The morning before this recording, Dr. Thanos Kristallis spent one hour prepping a full upper arch case. Nearly three hours later, the patient walked out with a completed smile. That is not a marketing claim, it is a Tuesday.
In this episode of The DrBicuspid.com Podcast series produced in partnership with SprintRay, Editor-in-Chief Kevin Henry sits down with Kristallis -- a prosthodontist and maxillofacial specialist at the San Diego Dental Health Center in La Jolla, CA, with advanced training from Georgetown, the University of Texas MD Anderson, and New York University -- to discuss what a fully integrated, same-day digital practice looks like after nine years of building one.
The previous time Henry and Kristallis scheduled this podcast, it had to be postponed. The reason: Kristallis was in the middle of a jaw reconstruction surgery, placing implants inside a patient's fibula following a squamous cell carcinoma resection. By the end of day, that patient had a prototype prosthesis printed and seated chairside. That is the range of work Kristallis describes when he talks about same-day dentistry.
For practices considering the transition, Kristallis has two misconceptions he wants to settle. The first is that the learning curve is too steep. With artificial intelligence-driven design, automated nesting, and current material science, that concern no longer holds, he said.
The second misconception is that digital 3D printing is only suited to single restorations. His practice routinely handles interdisciplinary, full-arch and complex reconstructive cases using shared digital data across specialties. The data are the same whether the case is a single crown or a fibula-supported full-arch reconstruction -- it just scales.
Kristallis' protocol captures what he calls multimodal biodata before a preparation begins: a facial scan, cone-beam computed tomography imaging, an intraoral scan, and 4D dynamic occlusion. The workflow produces a digital avatar of the patient, a simulated smile preview using AI facial recognition, and a printed prototype the patient approves chairside before final delivery. Staff are trained to run the capture steps independently. The team, not the clinician alone, is what makes the system work.
On the economics: time savings, elimination of lab costs, and compounding patient referrals driven by same-day results. Kristallis' 81-year-old full-arch patient from the day before the recording left asking whom he could send next.
Kristallis' educational and sharing platform, Digital Dentistry Creators, launches at the end of July 2026. You can reach him at [email protected] for more information or follow him on Instagram @dr3Dprint.
Listen to the full conversation below.
