Happy One Year Sandhills Implant Lab

Happy Anniversary Sandhills Implant Lab

Sara Bargen, Dental Implant Specialist and Co-Founder of Sandhills Implant Lab celebrated her one-year anniversary this past month! To honor Sara and all that she has accomplished, we sat down to reflect on the excitement of this year.  

In December of 2021, Sara opened Sandhills Implant Lab, which resides within Sandhills Oral and Facial Surgery. In this lab, Sara designs and fabricates teeth for dental implants, which includes color-matching, 3D printing, milling, glazing, and adjustments. Sara’s favorite part of being located in-house is her involvement in each patient’s experience. She gets to know the patients and see the impact the results have on their lives. Sara is a part of the implant process from beginning to end, which doesn’t happen in a traditional lab.  

2021 Smart Integration Award Winner

            Sara has been globally recognized for her excellence in digital dentistry and “dedication to dental clinicians and patients,” as the 2021 Smart Integration Award Winner. This award is given to a nominee selected by Dentsply Sirona. These awards are for women in dentistry and recognize general dentists, surgeons, and lab techs. Sara was awarded for using digital workflow through communication between the surgeon, general dentists, and the lab by using digital platforms to share quality information in a more efficient way.

Certified Intraoral Scanner Trainer

Sara also completed a certification for intraoral scanning this past year. At the Straumann headquarters in Boston, MA, she attended a two-day seminar where she learned how to set up, run software, and tear down both Trios and Medit Scanners. Additionally, she is certified to install those scanners and train new users! This is very beneficial for dental professionals in our area - representatives are otherwise flown in for installation and training. Sara enjoys assisting local dental offices with training for new intraoral scanners.   

Innovation & Compassion

            Sara has accomplished many great things while at Sandhills, and has many more great things to come, but feels that her greatest accomplishment over this past year has been learning something new every day. She says that working in a surgical setting really enhances her learning. “Her innovative mindset and compassionate leadership style are some of her greatest strengths. You can't find anyone better than Sara at what she does. There isn’t anyone else we’d rather partner with,” says Dr. Matt Weber.

To sum up her first year at Sandhills in one word, Sara chose “meaningful” because of her involvement in the patient’s experience from beginning to end. Clearly, Sandhills has been blessed with Sara for the past year, and we can’t wait to see all that is to come!