Finding My Niche

The critical decision of what matters most as a laboratory technician

Lucas Lammott

I first mentioned the possibility of a new job working at a prestigious laboratory in New Jersey to my wife while we sat late one evening, packing up cases, pouring models, and catching up on invoicing. She looked past me, through the studio windows and out to the sea. Her brows met, and she simply said, "It may be time."

We made lists. We looked at it from every angle—financially and practically. In June of 2022, we made the move, and our family has been the better for it. I used to get home at 10 PM or 11 PM, and now I am home in time for dinner. I used to work alone. Now, I am part of a team. But it is so much more than that. Allow me to explain this to you, my fellow technicians, in a way that I know you will all empathize with and understand.

Case No. 1

The documenting of cases is paramount for continued learning and for building a portfolio suitable for lectures and publication. I am a compulsive documenter. This central was a case I made for a dentist's mother (Figure 1 through Figure 5). She travelled to South Boston from California for a total of four days. The plan was to prepare and impress on Thursday; drive two hours to me on Friday morning so I could take all the shade photos I required; come back to me on Saturday afternoon for a try-in/adjustment; and bond it in Sunday morning before her flight home that afternoon.

So I began: models, hand wax, pressed in lithium disilicate, and layered with ceramic. I made three crowns, each with different stratification techniques to minimize need for adjustments.

The try-in was pushed until Saturday night due to breakage of the core buildup, which needed to be fixed. We tried in a bisque bake and made some adjustments in the laboratory.

Overall, the restoration was a success, and both mother and son were thrilled. I gained a great case to show off and with which to flex my ego. It remains in my lectures for that reason: to impress and hopefully educate. But at what cost?

Monetarily speaking, it has already paid for itself through lecturing and teaching. In addition to this, I was more than happy to accommodate this dentist, as he was one of my premier accounts. But that weekend, like so many others, I did not see my children once. I missed going to the park, weekend family meals, helping hot glue school projects together, and my little one's first attempt at telling a joke. We all make sacrifices. We all go the extra mile, but how often does that one extra mile become 5, 10, or 15? Working alone is a double-edged sword. The proverbial "buck" starts and stops with you, and while that can be incredibly rewarding, it can also lead to burnout. I could list countless cases that resulted in long nights due to power outages during pressing or layering. A laboratory by the ocean is very romantic until a sea squall takes out the power on a regular basis.

This is just the production side of the struggle. There was the administrative side to manage, as well: checking cases in, billing, shipping, invoicing, pickups, deliveries, ordering materials, and everyone's favorite—taxes. For a one-man laboratory, these issues resulted in many late nights, weekends, and holidays in the laboratory and away from my family. The irony was that I was doing this "for my family." The madness of the great hamster wheel had to end at some point.

The Turning Point

"Do you want to come work with me?" Josh Polansky, MDC, owner of Niche Dental Studio, asked one evening from his front porch in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

I chuckled in response. "For real?"

"Listen," he continued. "The future, the now, is digital, like it or not."

We talked long into the night, and I considered everything he said carefully. I could take out a loan, I could invest in digital, hire someone—I could push to the next level.

"I have a great team, but I want it to be better," he said. "I could use your skills and experience to help push my business to the next level. Think about it." Josh walked me out to my car, and we shook hands. "No pressure, no rush."

A great team—this stood out to me louder than anything else. I am a solitary creature by nature, but this is what I had been missing: a team.

Niche Dental Studio

The textile designer, poet, and artist William Morris once said, "Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." Every person at Niche Dental Studio is useful, and there is nothing that is not beautiful. Local artists' prints and paintings hang on the walls; candlelight, natural flora, and chill music guide you from room to room; Greek columns are adorned with KAWS sculptures; and a vast library of architecture, fashion, and photography books are strategically placed. Parisian-like mirrors and chandeliers open this space to a unique experience. Every esthetic aspect of the laboratory has been meticulously selected. And all of this is not only for the comfort and delight of the daily visitor, but for the benefit of each of the 11 technicians who work there. Our carefully selected team reflects pride in every aspect of the process because the culture of the laboratory inspires this.

Case No. 2

This is one of the first cases I finished after joining Niche Dental Studio (Figure 6 through Figure 12). I did not pour the models. I did not hand wax the diagnostics for provisionals. I did not scan, design, mill, or press these crowns. All of these critical steps were accomplished by my teammates. I did the job I excel at: simply choosing the ingot, cutting back the framework, layering, and finishing the ceramic. A lingual/incisal putty matrix was made of the printed diagnostic model to ensure an exact replication of the approved diagnostic. It was fabricated to help measure how much cutback was needed for a natural incisal edge, mamelon placement, and translucency. These steps are crucial in maintaining an approved workflow and predictable outcome. The goal is not to shock the patient with our artistic ramblings, but to give the dentist the confidence that delivering the final restorations will, quite simply, go as planned. Minimal to zero intraoral adjustments plus the perfect balance of hue, chroma, value, and natural vibrancy: that's an ideal process for success.

Happiness Matters

But how does this workflow benefit the laboratory and ultimately, me, the technician? First, a laboratory's primary focus is to be a for-profit business. It would be incredibly dishonest to boast total altruistic motivations for making dental restorations. It's also not an artistic endeavor. We do not function in the laboratory as artists. We are technicians striving to replicate natural and functional dentition in the oral cavity. Secondly, and most importantly, having a responsible team working alongside me ensures that I am home for dinner with my family—and my coworkers can be home with theirs. The goal should not be to get through the work week and live for the weekend; the goal should be to live deliberately both on and off the clock. Teeth are not my life, and my life does not revolve around teeth. I care too much about dentistry to let it dictate my existence.

Read that again. Some of us are built differently than others, and people thrive in different ways. Perhaps you are made for entrepreneurship, perhaps you are more artistically inclined, or perhaps you are a Transcendentalist at heart who wants only to live in a cabin in the woods. But however one is predisposed, it has been my experience that people are most productive when they are positioned somewhere they can thrive. Happiness matters. When overwhelmed by some trivial thing, my wife and I will often ask each other, "When you are on your deathbed, will you be thinking of this fleeting issue?" Some may find that question morbid. But I know dental technicians pretty well, and this is a reality check we all need at times.

The author would like to acknowledge the dentistry of Chad Perry, DDS, in Case No. 2.