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Newest Staff Member,  
Dental Assistant Heather Ernst

Dental Assistant Heather Ernst started working at Wallach Dental last December, after moving to St. Louis and getting married in November.


heather


She had worked as a dental assistant in Florida for 1½ years, having graduated from Future Smiles Dental Assisting School in Wellington, Florida, which is near Palm Beach.  She is a Certified Dental Assistant, with expanded functions, and also is CPR certified.

Heather enjoys building personalized relationships with patients and providing overall patient care and education.  "I build a level of trust with patients," she said.

She interviewed with several dental offices and performed at working interviews, where she participated in procedures.  She particularly liked her working interview at Wallach Dental because of their procedural process, cleanliness, excellent equipment, and friendly staff, she said.


She was born and raised in Florida, so this is her first exposure to cold weather and snow.  Heather enjoys the snow, but the frigid January weather was a bit of a shock.  She likes the idea of seasons and is looking forward to spring flowers.

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Spring Newsletter - March 2010 
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Oral Digital Impression System
Now Being Used
 The Lava Chairside Oral Scanner is the latest technological advancement at Wallach Dental, which is the first dental office in the St. Louis market using this new technology to make digital impressions.

The scanner replaces the process of making impressions with the gooey, rubbery putty in trays.  The digital impressions are far more detailed and accurate than the putty impressions.  The digital images also can be enlarged, rotated, and reviewed in 3-D.  The 3-D aspect is helpful to see the spatial relationship of the teeth.

Impressions are taken when patients need inlays, onlays, veneers, crowns, bridges, or implants.  Wallach Dental has been using the Lava system since the fall and the staff spent two days in training to learn the system.

When having a digital impression, a patient has a dry angle inserted in his/her mouth to keep the lips and cheeks retracted and to keep the mouth dry.  A light dusting of powder is added to a patient's teeth to enhance dryness because a damp surface will not provide good photo images.

Patients can look at the screen as a precise image of their teeth is created with a wand inserted in their mouth.  The wand is slightly larger than a typical electric toothbrush.

In about 5-6 minutes, a complete upper or lower image is generated.  It is a continuous video of the teeth, rather than individual photos linked together.  There is a certain "wow factor" for many patients, as they see their teeth appear on the screen, Dr. Marc Wallach said.
The patient's bite is then scanned to get an accurate depiction.  Because paste is no longer used to get a bite impression, there is less margin of error, said Dental Assistant Liz Eilermann.  "You no longer need to be concerned about the space taken up by the paste."

After the images are obtained, Dr. Wallach will write an electronic prescription on the screen and send the image data to the 3M Corporation, which owns the Lava system.  There they will slice the image into thousands of layers and use a liquid resin to build highly accurate stereolithography models of the teeth within a few hours.

Those models are sent to our dental labs, which we've used for years, to create the desired dental restorations, such as a crown or veneer.   

Patients find that the new restorations, based on digital images, are in place quicker and are immediately more comfortable.  There are far fewer instances of having to re-make restorations, due to an improper fit.

Not only is the digital system faster and more accurate, it also is better for the environment because there is no impression material to throw away.  Insurance coverage is the same for this system as the former method.
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Sincerely,
 

Marc Wallach
Wallach Dental