Dental Tribune MEA / CAPPmea: Would you please introduce yourself?
Martin Serck: I am Martin Serck, I am based here in Dubai—a resident of the Emirates. For 30 years, I worked for Sybron Kerr in the consumables business. Six years ago, I switched to Carestream due to my passion to know more about equipment, and, in particular, specialised radiology equipment and now today, also scanning cameras, which is the opening to the digital world for us.

Tell us more about Carestream.
Carestream was formerly known as Kodak and the medical and the dental divisions were sold to Carestream in a consolidation of Trophy and Kodak to form a new company. Their speciality is radiology and scanning camera devices for scanning and for taking impressions digitally.

And, obviously this is the perfect event for you. Here, we’re talking about digital dentistry at the 13th edition of the CAD/CAM & Digital Dentistry Conference & Exhibition.
I have been impressed, because the size of this congress is an important volume and concentration of dentists who are introduced to a wide range of aspects that can be applied to their daily practice. You have the workshops, you have two ballrooms—it’s a nice way to approach dentistry. And, we get a lot of customers visiting us to get more appropriate details when something was missed during the workshop sessions.

Are you finding that the people that are coming to this event are more cutting-edge? That they want to adopt new technology?
I need to congratulate the organisers of the event, because it surely is very hard work, first of all, to get all the lecturers and the audience together and to ensure that it works so perfectly and runs smoothly. Everything, including the entertainment, the lunches, everything is very well organised.

You’ve mentioned briefly, you’ve moved into scanners now as well. Tell me why your scanner is better than everybody else’s?
Well, this will of course be a debate and each manufacturer will tell his own story, but for us, it is a matter of precision. Laboratories that are providing final work to the dentist need to give the guarantee that, time after time, the scan is a precise one. Not that you take one scan and the second time you take the same scan; you have different results. It’s our focus to have a constant, high-precision scan.

And do you think that digital technology in the dentistry world is completely changing everything?
I think it’s the dental practice, in a general way, that is changing. We saw some lectures this morning with beautiful images showing how dentistry is changing from an analogue matter to a digital matter and this facilitates the dental practice on a daily basis. And yes, there is a continuation from that. Manufacturers are working permanently on research for software and we develop the software in a sense that they can offer real support in easing the practice of dentistry.

Do you find that the dentists that are at this event are a small minority or do you think this is the way the industry is now?
Certainly, the intention and the attention for the future is big and I think from all the customers and dentists that we can see in the field—they all consider it. Of course, the cost towards a more modern, digital practice is great for some doctors. Not all of them decide immediately or can decide to make purchase, but we see that all practices, according to their size and their needs, are moving in that direction.

Thank you for your time and we’ll see you at the next event.