Caries Management Decision-Making: Diagnosis and Synthesis

The purposes of this article are to (1) offer a critical thinking skill set in decision-making and synthesis for caries diagnosis, and risk-adjusted and personalized management based on emulating the intended activity of the expert, (2) offer patient/case scenarios for application of the critical thinking skill set, (3) compare and contrast the results of applying an algorithm and expert thought process approach to patient analyses, (4) offer characteristics of the person making decisions and synthesizing information, and (5) for patients with complex health and social histories, include perspectives from other health care team members.