"I don't actually do anything different today than I did in kindergarten: arts and crafts!" laughs Deborah Sommer, "Just at a professional level and with high-tech materials." She was already looking for a special challenge as a child. Because when it came to handicrafts and needlework, the workpiece couldn't be sophisticated enough. At her mother's suggestion, she tried out her talent during a trial internship in a dental technology laboratory. Since then, she has never let go of her passion for her profession.
Due to the focus of the teaching laboratory, the foundation for her passion for removable prosthetics was laid here. After moving to another dental laboratory, she took this area into her own hands and ensured that model casting was no longer outsourced, but carried out in-house.
From highly complex prosthetics to your own laboratory
Finally, complex prosthetic work that Deborah Sommer completed for the dental clinic at the University of Bern was a special task. "Such prostheses, e.g. for tumor patients, were a very special challenge," recalls the dental technician. "Flexible thinking and a special degree of sensitivity were essential in this case, especially when fitting. It was a real challenge for me to create a practicable and functional solution when only half of the jaw was left in terms of statics, support and aesthetics. At the same time, it also gave me a great feeling to be able to give the patient back some joy of life and quality with a functioning solution."
In between, the power woman from the canton of Solothurn also trained as a qualified technical businesswoman and decided during lockdown that the next step had to be taken: to fulfill her dream of owning her own laboratory with the "Zahnfabrik". Naturally, model casting and removable prosthetics are the focus of her specialization.
Inspiring young professionals and colleagues for customized prosthetics
During this time, she was also involved in passing on her extensive knowledge to trainees at vocational colleges in training courses on complete denture prosthetics. It therefore made sense to also do this within the Swiss School of Prosthetics (SSOP) of Candulor to convey. "The SSOP is a great platform to share my enthusiasm for this specialist field with students and course participants and to highlight it as an interesting option for my own further development," says Deborah Sommer, explaining her new commitment to Candulor's training institute. "It is important to me that there must also be a good solution for patients who do not want implants or for whom it is not anatomically possible. And here it is essential to tailor the theory to the individual case. I often see knowledge deficits here, which I would like to highlight in detail in the SSOP: for example, taking the time for an exact model analysis or making a lingualized set-up instead of a crossbite. I would also like to raise awareness for a muscle-grip design of the denture base instead of polishing everything smooth. These are important details that make for excellent work in prosthetics. The key to this lies in the individualization of the gingiva and the individualization of teeth, tooth set-up and aesthetics. In the end, nobody recognizes when someone is wearing a prosthesis because it looks so natural. These are challenges that I love and that always reward you as a dental technician with praise from patients when the prosthesis works perfectly in the long term. "
The SSOP meets this requirement with its 1:1 training concept, as it focuses on fundamental theoretical and practical teaching in courses that impart knowledge comprehensively and in consecutive lessons. The new teacher will further expand the SSOP's presence in Switzerland in order to provide support for professional training and further education in both dental technology and university. The courses on offer currently range from revision courses on dental prosthetics for apprentices to prosthetics training modules in theory and practice. As there are very few training courses on the Swiss dental market for complete dentures apart from application courses, the SSOP fills an important gap here with a really well-founded and above all comprehensive training series on the subject of "Removable prosthetics".
More successful in the digital world through analog knowledge
These training formats are equally interesting for students and employees of dental laboratories. This is where the new teacher wants to work with the SSOP to convince people: "Without basic knowledge and analogue expertise, digitalization and technology are only worth half as much. Otherwise, the posterior teeth may be set up on the wrong side in the courses."
Deborah Sommer is critical of the trend towards relying more and more on algorithms: "We have to be careful not to hand over more and more of our concepts and thinking to the software. We need to bring more of our ingenuity back into play. Then it will become something beautiful. Sure, a digital dental library is great and the software can do a lot. But that brings us back to individualization," she says, returning to her guiding principle. "A set of teeth is a complex thing. The more I understand the interrelationships through the analog setup and three-dimensionality, the more I can achieve a result through the interplay of the elements that is completely convincing for the patient. Creating this awareness is my next challenge, just like my passions in sport: kitesurfing and climbing in high alpine areas: "Last weekend I was on the Mönch. That was very challenging. But I could actually go a little higher!"
Press contact: Sara Marconcini - Marketing Manager
