Please do not allow the licensing of dental assistants to perform supra or sub ginginval scaling. The practice of dental hygiene includes not only scaling but more importantly  patient education. I have worked in many offices here in  VA that have "trained assistants"  to perform prophylaxisis. There is no requirement for any medical background for the assistants. While CDA are wonderfully trained many assistants only know what there busy doctors have the time to teach them. To say that they already perform a similar function when an assistant is allowed to remove cement, I would answer that there have been too many times in my career as a  hygienist where there has been inflammation with loss of attachment around a newly placed crown because an assistant had not properly removed cement. Not all assistants are created (or monitored) equally.

I have seen too many patients in my career that have been treated by assitants or dental techs from the Armed Services that have been led to believe that their oral hygiene is adequate when truly there was widespread infectious diseases.  We all have seen patients with little or no supra gingival calculus but with radiographic subgingival  calculus. How would an improperly trained dental assistant know the difference?  What standards will the assistants be held to? They do not need to be licensed to perform these duties. Wouldn't this action be putting the public at risk?With the link between oral health and overall health, with proven links between respiratory diseases, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, to encourage the  treatment of patients,our patients, by under educated dental employees is truly a  travesty and a disservice to the dental profession.