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by robertlagrant 689 days ago
> there's some things a human dentist does that I doubt this does - early detection of oral or skin cancer on the face being one of them

I'm sure this can happen, but that's different to every dentist doing it. And a dentist doing harder to automate stuff while the 15 minutes go on instead of 2 hours means way more patients treated in the same time period, which means costs can hopefully come way down for some dentistry.
2 comments
sierra1011 689 days ago
It's definitely what I'd like to see for the future, in the same way that calculators improved the capability and throughput of professional mathematicians; as a tool that assists to enhance and augment delivery of a service.

CNC milling already exists for crown prep. The drilling of the tooth itself is not a long operation. The reason that a crown is split into 2 sessions is (depending on your local health board's practice guide) to ensure that the tooth is still viable for a crown; bleeding to stop, inflammation to go down.

This revolutionises nothing... But it is a step towards a revolution. It can only be a good thing. However, in the same way that there's technically a lab-grown hamburger out there, it's not going to be commonplace for a while.

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sierra1011 689 days ago
I should add that my perspective is based in secondhand UK dental experience; in a hospital setting this would be used to improve care. In a private practice I have no doubt that it wouldn't affect the price handed to the customer.
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robertlagrant 688 days ago
> In a private practice I have no doubt that it wouldn't affect the price handed to the customer.

Why not?

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