I am a dental student. One of our case requirement include periodontal treatment on a patient with generalized periodontitis. So I found a patient who is willing and upon starting the full-mouth periapical, my “juniors” approached me and requested for a collaboration on my case as requirement for their perio subject. Basically, they will do the full-mouth xrays, probing, computations, documentation, and all of the stuff needed (of course, I will help them). After they will report the case in class, they will return all of the diagnostics to me and I will proceed with the actual treatment. I agreed, of course, for this is beneficial for me and them. Fast forward to now, the instructor said she will not be returning the full-mouth PAs, and I should do another set for my clinical case.

A little background, our school’s treatment plan require:

1. an initial full-mouth PA

2. Another set (not necessarily full mouth) of multiple PAs deemed necessary by the instructor after scalings and such

3. Final full mouth PAs after all treatment is done.

If I will push through with what the instructor said, I will be exposing my patient an addition of 20 more PAs. I have searched online and I am getting mixed information. What’s your thought on this? Should I get another patient so as not to expose him to multiple PAs or not? The patient also expressed concerns over radiation.