PDF Version - Glidewell Dental Labs

for the most part our dentists have seen
the light. When you get people like yourself
and Dr. Gordon Christensen talking
about digital dentistry, and about CEREC
specifically, it’s pretty powerful.
I was recently at Glidewell Laboratories,
and I saw your investment in digital infrastructure
and technology. Realistically,
when you look into the future of dentistry,
only a portion of restorations will
be done using in-office CEREC. We don’t
know what that percentage will be, but
there will be a percentage of restorations
done that way — single units and maybe
2-unit restorations.
However, for the foreseeable future, when
you’re doing multiple-unit cases or a full
arch or any large cases, they have to be
done in a laboratory setting like yours. It’s
great. So we’re a big fan of CEREC Connect.
And our dentists tell me that the fit with
CEREC Connect is off the charts.
MD: It is. It’s really good. In fact, I think
the only better fit you get is with the restorations
you guys make in office. Here I am
practicing in a dental laboratory but, to be
completely honest, I just don’t think there’s
anything better than same-day dentistry. I
don’t think anything good happens during
the two weeks the patient wears a temporary.
In fact, I can list five or six bad things that
happen! So I think this is where it’s all heading.
And patients are the big winners in
all this because they aren’t going to have to
wear plastic on their tooth that keeps falling
off for two weeks in order to get a definitive
restoration. Same-day treatment is always
going to be in the patient’s best interest.
You mentioned that you are able to tell if a
dentist is going to fit into the PDS organization
pretty quickly. Can you tell this through
an interview, or do you actually have to
watch him or her practice to get an idea of
who is going to fit in with you guys?
ST: Oh, no. The Owner Dentists do all the
final hiring. So the way it works is, we’ll
do some phone interviews and some talent
assessments, from which we can figure out
a lot. There’s even an online clinical assessment
that we’ll do, and we have a dentist
that does all the Q&A for quality assurance.
30 www.chairsidemagazine.com