Imaging, scanning, milling and printing under one roof, so treatment happens in fewer visits and less of it waits on somebody else.
Most dental practices send work out. Scans go to a radiology clinic, models and appliances go to a laboratory, and each handover adds a wait measured in days rather than minutes. The clinical result is usually the same. The experience is not, because every step that leaves the building becomes an appointment you have to attend or a fortnight you have to wait through.
Divine Dental Care in Croydon runs the imaging, the scanning, the milling and the printing on site. The practical effect is fewer appointments, shorter gaps between stages, and a treatment plan that does not stall while something is in transit.
Book a consultation: call (03) 9725 8040 or book online. Our Croydon practice is open six days a week, Saturdays included, with parking on site.
A cone beam CT scanner produces a three-dimensional image of the jaw. Where a standard dental X-ray gives a flat picture, a cone beam scan shows bone volume, and the position of nerves and sinuses, in three dimensions.
It matters most for implant planning, where the question of whether there is enough bone cannot honestly be answered by looking in someone's mouth. It also has a role in assessing some wisdom teeth and in examining the jaw joint. Having it here means the scan happens during your consultation rather than as a separate trip to a radiology clinic on another day. More detail sits on our cone beam CT page.
An OPG is the wide panoramic image that shows all the teeth and both jaws in one view, used for general assessment, wisdom teeth and monitoring development. A lateral cephalometric image is the side-on view used in orthodontic assessment to measure the relationship between the jaws and the skull. Both are taken here. Our radiographs page covers when each is used.
An intraoral scanner is a handheld wand that builds an accurate digital model of your teeth in a few minutes. It replaces the impression tray and putty for most cases.
The clinical advantage is accuracy and the ability to store, resend and reuse a model without retaking it. The advantage patients actually notice is that nothing is in your mouth for minutes at a time, which for anyone who gags is the difference between a treatment that happens and one that gets postponed indefinitely. See our intraoral scanner page, and if that is the part you have been dreading, our page on dental anxiety covers what else can be adjusted.
A digital scan can be designed into a restoration and milled at the practice. That is what makes a same day crown possible: the tooth is prepared, scanned, designed, milled and fitted in one visit, rather than a temporary crown and a second appointment a fortnight later.
To be clear about what this is, because the website used to say otherwise and it was wrong: we use our own milling equipment, not CEREC. It is the same concept and a different system, and we will not describe it under a brand name we do not use.
Digital scans eventually have to become physical objects. Our in-house 3D printer produces the models, surgical guides and appliances that come out of those scans, which keeps that step in the building instead of adding a courier run and a laboratory queue to the timeline.
It is the least visible piece of equipment here and one of the most useful, because it is what allows the digital workflow to stay digital from scan to finished appliance. In implant work it also supports guided surgery, where the plan built from the cone beam scan is transferred to a printed guide used during the procedure.
A small camera lets you see what your dentist is seeing on a screen, at a size where a crack or a failing filling is obvious rather than a matter of trust. It changes the nature of the conversation about treatment, because you are looking at the same picture rather than being told about it.
Equipment is not the reason to choose a dentist. What it buys is time and certainty: a diagnosis made with better information, a crown in one visit instead of two, an implant planned against a real image of your bone rather than an estimate, and fewer trips to fewer buildings. That is worth stating plainly and not worth overstating.
Our practice is at 59 Wicklow Avenue, Croydon VIC 3136, with parking on site and Saturday appointments. Call (03) 9725 8040 or book online.
Our team in Croydon is open Monday to Saturday. Book online in under a minute, or call and speak to someone.