Buffalo Niagara Dental Convention 2013

Talks of 2013 were great. This year we got to stay for the full two days, rather than just one. Normally I'd lean toward hearing speakers outside of UB since it's nice to hear different perspectives, but this year I checked out Dr. Panteras Everyday Endodontics, and Dr. Brewer's Digital Dentistry. More than the talks, the vendors really appealed to me this year. Spending 3 days a week in the clinic, doing our own lab work and working with patients puts us in a much better place in terms of what we're looking for in materials and products. In the school we're using Straumann's Implants, but it was great to hear what else is out there. I spoke with AstraTech and got some interesting information on their system. I learned there are a ton of other bur distributors out there and I'm curious to try their products before graduation since one is a local company,

What I really loved though about this convention was the labs that were there. Spent some time talking to Vincent Martino Labs, which I got the impression was a small lab up around Buffalo. What I really was impressed with was Evolution Dental Science Labs. I have this intrinsic admiration of lab techs for what they do. Most of the magic in dentistry is all in the lab. The beautiful restorations all come from them for the most part. As dentists, we decide what is in the patient's best interest, and how to handle the case, but the technicians actually fabricate the solutions, and that's something incredible. Anyways, they're a bigger lab, that always has a presence at the convention. They're cool new thing this year was a system for digital dentures. The dentist takes upper and lower impressions and bite registration, and sends it in to them. They then have a digital scanning system that scans the impressions, digitizing them and allows them to create a denture virtually with sockets for the teeth to later be cured into. The design is then milled into a material denser than the usual denture acrylic. This material is denser, thus houses less bacteria and is stiffer, leading to a better, healthier fit. Since the denture is milled, there is no shrinkage to account for which alters the fit of traditionally made injection molded or compressed dentures.

The dentures they had ready made as models were great, normal looking dentures, but what I found really cool were these wooden dentures they had just for show. Not the greatest quality picture, but pretty cool having machines that can mill different materials.

I really admired the techs that were there that I had the opportunity to talk with and spend some time with later on at their sponsored event. They're passionate about what they're doing and willing to share their knowledge. Since we do our own lab work at the school it also was great to get some feedback from others doing the same work at a much higher level. A couple invited me out to the lab to check things out which I'd really love to do. Hopefully in the near future.