GRAFENWOEHR, Germany -- Since it was completed and turned over this winter, Lab Technician Nicolae Timar spends a great deal of his day in the newly renovated laboratory at the Grafenwoehr Dental Clinic providing whatever dentists and patients need.
“As the lab tech here in Graf, I do everything starting from pouring of impressions, making night guards, essix retainers for orthodontics, gold crowns, porcelain crowns, you name it,” Timar said. “Everything that comes through and we have the capability to do here I can do in this lab.”
With the lab playing such an important role in the services provided by the clinic, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Europe District recently worked with the Grafenwoehr Dental Clinic, U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria, Regional Health Command Europe and U.S. Army Medical Department Activity Bavaria to fully renovate its lab to increase efficiency and ultimately benefit dentists and their patients.
“The project team worked closely with our local and regional medical partners to successfully complete the Grafenwoehr Dental Clinic renovation project and we’re proud of the result,” said Europe District Medical Program Manager Catherine Bingham. “Projects like the lab renovation at Grafenwoehr are important to ensuring Soldiers and their families continue to have access to excellent dental care while living overseas and we’re proud to support that.”
The work primarily consisted of taking three smaller rooms, a technical room, a small laboratory and a general use room and breaking down all the walls to connect all the rooms into one more spacious laboratory designed with areas for specialized equipment and work stations to improve functionality.
“We needed this, we were planning for this for a long time,” Timar said. “The clinic is growing, it’s not shrinking so this was a good time to do this.”
The work was the second and final portion of a larger renovation project at the clinic, with the first portion involving completion of a new Waste Anesthetic Gas Disposal unit last year to increase the clinic’s capabilities.
“The first phase of the renovation was adding the Waste Anesthetic Gas Disposal unit, or just the WAG unit as we call it, so we can safely use nitrous in this facility and two laboratories for nitrous use,” said Maj. Benjamin Werner, pediatric dentist for Bavaria. “The second phase was doing the lab renovation and we now have this beautiful space.”
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