The details

• Location: Online
• Cost: $1180 /  $1280 (early bird)
• Delivery: Pre-recorded video and written summaries
• Duration: 3 months, 5-6 hours (estimate)
• Link: https://orthodontics.io/digital-dental-lab-assistant-training-bootcamp/

The content

The course is broken up into 36 video lessons over 7 modules.  Each video is short, ranging from 1 to 9 minutes. The 7 modules cover: digital file management, 3D printing, thermoforming, trimming and polishing, advanced tips, indirect bonding and nightguard fabrication. The modules are hosted by a friendly and cheery digital lab technician, who started each module with an introduction of basic terminology, followed by a step-by-step demonstration of the different stages of digital aligner fabrication. Each video has a written summary to help recap key information. Most of the lessons have external links to material to download or links for further reading, including Rooz’s own spreadsheet for task management.

The video lessons are focused on the practical side of the processes, with small elements of theory. Towards the end of each module there was a demonstration of what can commonly go wrong, the reason why and methods to prevent or correct them. Materials used are detailed, with links to distributors / manufactures. The course offers posting of questions on the community page, as well as 3 live sessions of Q&A over the 3 month period with Rooz and the team. There is a mailing list of weekly tips and tricks for the digital aligner process.

What was good

The video lessons are easy to follow with a logical progression. Video production is of professional quality with excellent videography, great use of magnification and still imagery to explain content. Navigating the modules was organic with a simple sidebar of progress and global view of progress. The course took around 5 hours to complete, which I felt was about the right time for the content covered. There are sessions for live discussions as well as posting questions on the community page, showed insight from Rooz to offer support for the likely newbie digital technician / orthodontist in their beginning of their digital journey.

The course duration is 3 months, with a further 3 months support, which is a good timeframe to adopt the workflow from the course. I found the on-demand video course format  excellent , allowing the user to dictate the pace and review the content.

What was not so good

There was little content looking at how to create digital designs for aligners. As a clinician this is what I wanted to see, and it was as shame it was not part of the course, but it was not advertised to cover this content.

There were very short 9 second introduction videos to each module, which I found annoying and slowed down progress, as well as ‘assignments’ at the end of some lessons, which were open questions such as “What method of task management and communication do you think you’ll use?”, which did not benefit the user and had to be completed to move to the next video (like having to eat vegetables before dessert).

The software described for the digital design was mainly ULab Systems. It therefore limited some of the module content to users of this software. Unfortunately ULab Systems are limited to the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, with no publicly available schedule for further expansion internationally at this point in time. Other digital design systems do offer similar features, such as 3Shape and OnyxCeph, however the course did not mention or explore other systems. This would be something I would definitely hope to see as a future development of the course, so users of different systems can integrate the processes described.

Verdict

The video lessons are designed for non-clinicians, however I found myself taking pages of notes, as there were components of the digital flow detailed in the course which I could practically take to establish a digital workflow from scratch in my practice. After completing the course it was evident to me that in order to implement a digital workflow with in house aligners, the clinician needs to have an overall understanding of the different stages of the process, and the issues which arise in manufacturing and how to troubleshoot them should they arise, which the course demonstrated well.  The course was not an advanced course, and is very much based around the new user of digital aligner workflow, which takes the user from zero to competent through the course, and delivers the objectives it advertises. As mentioned, the course was lacking the ‘how to digitally design aligners’, but it was not the remit of this course. I hope Rooz and his team will consider this their next course and follow a similar format in an easy to navigate, bitesize course format. 

I recommend the course for anyone serious in implementing an in-house digital workflow, Rooz also recently published an overview of digital in-house aligners in Seminars in Orthodontics: Essential factors in developing an efficient in-office aligner system click here

Details of the Digital Dental Lab Assistant Training Bootcamp course can be found here 

Conflict of interest

• I (Farooq Ahmed) have no conflict of interest with either the course or the materials / content.
• Dr Rooz Khosravi is a consultant for uLab Systems and BayMaterials (manufactures of Zendura)

Contributions

Edited/contents: Farooq Ahmed, 

Charity Appeal

We are raising money for the terrible humanitarian crisis taking place in Turkey and Syria following the earthquake on the 6th February, please donate generously at the justgiving page to the Disasters Emergency Committee, a UK based charity with a focus on rapid response and a track record in other international disasters. 

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/farooq-ahmed5

My Turkish colleagues also recommend AHBAP, a Turkish based charity on the ground https://bagis.ahbap.org/bagis