Score with knowledge: International Centers for Dental Education

New year, new challenges in practice and laboratory? With the training and further education courses offered by the International Centers for Dental Education (ICDEs) and Ivoclar Vivadent’s partner ICDEs, you can master these challenges easily. In conversation with Robert May, Director ICDE, we take a look behind the scenes of these training centres.

Mr May, why is training and education so important for Ivoclar Vivadent?

Robert May: With our system solutions and services, we want to create added value for our customers, and in doing so, put a smile on their faces. We want them to achieve efficient and optimal results – that’s our goal. This is possible if our products and system solutions are used according to our Instructions for Use and guidelines. We provide our customers with this knowledge through our training and further education courses. That’s why training and education is so important to Ivoclar Vivadent. And the courses are well received: Every year, around 12,000 dental experts benefit from our wide range of training courses.

Which courses are particularly well received by the course participants?

Robert May: For dentists, the topic of cementation techniques for dental restorations is particularly attractive: The variety of products on the market is immense and sometimes even overwhelming. It is therefore particularly interesting for our customers to learn how to "find their way out of the cements maze”.  Dental technicians, on the other hand, like to attend all-ceramic courses and are becoming increasingly interested in the digital workflow, i.e. milling machines, scanners, CAD/CAM software, etc. For this purpose, we have completely rebuilt the Laboratory 4 in Schaan, Liechtenstein. It is now equipped with ten digital work benches for training courses. The lively interest here confirms this investment.

Who participates in the training offers and courses?

Robert May: We offer “Taster courses”, which allow our customers to get to know and test our system solutions. Training about products that promote the digital workflow – such as courses for our PrograMill systems – are currently in high demand. Sometimes, new employees attend a course as part of their induction training, in order to deepen their knowledge of a specific topic. There is a high demand from international visiting groups: There are usually two to three courses per week.

Do all the ICDEs worldwide work together?

Robert May: Definitely – the "best practice sharing", i.e. sharing experiences of successful techniques, helps us to continuously improve and expand our offer in a way that is attractive for our customers. For example, the ICDE in the UK offered courses as complete package deals – in the spirit of “Travel & Learn". This allowed customers to attend courses conducted in English at the ICDEs in Vienna (AT), Madrid (ES) and Schaan (FL). We want to intensify this exchange even further and develop globally valid standards, so that the training experience is the same across all borders – no matter where the customer visits us.

What other plans does the ICDE have to promote further development?

Robert May: We are currently modernizing the ICDE in Pforzheim (D) to create more completely digital work benches for our training courses. At our headquarters in Schaan (FL), we are planning to construct a brand new ICDE in the new annex building, which is to be completed by 2022. This is where we plan to make full use of the presentation and training possibilities, both in terms of our products and in terms of the audio-visual technologies used – watch this space!

With our training offers, we hope to support our customers in optimizing their daily work routine. - Robert May