dental engineering as the name suggests, is an area of engineering that deals with oral healthcare sciences. It encompasses all technical means of facilitating dentists in the implementation of medical procedures, fabricating devices and prostheses. It also includes computer technology, automation, and robotics. This area of science fully corresponds to modern trends in industrial development.
Combining dentistry with engineering has led to significant innovations. Digital dentistry including intraoral scanning and CAD-CAM has replaced traditional dental impressions sent to laboratories for the construction of appliances and restorations. Likewise, the use of artificial intelligence and big data have begun to show promise in diagnosis and prognosis of oral diseases.
A career as a dental engineer is a highly demanding but very rewarding profession; working on large pieces of equipment that are crucial to the successful running of a practice. It requires a very high level of professionalism to deal with complex issues that arise, particularly when a dental clinic is in urgent need of equipment repair.
The future of dentistry is promising, as the latest discoveries are allowing us to replace damaged tissues with biocompatible synthetic materials. However, these replacements do not present chemical, biological, or physical properties similar to the original tissue and often fail to survive in the hostile environment of the oral cavity. Tissue engineering has shown promise in restoring such structures as dental pulp and dentin using stem cells, but it is a very time-consuming process, especially when applied to older teeth with small pulp chambers and root canals or closed apex.