About Dr. Delia Tuttle
Dr. Delia Tuttle is a dual trained dental professional who was first a practicing physician before she fell in love with dentistry and became the owner of a private practice in California.
She graduated from UCLA in 2009 with the Dean’s Leadership Award, and has gone on to become a global dental speaker. Her passion for medicine led her toward the surgical aspect of dentistry, including performing soft tissue engineering using the patient’s own blood derivatives.
She teaches the Gum Drop Technique, an advanced root coverage procedure using biological factors A-PRF and I-PRF, as well as other surgical and non-surgical dental procedures.
Dr. Delia Tuttle has also developed an international movement empowering women in the dental field, called Divas in Dentistry, which has members from around the world.
Courses Offered
This course will introduce a new biological approach using blood derivatives (A-PRF and I-PRF) or collagen membranes for root coverage.
The Gum Drop technique (GDT) is a modified Vista technique using a patient’s own blood products to treat receding gums. Biomaterials and tissue-engineered scaffolds are avascular by nature. Since the success of the grafting procedure is directly correlated with maintaining the blood supply to the surgical site, using the GDT procedure allows for superior healing over using biomaterials alone.
This technique is simple, utilizing a small piercing instrument similar to those used for laparoscopic procedures, to allow the gums to advance or “drop” to the proper place on the tooth.
Lecture/Workshop: Full Day
Objectives:
- Review scientific research of procedure
- Watch surgical steps with videos and photos
- Learn about the usage of blood derivatives, I-PRF and A-PRF
- Review equipment and supplies needed for GDT
Gum Drop Technique Workshop
- Participate while learning phlebotomy techniques to make blood derivative products
- Practice surgical technique utilizing pig jaw or models
- Learn proper suturing
Managing the soft tissue and bone around dental implants is challenging. Learning the proper timing, technique and flap design will lead to successful implant treatment with excellent functional and aesthetic outcomes.
Lecture/Workshop: Full Day course or Lecture only
Objectives:
- Determining immediate or delayed implant placement based on socket evaluation
- Missing buccal plate, now what?
- Flap designs
- Extractions and grafting in the esthetic zone
- Learning various techniques to improve tissue quality for implants
- Soft tissue manipulations to create emergence profiles. VPI emergence profile management system
- Complications
- PRF benefits for tissue healing
Pink, White and Gray Interface Workshop
- Hands on pig jaw workshop
- Improving tissue quality using various techniques
- VPI emergence profile management system
With the high predictability of dental implants, together with evidence-based dentistry, treatment planning for compromised teeth is undergoing a paradigm shift. This series of courses will emphasize guidelines to consider during treatment planning to arrive at alternative solutions for your patients and teach the surgical skills needed to either maintain a compromised natural tooth or extract and prepare the site for an implant.
Module 1: So You’ve Decided to Save the Tooth (Lecture/Workshop)
The tooth may be periodontally involved or caries compromised, but it appears that maintaining with crown lengthening or pocket reduction surgery will allow for a predictable restorative outcome.
Lecture/Workshop: All Day or Lecture only
Objectives:
- To understand periodontal disease and the rationale for periodontal treatment by learning the indications and contraindications for periodontal surgery
- Flap design
- Osseous respective surgery, crown lengthening
- Suturing techniques
- Complications
Crown Lengthening and Pocket Reduction Surgery (Workshop)
Hands On Workshop w/ Pig Jaw or Models
- Full thickness flap preparation
- Split thickness flap preparation
- Osseous reduction and recontouring
- Distal wedge
- Continuous sling suturing
With the high predictability of dental implants, together with evidence-based dentistry, treatment planning for compromised teeth is undergoing a paradigm shift. This series of courses will emphasize guidelines to consider during treatment planning to arrive at alternative solutions for your patients and teach the surgical skills needed to either maintain a compromised natural tooth or extract and prepare the site for an implant.
Module 2: The Tooth has to go (Lecture/Workshop)
When teeth are too compromised, extractions are inevitable. Bone and tissue preservation at the time of the extraction can save time and possibly the need for additional augmentation surgeries. Preserving or reconstructing the extraction socket enhances the ability to provide cosmetic restorations without compromising predictability and function.
Lecture/Workshop: Full Day or Lecture only: Half day
Objectives:
- To learn about bone physiology
- Indications and contraindications for socket grafting
- Atraumatic extraction techniques
- Review grafting materials
- Communication for treatment acceptance
Socket Augmentation and Biomaterials (Workshop)
Hands On w/ Pig Jaw or Models
- Grafting with PRF vs biomaterials
- Suturing techniques
Technology is good, but so is simple, practical dentistry. This course will give tips and tricks to achieve excellence in daily dentistry, utilizing basics: a bur and a blade.
Lecture: Half day
Objectives:
- Quick soft tissue architecture guide for pontics
- Flap design to manage soft tissue around implants
- Treatment for excessive gingival display, simple to complex
- Melanin removal from gingiva
- Crown lengthening procedure
Excessive gingival display is a non-pathologic condition that may affect the appearance of our patients. This lecture will focus on facial-aesthetics driven diagnosis and treatment planning in dynamics to achieve the best outcome using a minimally invasive protocol. Special emphasis will be given to periodontal plastic surgery to improve esthetics.
Lecture: Half Day or Lecture/Workshop Full Day
Objectives:
- Facial Aesthetics Analysis in Dynamics
- Diagnostic guidelines for treatment planning
- Utilize photography and video recordings to enhance lab communications
- Show periodontal plastic surgery
- Surgical steps with live surgery patient to make elegant transition from white to pink
Gummy Smile Workshop
Objectives:
- Photography demo
- Hands-on pig jaw or models used to practice periodontal plastic surgery
This course will introduce the usage of natural biological factors contained in a patient’s own blood to aid in post-surgical healing, by utilizing a simple centrifuge.
Lecture/Workshop: Full Day
Objectives:
- Learn variations of PRF and usage
- Understand why PRF aids in healing
- Review phlebotomy techniques
- Learn to utilize a centrifuge in-office
PRF workshop
Objectives:
- Phlebotomy practice
- Centrifuge skills
- Preparation of I-PRF and A-PRF to form sticky bone, steak, membranes and plugs
Delia In Action
