Keeping the Clinics Running
On a typical week, Rutgers School of Dental Medicine’s (RSDM) facilities team fields around 100 service calls. The volume climbs every fall, when a new wave of first-years arrives in the pre-clinic simulation lab, and third-years step into the clinic for the first time.
Water leaks, jammed chairs, malfunctioning equipment, and even the occasional squirrel that finds its way into the building all make the list.
“Basically, I tell people that I run a dental office with almost 400 chairs,” said Director of Facility Administration James McIntosh, who oversees the team of three dental mechanics. “At the end of the day, no matter how challenging it is, if you do something nice for a student or help them fix a problem and they thank you and you see the look on their face, that makes it all worthwhile.”
Together, the team keeps RSDM's four clinics and specialty clinics running year-round for patient care and education. Their work spans everything from centralized vacuum and air-pressure systems to sterilization equipment, X-ray machines, and dental treatment units. There is no formal path to becoming a dental mechanic, so the team draws on each other’s experience and continually learns from one another on the job.
“These guys work very well together, and they rely on each other with their experience,” said McIntosh.
Dental Mechanic Donald Tomko is an exception, as he brought more than 30 years of experience, working in dental equipment, from dealers to manufacturers. He joined Rutgers, one of his longtime customers, in search of stability. When Tomko entered the field in 1987, most repairs involved plumbing and pneumatic systems such as pipes, valves, and air lines. Today, much of the equipment relies on electronics and specialized components. At the same time, advances in technology have improved safety and reliability. Modern sterile-water systems limit the amount of water available at each dental chair, meaning what once could have become a flood is now often just a small spill. “Besides the school year, clinics are open every day, so there's always something going on here, and it's very important that you have to keep it going,” he said. “What I like about the job is that almost everything is a challenge. I don't like the machinery to win, so I try my best and hardest to get it fixed. I like to troubleshoot things.”
One person who has benefited from Tomko's experience is Master Dental Mechanic Wilson Barbosa, a former plumber with Rutgers Facilities, who learned much of the job through experience and manufacturer training. “I was very surprised I picked up pretty quickly,” he said, noting that he has always been mechanically inclined. Even after years on the job, some problems still defy expectations. Barbosa recalled a chair that stopped moving because multiple solenoids failed one after another, an issue so unusual that even the manufacturer's technical support team was surprised. “We were scratching our heads a little bit, but we managed,” he said.
That kind of mystery is what Dental Mechanic Luis Cruz Camarillo thrives on. “It just gives me a sense, I don't know, like dopamine,” he explained. Like Barbosa, Camarillo followed a similar hands-on path into the role, which he learned about while painting RSDM’s pre-clinic with Rutgers Facilities. “I had no clue what a dental mechanic was,” he said. “I was nervous at the beginning because this is a new world for me.” He began shadowing the mechanics and learning the systems piece by piece, including color- and shape-coded tubes that indicate their roles, like water or air, sensors, and other moving parts. Today, he enjoys taking equipment apart for diagnosis and carefully rebuilding it. But most of all, the supportive atmosphere within the team makes the job worthwhile. “It’s like a little family,” he said.
