Annemarie Mannion

The PrograMill One from Ivoclar Vivadent is a milling machine that’s efficient for patients and clinicians.

OrthoFX is offering clear aligners at a set price, and helping this dentist grow his practice along the way.

Exploring the future of cutting-edge technology and what it will mean for the dental industry.

Picture this: A poster featuring a boy in old-fashioned short pants and with a bandaged face scrawling “Liar” in chalk on the wall of a dental office with a sign that reads “Painless Dentist.”

Whether surgically placing or just restoring, many of you are getting more into implants. Here, we explain why and offer some tips to help ensure you’re successful.

Our popular Legacy Laboratories Web Series profiled family-owned businesses throughout the year, capturing the histories of some of the most unique labs around. Here is a chance for you to revisit some of the featured labs that captured your attention in 2012.

When 88-year-old World War II veteran Porter B. Cross arrived at Zizic Dental to be fitted for a new set of dentures, his face was still swollen and the inside of his mouth was bruised.

For dental labs devastated by Superstorm Sandy, there is help available. The National Association of Dental Laboratories is providing disaster relief in amounts of up to $800 per lab. Lab operators from throughout the country, some of whom have weathered previous hurricanes, tornados, floods and other disasters in other parts of the country, are stepping in now to make donations to the NADL Relief Fund and showing it’s possible despite enormous odds to rise again.

The negative effects to teeth following trick-or-treating on Halloween will be lessened again this year thanks to dentists from across the nation who are participating in the ninth annual Halloween Candy Buyback program.

Before Heather Crockett-Washington was a dentist, she was a professional cheerleader for the Cincinnati Bengals NFL team. 

ArTech Dental Ceramics' name says it all. It reflects the mission of this small, family-owned, Fort Collins, Colo. based dental lab, which is to combine art and technology to produce esthetically pleasing and functional restorations.

The wildfire that raged through Colorado Springs, Colo., this summer destroyed the houses of hundreds of people including two dentists who practice in the metropolitan area of more than 650,000 people.

Given the popularity of vegetarian and vegan diets, it would be surprising if dentists across the country were not encountering patients following such lifestyles.

Athletes at the peak of health may set world records and win gold medals at the London 2012 Olympic Games, but there is a way they can be even stronger and more fit. 

Against the peaceful backdrop of the Teton Mountain Range in Idaho Falls, Idaho, family-owned Treasure Dental Lab offers services to dentists across the nation.

No doubt that Charlene Wexler’s many years of working in a dental practice has influenced what she writes. Her first book, “Murder on Skid Row,” was published in 2010 and is about a newly minted dentist who starts his practice in a seedy part of Chicago in the mid-1960s because he wants to serve Chicago’s most needy people, but gets caught up in a murder investigation. Her second book, “Milk and Oranges,” is a compilation of her short fiction stories and essays.

It’s all in the family at Brabant Dental Laboratory-the family of employees, that is. The lab, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, has changed hands just twice in that time, and in both instances ownership was passed to dedicated employees. The Sacramento-based lab was founded in 1937 by Joseph Brabant, a denture technician who expanded the business into one of the first full-service laboratories in northern California.

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake that brought down buildings and ignited fires was not enough to keep dental surgeon Leonie von Zesch from practicing. Neither were the bone-chilling temperatures of Alaska where she reached indigenous peoples by dogsled, Model T, or bi-plane and Arizona’s heat where she performed emergency dental surgery along a dusty roadside.

Sisters Anita Cranford and Elise Holasek, owners of Norman, OK-based Identical Dental Laboratory, share common DNA, a commitment to quality, a thriving dental lab business and even more; the two are identical twins.

As skilled with a paint brush as with a drill, retired dentist Richard Schilling has found inspiration for his watercolor paintings from a variety of places he has visited while on dental missions including the prairies of Nebraska, the plains of the Serengeti, the Royal Palace of Monaco, and the snow swept landscape of Siberia.

Maryland dental school professor Huakun (Hockin) Zu, PhD, and a team of researchers at the University of Maryland School of Dentistry are using nanotechnology to create a new dental composite that has the potential to aid dentists in the task of removing more harmful bacteria from a cavity and go one step further – rebuild the tooth.

No one likes the look of wrinkles or sagging skin especially when they mar the look of a smile that has been newly improved by teeth whitening, veneers, implants or other dental procedures.

A commitment to providing quality esthetic dentistry and staying ahead of new technology-along with a shared middle name-have been passed down from one generation to the next at Sikes Dental Studios in Charlotte, N.C. Four generations have been or are currently employed at the company that was founded by Adam Lee Sikes, who got his start in the industry when he worked for a couple of dental labs before launching his own business in 1944.

With dental-related ER visits on the rise, Dr. Norman Holtz's New York-based dental practice is available to patients at all hours.

Thirty years ago a long-lasting friendship was formed between dentists Michael Chalef and Harold Enoch. Both were sitting in on the Georgia Dental Licensing Board exam when they first met.

Marianne Benson is the mother of a 41-year-old son with a developmental disability. She knows about the difficulties of providing dental care to this underserved population, many of whom have never received dental care. Often, they are fearful, require sedation, or do not understand what's happening to them when they are in a dentist's office. Many have lost their teeth because of a lack of care and health coverage.

A green path decorated with oversized footsteps makes a trip to the dental clinic at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital less scary for young patients. Add in new wood cabinets, softer lighting, soothing colors in the decor, and children’s artwork on the walls and the result is a clinic with a kid-friendly atmosphere that matches how the rest of the hospital looks. The hospital-based clinic first opened its doors about 30 years ago, and its décor had remained frozen in time.

As a school nurse for 23 years, Sandi Delack has witnessed first-hand the needs of children who don’t have a dentist or receive regular dental or oral health care.

Just about everyone can relate to having to laugh politely at a joke that’s fallen flat or trying to keep his or her eyelids open during a story that goes on and on. For dentists and dental hygienists, however, the question of whether it’s a good idea to indulge in a bit of humor to distract a patient or tell them a long, drawn-out tale is not just about relating to people, it’s about whether the end result is good customer service and helps patients maintain their health.

Ok. You didn’t go to dental school to become a marketer. But what’s a practitioner without patients?  One avenue for promoting a  dental practice is to sell yourself as an expert in your area of expertise. It can be a broad area –dentistry or a more narrow one-say teeth whitening or implants.