Dentists and Technicians in Sync on Biggest Challenges

LMT asked dentist-participants in our 2018 Dentist Survey to rank the challenges they assume laboratory owners face. Interestingly, they were correct in choosing the top two, saying a lab’s biggest struggles are hiring competent staff (which lab owners ranked as their #2 problem) and making do with inadequate work by clients (which labs ranked as their #1 challenge.)

With regard to the challenge of hiring qualified technicians, some dentists expressed concern about the future of our community, citing declining educational programs and the aging technician base. “Let’s concentrate on actually supporting the dental technology industry with training programs, rather than pushing everything onto a computer,” says a dentist from Florida. “There is so much we cannot do digitally and we will need to have people who still understand this.”

Some dentists also commented on the difficulty...