Action | Registration and practice of dental assistants |
Stage | NOIRA |
Comment Period | Ended on 11/12/2008 |
Hygienists are oral care providers entrusted with the management of soft tissues. Assistants assist dentist to provide oral care to patients. Assistants cannot work independently without the dentist giving them directions. Treating patients take dedication, skills, patience, and sympathy which are possessed by hygienists. If we are to provide superior oral care to patients why trust it in the hands of inexperienced assistants who are not trained for the job and even if they are trained, would it be enough to say they are qualified professionals. They need the didactic as well as the clinical skills to perform at superior level. Why trust a job delegated to hygienists in the hands of assistants, there is a reason they are called assistants. They assist and nothing more, if they want to scale , they should go to school to become hygienists, it is just that simple. We promise to do no harm to the patient, practice justice,and protect the patient in every way possible. Letting assistants scale is not protecting the patient but rather causing harm to the oral health of the patient. How do we provide excellent care to the patient when the provider is incompetent. We need to analyze the harm that could be done if we let assistants scale. It should be absolutely NO to DA II scaling.