CT Scans

Last week I went to my new dentist here in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. I've been going to dentists my whole life...

But this one had some cool new toys that I've never really had the opportunity to take a look at.

For one they had a stand-up CT scanner. The first thing I did when I got there was to get a full head scan to be looked at later. Afterward, as I was talking to the dentist that owns the place, I asked how much such a device was?

He shook his head at what he considers to be an expensive price.

$139,000.

My reaction was more of a "holy fork" moment because that was so cheap the way I was looking at it. If you go back a decade or two that's something that you would have a special section of a hospital built around, not just sitting in the hallway opposite the rooms where the dental chairs live.

Oh, and they also had a 3D mouth scanners. From looking at how they work they take a series of stereo pictures of your tooth surfaces and generate a depth map. They then take that generated mesh and stitch the various sections together into a full 3D model of your mouth.

This was just on a rolling cart... and people were just all "meh" about it.

But it's so damn cool!