To the reader(s) of this post I would encourage you to read a prior post: Dr. Donald G. Levitin, DDS, MAGD on 11/3/08 if you haven't done so already.

While I agree there is a need for access to care, based on my preceptorship experience while in dental hygiene school(VCU) as well as participation in MOM and other such volunteer projects, I'm afraid the majority of the population(s) spoken of require more than 3mm's of scaling, to include many of the children I've seen - sadly enough.  So by allowing assistants to scale up to 3mm or less, this is supposed to increase quality of care?  Who is determining the patient's "perio" status?

How could a "properly trained dental assistant" learn what they need to know in a matter of ?weeks when it takes dental hygienists two complete years PLUS board approval to do what we do? (healthy patients or not!!!)  Would they be required to inform patients that they are NOT a hygienist?

As a USAF Veteran, I disagree with military assistants who scale as well.