Dental lab technicians create and repair dental equipment such as prosthetic teeth, crowns, bridges, and orthodontic appliances. Jobs can vary from routine to specialized, with employment opportunities in commercial dental labs, dental offices, and hospitals. Specializations include orthodontic technicians, ceramists, denture specialists, and crown or bridge technicians. Most work is done behind the scenes using precision tools and a range of materials.
A dental lab technician creates and fixes a wide range of dental equipment for patients, such as prosthetic teeth, crowns, bridges, and other orthodontic or dental appliances. Dental lab technician jobs can range from the routine to some very specialized practices. Dental tech jobs sometimes change based on the setting. Commercial dental labs, dental offices and hospitals are some of the many jobs available. Additionally, dental lab technician jobs that require specialization include orthodontic technicians, ceramists, denture specialists, and crown or bridge technicians.
Most dental lab technicians are employed by commercial dental labs. Laboratories are typically small private companies – usually owned by the laboratory technician. However, there are laboratories known to employ many dental laboratory technicians. A smaller portion of the community of dental lab technicians is employed by dental offices. In these cases, they usually work for a group practice that has multiple patients and multiple dentists.
Although many people don’t think of hospitals when considering dental lab technician jobs, they are also a good source of employment Hospitals sometimes have special dental departments, especially veterans’ hospitals. In other cases, special and military dental clinics have use for qualified dental lab technicians.
Among specialist dental laboratory technician jobs, an orthodontic technician is among the best known. An orthodontic technician uses metal and plastic to make and repair braces that are used to straighten teeth. Examples of orthodontic appliances include retainers, positioners, and tooth bands.
Another of the many specialist dental laboratory technician jobs is the ceramist. It applies layers of porcelain or acrylic over metallic frameworks to manufacture crowns or bridges. It can be detailed work, because it is important that the color of the porcelain or acrylic matches the natural color of the patient’s teeth. Without this attention to detail, the newly fabricated tooth would be noticeable and would not blend in well with the rest of the teeth in the patient’s mouth.
Dental specialists are another form of dental lab technicians. They can fix the teeth in the base used for the dentures. His work is particularly useful for patients receiving complete dental restoration. Denture technicians can also be used to make removable partial dentures for those patients who have only lost a few teeth. In that case, the tooth structure is covered with porcelain or acrylic to create a new tooth or two.
In general, most technology work in dental labs is “behind the scenes”. They may have limited contact with the patient as most of their time is spent making the perfect dental braces from the appropriate material. Materials can range from plastic, ceramic, porcelain, stainless steel or even gold, silver or platinum. Their tools are precision tools such as wax carvers, scrapers, fine electric drills, polishing wheels and electric lathes. They are responsible for making patients comfortable and happy with the end result of their dental equipment.
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