I am shocked that this idea of allowing dental assistants to scale a patient's teeth is even being proposed! It is one thing to cut corners to make things better financially for society, but when it comes to their health and well being, trying to save a dollar should not apply here! I mean would you allow a nurse to perform surgery on someone??? As far fetched as that may sound, it still covers the same bases. People are trained to do a job and they expect to be doing that job for the rest of their lives. Being a dental hygienist doesnt mean just going in their scraping a person's teeth until they look clean and giving them a "goody bag" as they walk out the door! Dental hygiene is having a patient come in with such poor oral health that they are in tears and basically want all of their teeth pulled to avoid the pain, then going through the procedures and a few appointments later having them thank you for getting their teeth in the condition where they can keep them and function the way that they should. When a dental assistant goes to school they are taught to do many things that a hygienist will never know how to do and vice versa. When I heard of this rediculous idea, I asked assistants who work in my office with me if they would want to scale a patient's teeth and if they would feel comfortable in knowing that they could give the attention to their oral health while at the same time helping the dentist as they are expected?? They too think that this is an absurd idea all around, the only thing this does is put more money in the DDS pocket. Any dentist who cares about the well being of their patients and not about their bank account will oppose this full force as well!!!!