Take this job and love it: Dental technicians keep Osan smiling

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Michael Battles
  • 51st Fighter Wing Public Affairs
OSAN AIR BASE, Republic of Korea --  Editor's Note: This is the third in a series called "Take this job and love it," which are stories based on service members with interesting careers and their experiences.

With mission readiness of Airmen being a top priority, members of the 51st Dental Lab have the perfect mold to ensure service members are deployment ready.

As a mission priority, dental technicians ensure service members are worldwide qualified by keeping them out of dental class three, which automatically makes Airmen non-deployable.

"Dental class three makes you non-worldwide qualified," said Master Sgt. Michael Edwards, 51st Dental Lab flight chief. "So we make appliances such as crowns and dentures to get you out of that class. It's our job to keep the flyers flying."

Patient's who are non-deployable due to class three are at a higher risk for more serious problems, he said.

"Deployment locations are not always equipped with the proper equipment to treat high-risk dental patients. That's why they need to be treated beforehand," Edwards said.

Another aspect of the dental lab mission is to create preventative mouth guards to keep service members' mouths safe from injury, he said.

At the start of an intramural sport, technicians will create more than 200 mouth pieces for players to use during the season.

Technicians process approximately 20 cases a week and more than 70 cases a month. Patients' cases can range from mouth guards to full dentures taking anywhere from one day to 15 days to complete.

"The really cool thing about my job that I have done in the past are the facial prosthetics," said the dental technician who has 13 years of experience.

"I never even knew you could make things like that, and then you learn how," he said. "If someone loses (a body part) due to cancer, (the prosthetics) help them. That is what I think is the coolest thing about my job."

Technicians have several advanced courses offered to them where they learn how to create prosthetics not associated with the mouth, such as eyes, ears, noses and full skulls.

The dental lab even processes prosthetics for military working dogs, said Staff Sgt. John Riaubia, 51st DS alternate lab flight chief.

Along with six months of technical training to become a dental technician, service members must complete 15 months of upgrade training to learn about dental prosthetics.

With the training these technicians receive they are sure to provide Airmen that are ready to fight and win tonight.