TECHNICIANS INSIGHT
5 THINGS I CANNOT WORK WITHOUT! By Andrea Johnson l Well as most of you will know I am primarily an hospital based highly specialised Orthodontic tech so of course I would most definitely have to say my number 1 would have to be my good selection of Ixion orthodontic pliers and my Mauns cutters as an absolute must. Where would any self-respecting orthodontic technician be without those? And they cannot just be any old pliers, they have to be your own pliers, you know those that you have properly bedded in and most probably - if you are anything like me, modified to suit your own working style too. As for number 2, well I work alone for the most part, although my lab is on the main corridor of the dept and I have regular visits from the clinic staff and get called out into the clinic to consult on cases often, but when I am in the lab, I am alone, and therefore cannot live without my music. I would say it keeps me sane but I’m sure there will be many who claim I have never really been classed as that, but music is my life, it keeps me going in the lab, at home and in the hours I spend commuting and travelling around. I do have a fairly varied
1
musical taste in some respects but I always tend to drift back to heavy rock, metal and some of the old classics mixed in with some Disney. I like music that provokes emotion. So, there are a lot of tracks that I listen to that were used in films that makes me smile as it reminds me of some of my favourite films and scenes. I mean you can’t tell me you don’t like to sing along to the odd track or two from Mulan, Lion King, Moana etc especially as I quite often have the metal remixes of them! Gives them some umph. Number 3 on my list, well no matter how advanced your skills are in orthodontics you never really get away from having to carry out the very basic appliances too, you know those pressure formed lovelies, the orthodontic retainer. I like most other techs, have to make quite a few of these and they are almost always a sit and wait affair, nobody wants to go away and come back nowadays, they just want to sit and wait. Which is fair enough at times, but for that you need a reliable and efficient piece of equipment to carry out this task and for me there can be no other then the Biostar range
4 2
3
5
from Eurodontic. I have tried others elsewhere and quite frankly nothing stands up to the Biostar so I would be mortified if I lost that. Reliable and totally idiot proof so perfect for me. It's getting a little trickier now, what would my number 4 be? Well I think it would have to be my no-flame induction heater. When I worked in the denture lab I started my career in, we had bunsen’s, I mean you need them for lots of denture work, warming up your sheets of wax cannot really be done as well in any other way but in an ortho lab you don’t really need to do that so often so if I do need to warm up a sheet of wax I use my hand flamer. However, I do need to heat up my wax knife pretty often for melting little bits of wax to tack down my wirework on my appliances prior to spraying up my acrylic bases so the no-flame is super quick and efficient. This does lead neatly onto what is my number 5, as that would have to be my Palamat pressure pot. Such a neat bit of kit, not only can I have water ready and waiting at the perfect temp when I wish to polymerise my appliances but it maintains that temp perfectly so no cooling as its processing as it would in a traditional pressure pot, you can set the timer for the correct cycle, the bars of pressure required etc and then just pop your job in, set it off and wait until it beeps to tell you its done. No brainer! Also, you can heat cure in it too so it is perfect when I have to make the odd denture or simple heat cured obturator, I don’t make many so it’s nice that it can step up to this when I need it. You may have figured out by now that I like efficiency, if you have good and reliable equipment you can work far more efficiently and effectively, so although some of the equipment I use may seem more expensive initially than some others it most definitely pays off in the long term. Don’t make your job any harder than it needs to be by cutting corners on your tools and equipment. Buy good quality and look after it well.
If you would like to participate in our ‘5 Things I Cannot Work Without’ feature please email: editor@dentaltechnician.org.uk
18
www.dentaltechnician.org.uk
