombia. The thesis of this work involves a back and forth movement. On the one hand, we sustain that the odontogram is done while learned in practices such as holding formats with the hands, locating in different coordinates from the daily ones, writing on screens, and imagining a letter inside a bone. On the other hand, when doing the odontogram, the dentist’s body is also being done in situations such as “tattooing” this on the own arm or acting as if the body were the teeth. Finally, we offer some reflections to do odontograms considering concepts of ontological politics and affect.

Keywords

• materiality
• body
• affect
• dental education
• ontological politics