What a great time I had in Minneapolis last weekend. Thursday night, I shared my tips and tricks lecture with a packed house in the beautiful new Patterson branch in Eagan, Minnesota. The crowd was great and I always have fun sharing my CEREC experiences with peers from around the country.

Friday was the first of what I hope to be many assistant training lectures. There was a full house of assistants looking to learn all about CEREC 4.0 and how to design, mill and characterize restorations. I have been working so hard with Pete Gardell and Darren Greenhalgh to put together a lecture to help assistants understand CEREC fundamentals. We want to teach them to understand what good versus bad imaging is, what good versus bad powdering is and how to recognize preps that will and won't work with the machine.

The day started off with about 90 minutes or so of lecture and then a demo of how to do a restoration from start to finish. The assistants were then on the machines, designing and milling restorations of their own. We discussed partial coverage restorations and then they were right back on the machines designing and milling those. We had them designing and milling crowns using the biogeneric copy function. We tied up the day with tips and tricks on cementation, machine maintenance and changing broken burs before ending with a final Q&A session.

It is really fun to teach people who really want to learn. You can tell during classes like this to what extent CE and knowledge really energize and empower people. As an instructor, there is nothing better than witnessing the light bulb switch on for an individual during class.

I have to thank Paula Nelson, Don Bell and Ivoclar rep Mike Matzke for providing a great presentation on materials, customizing restorations, and properly preparing the tooth and restoration for bonding. Ivoclar provided blocks and kits to allow all participants to characterize both their empress and e.max crowns.

A lot went into this class and I could not have done it without the help of the folks in Scottsdale like Shayna, Stacie and many others, along with the belief and backing from Kaleim Manji and Sameer. It was a memorable day for me and I hope those that attended the course enjoyed participating as much as I enjoyed teaching. I hope those assistants continue their learning journey with CEREC and maybe one day I will see them again at an advanced training course at Scottsdale Center. For me, I can't wait for the next class!

Thanks Rich for the kind words!

Great to hear the CEREC Assistance Lecture was so well attended. I am a UK CEREC and Laser Specialist, I am also keen to ensure all our users get the best out of teh new v4.0 software. Are there any Webinars that I can hop onto? If you know of any please email me on paul.eggleston@henryschein.co.uk

Happy Cerecing.