Why are tooth surfaces different on paper?

Hi

It's a perfectly valid question and not stupid question at all. The main thing you need to remember is the mouth isn't flat like the picture so you have to imagine that the picture is like an OPG its a flat image of a face (not flat) if you wrapped the OPG around your patients face it would fit so imagine the flat picture curving like the mouth.

I hope this is helpful I'm not explaining quite like it is in my head!

I'll try and word this best i can. Sorry if it's a stupid question but i'm still a trainee, and it has confused me while trying to learn all the surfaces.

On the computer, or paper chart, an MOD filling is recorded horizontally. Like "---". But when a dentist showed me an MOD filling on an actual tooth of a patient, it was vertical, from top to bottom, rather than side to side. This has confused me cos i'd learned mesial, distal, etc going by the charts on paper. So now when i'm looking at an actual tooth i'm having to remind myself that it's the opposite.

Does this make any sense? Does anyone else have this problem? Just can't understand why they don't chart the surfaces the same way on paper that they are in the mouth.