Freelance Dental Technicians in Puerto Rico: A New Career Path
There are many articles that have been written about jobs that are currently disappearing worldwide due to the disruptive effects of technological advances such as the internet. In this article we would like to propose a self employed job or opportunity that has become available due to the disruptive effect of 3D printing in dentistry. This new opportunity is the Freelance Digital Dental Technician (FDDT). We believe that Puerto Rico and other parts of the world will see a sharp increase of FDDTs in the coming years.
What are dental technicians and how do they differ from digital dental technicians? A Dental Technician is a member of the dental team who constructs custom made restorative and dental appliances based on the specifications given to him or her from the Dental Clinician. A Digital Dental Technician is an expert in using digital or computer-controlled tools in contrast to that of mechanical tools in the construction of of these same types custom made restorative or dental appliances.
It is a very exciting time to be a digital dental technician because of the resources that are available to the budding entrepreneur. The digital dental technician has the ability to provide value for the Dental Clinicians in the following ways: 1) improved efficiency — both cost and time; 2) improved accuracy in comparison to previous methods; 3) high level of predictability of outcomes.
According to the Department of Labor Statistics, in 2012 there were approximately 33,600 dental technicians in the United States. The workplace for these dental technicians was typically dental clinics or dental labs. In 2012, there were 7,202 Dental labs in the United States and 2,808 of those were sole proprietors. We believe that the number of sole proprietorship dental labs will grow in the coming years because of the use digital dental tools by the younger dental technicians.
Digital dental technicians can provide their services on a freelance basis due to the availability of digital dental software and 3D printers. These digital dental technicians can work from a “home lab” where they receive digital files over the internet and work on dental constructions on the computer and then send their work to be printed on their own 3D printer.
One of the barriers to entry into the dental lab business has been the startup costs which sometimes can be as much as $200,00. However with the advent of 3D printing the costs of starting a solo dental lab is much less but with a corresponding increase in efficiency. Because of these two factors, we believe that there will be an increase in smaller dental labs at the expense of the larger labs. However the end result to the dental clinician will be improved results from a local dental technician using additive manufacturing processes to deliver custom made restoratives and dental appliances with greater accuracy to their specifications.
We would like to suggest that one way for the budding digital dental technician to hone their skill would be to acquire a desktop 3D printer. This will allow the “student” to practice making modifications according to specifications while seeing same day results of their work in an articulator.
Three dimensional printing is bringing manufacturing back to the United States in a big way and the dental industry will be impacted as well. Much dental lab work is currently sent overseas to save on costs. We believe that 3D dental printing will reverse this trend and help make dental lab work a cottage industry that will benefit both the FDDT and the Dental Clinician alike.
About the Author
Dr Jenny Carrero has an extensive technical background. She received her PHD in Biophyisics from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana where she worked with lasers, spectrometers, confocal microscopes etc. She is an authority on 3D printing for industrial and consumer use in Puerto Rico.