Minimal intervention compromised

You are a 3rd year Oral Health student, near the completion of your studies. You are on one of your clinical placements doing dental therapy. Your normal clinical educator, Sue, is away today because she is sick and a dental therapist who you do not know, named Jane, is filling in for her. You get a patient in who you have seen before and carried out an oral exam on. You have made a treatment plan for this patent at his last appointment and have received consent from the parents to carry out the treatment. Sue has checked the patient’s oral cavity and x-rays with you and has approved the treatment plan. You will be carrying out some of the patient’s treatment today. After checking medical history and getting Jane to check your patient’s oral cavity, you begin treatment. Today you will be removing two carious lesions on one tooth. The decay is present on two separate areas of the tooth. After applying local anesthetic you begin removing the decay. Once you are satisfied that the decay is completely removed you call Jane over to inspect your work. On the tooth you have removed two areas of decay, forming to separate ‘holes’. Jane tells you to remove the tooth material between the two areas thereby joining the ‘holes’ and making a single cavity to fill. She says this will make the filling stronger. You know that by doing this you will be removing healthy tooth tissue.