Floats and Quotes: A Unique Educational Opportunity

Learning and educating can be fun, and even taste good!

Everyone on our staff loves root beer floats and we have them every so often in the laboratory. So I started thinking about how I could use this tasty treat as an educational tool. I made a list of all the different problems we were having in each department, such as incomplete invoices, improper pumicing, incisal edge matrix not fabricated and not telling the front office when taking the last of a supply.

Now what? Then it hit me: next time we had the floats, I added a message related to our challenges on each cup in bold black ink. For instance, “we need to high shine our dentures better,” “write the articulator number on the Rx” and “book on case” to remind technicians to scan the case pan into our LabTrax management software.

The messages sparked curiosity, conversation and interaction among the employees. As a result, they have a heightened sense of awareness about the...