What sort of lab work do you do?

Although dentists  choose to have dental laboratories responsible for most of their lab work, I find that I  maintain some of these lab "chores" for myself and my assistant.  First of all I ditch my own dies. After an elastomeric impression is taken my laboratory pours up this "final impression" and pindexes it using die stone. They return the model to me for me to trim and ditch the die. The die is used to fabricate crowns and ditching involves making a light "ditch" at the end of the finish line on the tooth's preparation. By cutting a ditch, the dentist or the lab creates an shallow undercut in order to delineate the actual finish line of a restoration. This insures that the restoration will not be over extended or under extended.  Over extended  restorations tend to make for crowns that do not meet the tooth precisely and tend to have a ledge for plaque to collect instead. Under extended crowns do not cover the entire preparation.

I choose to take on this work, usually left to the lab, because it helps me understand any problems that may crop up. I can visualize my preparation and it makes me immediately aware of any inadequacy in either my preparation or my finish line. When left up to my laboratory, I am less able to visualize the "raw " model and instead just get to see my final product ( the crown). Laboratories tend to return completed work even if they suspect that an impression was "short" ( didn't capture the entire prepped finish line) or over extended ( impression of tissue masquerading as part of the preparation).  I believe the ten minutes I spend ditching is worthwhile since it allows me to examine the raw and unaltered die so that I can see clearly how well my patients tooth was prepared and impressioned. It helps me with my quality control and keeps me honest. 

We also pour all our own alginate impressions and then use these for a number of purposes including, counter models, fabricating night guards,  fabricating bleaching trays (we make our own) and for cosmetic wax ups ( some we do in house and some we send out to our lab).   We also fabricate a number of different types of clear suck down trays that are made on our ominvac as well.

I realize that much of the above maybe confusing for non dentists and I guess the point of this post is to make it clear that dentists spend time working while not  directly involved with patient care. When I am not overly busy with patient care I actually find lab work relaxing.








from Ask Dr. Spindel - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/2018/03/what-sort-of-lab-work-do-you-do.html - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/

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