MODEL RELEASED. Root canal dentistry. Dentist carrying out specialist root canal dentistry. An X-ray of the patient's teeth is seen in the background (top left). The dentist will also carry out surgery to add a titanium implant to repair damage to the jaw bone. The damage may result from an infected tooth, or the effects of removing an infected tooth. Root canal dentistry involves drilling, cleaning, disinfecting and filling the root canal of a tooth. The root canal is the area, inside the base of a tooth, that contains the living root. This keeps the tooth in place, so the surgery needs to fix the tooth in place to prevent it falling out.