Crafting beautiful teeth: it's a part of dentistry that many dentists dream of doing more of, and it is what a CEREC machine will facilitate. Working on anterior teeth is always going to be the bigger challenge, however that’s where beautiful comes to life. Not only do you have to make anterior teeth work functionally, their appearance actually matters to you as a clinician, and also to the patient.
How proud will you will feel about your skills when you can make molars look like they have had no work done to them? Yet all of that posterior work is practice for the main stage: the anterior work that you do. Working on back teeth is like a dress rehearsal. Then moving to work on anterior teeth is akin to opening night, if we continue this analogy.
When a lab technician makes the onlay or bridge and the patient thanks you, it doesn’t feel right because the praise is not for you - it's for the technician.
When you work with CEREC it is you who will create an amazing result for your patient. You are the person making the inlay or only and then inserting it. Therefore it is you can own the feeling of accomplishment, magnified by the fact that you are doing it all: the beginning, middle and end.
2. Your Creativity Will Flow.CEREC is a good outlet. There are constraints of course, because you have to achieve a goal within limitations, however without constraints it's actually more difficult because you don’t know where the boundaries are. There are only a few select shapes and colours that you can choose from. When you get the hang of it your creativity will flow!
3. Achieve Your Vision.
Create the smile exactly how you want. When you use a lab, the image that you have in your mind needs to be translated in a way that the lab technician understands it. If the result is incorrect then you need to tell them what is incorrect, and they interpret that and send it back. The vision can be easily lost in translation. When you work with CEREC you are the creator and your vision can be more fluid as you create the perfect smile for your patient. You can become as good as the clinician - and you have the added advantage of knowing your patient, their personality, and how their face animates when they speak and emote.
4. You Save a Lot of Time.
You don’t have to wait two weeks for your inlay or onlay to come back from the lab. You can build them in a day and achieve the same beautiful work that a lab can achieve. However when you place an order with your lab it falls into a queue among hundreds of orders that the lab is tasked with completing. When you use your CEREC machine you get to prioritise your case and complete it in a day - or a week if you prefer to tinker away at it slowly.
5. Increase Patient Satisfaction.
Your patient will not have to get used to temporaries that are never going to be the same colour, shape or consistency as the permanent replacement. The longer your patients wear their temporaries they subconsciously adopt the colour and shape of them as their new identity - which is already far better than the teeth they replaced. Then when the permanent crown or bridge comes back from the lab and is inserted, patients can feel disappointed in the permanent results compared with their temporaries.
6. Increase Your Satisfaction.Life as a dentist will no longer be chair-side for 8 hours every day. When you work with CEREC and mill your own teeth you can enjoy tinkering on a job during your workday instead of being inside the patient's mouth. You can make a tooth consistent in colour and shape because you can physically see your patient. Get creative and build your own inlays and onlays when you want: your lunch break, over two days, or one afternoon every week. Put on some music, sit down and paint some teeth. What a joy.