The Impact of Endodontic Training Courses: A Case Study

We all have to knock out CE credits every year, so you might as well get the best bang for your buck and really further your education, right? But it can be so hard to tell, when you’re considering dental and specifically endodontic training courses, whether you’re really going to learn anything, or if it’s just going to be a rehash of what you already know. Are the reviews really all their chalked up to be?

I respect that! I mean, I’m always checking the reviews before I purchase anything. I like to be an informed buyer.

This is the same perspective my colleague, Dr. Munther Salem, had when he was contemplating enrolling in E-School, which is my online endo CE course for dentists. His friend had just taken the course and mentioned to him that it had been a good experience. 

Dr. Salem hadn’t even searched for “endo” or “Dr. Chopra” on his phone, when he started seeing me pop up everywhere. My team swears up and down that Google and Facebook aren’t tapping our phones, but their algorithms are honestly scary-good LOL!

Then, Dr. Salem saw me talking in a video about a common, frustrating experience that dentists have, where you think you’ve cleaned to length, you put your gutta percha cones in, and then you’re freaking SHORT. Annoying.

Dr. Salem totally resonated with this conundrum, and he was excited to see my solution, so he started paying more attention to my content. At that time, he certainly wasn’t afraid of endodontics, and he was practicing it in his office.

He had attended the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Dentistry; there, he earned his Doctor of Dental Surgery. His rigorous education had helped build his confidence to do root canals on anteriors, pre-molars, and some molars. But, in his own words, he would “struggle with some teeth, and that would make me shy away from doing more.” Instead of leaning into the fear, he decided to learn more and keep practicing. I love a go-getter!

He checked in with his friend who had taken E-School to ask him more details about what the experience was like. He reported that the curriculum was thorough, and that the content revisited some of the basics that we forget along the way—before progressing to more complex subjects.

Taking the Leap to Join E-School Endodontic Training Courses: Coaching and LIVE

So, Dr. Salem decided to enroll in E-School with Coaching. He loved it. He said, “It was awesome. It was nice to learn from Dr. Chopra on the calls… and then having the Facebook group so you can always post… and learn from the other dentists, I think that was definitely helpful.”

But he wanted to complement the online course with hands-on learning, so he decided to enroll in E-School LIVE, too. E-School LIVE is my unique, small-group, hands-on, live patient course where you come to my practice in North Carolina to do root canals on real patients with my state-of-the-art technology.

He chose to take the next step for a few reasons. One is that he now had trust in my knowledge and skills as a specialist. But secondly, he’s a visual learner, and he wanted to see me in action and have me mentor him in real-time.

As he told me, “I was thinking, there’s no way I can do just a didactic course. I just felt like there was no way I couldn’t go to your office. You’re always talking about pushing the file, doing this, doing that. But I’m a visual learner. I like to touch and feel things. I’m pretty sure there’s even more I can learn from you in action.”

I’m going to share some of his pre-op and post-op radiographs from E-School LIVE here in the blog post, so you can see his work for yourself.

Case A from Dr. Salem (Pre-op to Post-op)

Long teeth are not easy, but Dr. Salem knocked this case out of the park.

Taking His E-School Endodontic Training Courses Even Further

E-School LIVE wasn’t only helpful for Dr. Salem, it was also great for his assistant, who came with him. “It opened up her eyes to how other assistants learned. It was also a good bonding experience to get out of the office and have her help me. It helped her understand where I’m trying to take the practice, not just from an endo standpoint.”

For ongoing support, Dr. Salem also enrolled in my Empowered Endodontics Academy, which is an ongoing membership with regular coaching for my E-School alumni. 

I absolutely love Dr. Salem’s take on the value of this program: 

“It sounds cliche, but you’ll die always learning. That’s the model I have…. We don’t know everything. Even if you’re an expert in your field, there’s always research, there’s always new things, there’s always new technology. 

“So even though sometimes there might be a call where there might be some repetition, repetition is good. Sometimes we forget things. Or it could be that one call where there’s this one pearl that she mentions or we never talked about and I’m like, you know what? It was definitely worth it… I have that 911 line where I can always reach out or talk about it and… have that support.”

What’s Changed in Everyday Practice after Dr. Salem’s Endodontic Training Courses

Dr. Salem is now the go-to guy at his practice for endodontics. He leans on the protocols I taught him in E-School, and he is always consistent about pulpal and periapical diagnosis including cold tests, looking for those MB2 canals, and so much more. Let’s just say, I’m freaking proud of him.

Dr. Salem has become a cheerleader for E-School (thank you, Munther!!), and I’m so freaking grateful for his kind words and support. He tells other dentists, “The one thing I wish I had when I graduated was I wish I had Dr. Chopra…. Coming out of school, if you can get people out of pain… you’re gonna be the best. And then you can worry about implants and cosmetic… Endo is key… If I can speak to a bunch of graduates at the universities across the country, I would say, ‘Man, take. this. course.’”

E-School helps fill a gap that dental school simply doesn’t have time to fill. Y’all know that there is so much we have to cram into a dental school curriculum. And tons of dental schools don’t even have an endodontist on faculty, so it often gets short-changed, along with a number of other specialties. Thanks to E-School, Dr. Salem has new confidence about endodontics.

In fact, Dr. Salem told me a story about an encounter he had with a dentist who was simply going by what he’d been taught in dental school: 

“I remember there was a doctor who saw a big lesion and was like, ‘Pull that tooth out.’ 

“And I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ 

“And he said, ‘What are you talking about?’… 

“And I told him… “Did you endo test the tooth? Did you know a J-shaped radiolucency doesn’t always mean the tooth is cracked?… Go read the literature.’”

“And they look at you like you’re crazy. It’s like, ‘Where did you learn that from, in dental school?’

“Well, no, in dental school, I actually learned that a J-shaped lesion is always a crack. I learned this from Dr. Chopra, who’s an endodontist. 

“It’s definitely been life-changing from a career standpoint.”

Dr. Salem’s Experience Fills Me With Hope and Pride

When I first created E-School, I knew that I’d teach some dentists and they’d save a few more teeth. But it was a secret hope, prayer, and dream that my endodontic training courses would have an enormous, positive, lasting impact on super-smart dentists around the world.

Case B from Dr. Salem (Pre-op to Post-op)

This case of tooth #14 was out of this world. We even took a post-op CBCT to show the complexity. Dr. Salem truly rocked it.

Dr. Munther Salem is a star student, and I’m just so honored that he’s found E-School to be super impactful for his career, and on his patients’ oral health. I’m so freaking proud of him, and I’m grateful that he’s applied himself with this much dedication to becoming an even better clinician. 

I would love to brag on how awesome you are next. If you’re feeling inspired to empower yourself when it comes to endodontics, you can explore the E-School online curriculum and enroll here. It can boost your endo confidence, reduce your chair time, improve your outcomes, and so much more.

And if you want to come to my practice in North Carolina (students from anywhere in the world are accepted) and get real-time mentorship on your hands-on, live patient endo cases, you can dual-enroll in E-School with Coaching and E-School LIVE. Click here to apply for E-School LIVE. Coaching is a prerequisite for LIVE.

I hope to see you in E-School soon!

– Sonia

If you want to go beyond didactic learning, consider hands on endo courses that let you touch and feel the difference.