I wanted to let you know that here in the UK there are a group of registered dental care professionals called “Clinical Dental Technicians” or “Denturists”. They are a relatively small group of Dental Professionals largely because of the time it takes to qualify. However, those are the Dental Professionals who have many years of experience in making dentures. as part of their qualifications they have to be first a Dental Technician before they can take the Clinical Training and Clinical Exams. In the UK they graduate from the Royal College Of Surgeons in London.
So these professionals like me are trained to make the dentures in a laboratory as well as the clinical side of dentistry. Most people think that a Dentist makes Dentures and go along to their existing Dentist for the provision of Dentures. Dentists in general are qualified to conserve and maintain natural teeth they do not have the same background or training as Denturists. Denturists in the UK have studied in depth the clinical and technical side of Dentures, most denturists have studied for over 10 years for specialist qualifications in this specific area of Dentistry.
Currently in the UK if you need Dentures and have no remaining natural teeth you can go directly to a registered Clinical Dental Technician or Denturist, they will carry out a clinical assessment and provide both the clinical side and technical side of the treatment for you. If you have some remaining natural teeth then the Denturist will working closely with a Dentist will develop a treatment plan for you. As i said before we actually make the Dentures ourselves as well as doing all the clinical work. as you can imagine this is a completely different service to that of seeing a Dentist who would do the clinical work and then send that off to a laboratory perhaps as far as turkey or china, yes thats correct the laboratory could be miles away and the person making the dentures has never even met you.
How do you find these people like myself, well you can go to the GDC website and click on find registrant and then click on Clinical Dental Technician, you can then enter a postcode or nothing and scroll through the list. Alternatively you can call our centre and we will find someone as close as we can to your area. If you go to our website you can also get a free consumer report written by myself, that answers most of the common questions related to Dentures. If you go to the site just scroll down until you see a box on the right hand side which reads ” Do You Suffer With your Dentures”. It is a completely free report, written in plain english to give consumers as much information as possible. I do hope that you find it informative as the more information you have the better informed you are in making the best choice for your treatment.
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