This is appalling! As a patient that does not have dental insurance, my family has to sacrifice and save to get dental care. I DO NOT appreciate my hard earned money being spent to indulge a dentist pocket while my families health care is compromised by an inexperienced dental assistant.

A dental hygienist has to be educated for much longer than a dental assistant. This education and experience is what I pay HUNDREDS of dollars for, NOT someone who was sent to a work shop or trained on the job. Do these students even have to take full Anatomy and Physiology course work. Do they have to cut open a mouth on a cadaver to see what will happen if they slip up…I think not! Do they truly understand what they are searching for when they are doing examinations of the mouth? Dental Assistants should be able to perform dental hygienist’s duties when they take the proper course work, and have the proper experience. When they do all of this they will have graduated with either a AS, BS, or MS in Dental Hygiene, that is when they should be allowed to do the duties of a hygienist…when they ARE one!!!!!

Also, what is to happen to all of the people who have paid tens of thousands of dollars to become dental hygienists. It seems as if the dental care system, of which, they themselves have been an intrical part of developing, is throwing then under the bus. This is absurd!

With the nation in an economic upheaval, are you now going to send 3000 new applicants to the unemployment office? The dentists are saying that the dental assistants being able to perform these duties will bring down the cost of health care and make it more accessible to everyone. This is just NOT so. First and fore most the chances of dental practitioners dropping the cost is highly unlikely, especially with the economy in shambles. Secondly, this can and will in the long run cost the patient even more money, since inexperienced dental assistants will be providing inadequate care, and patents will need even more services from the dentist because of oral decay and disease. Last but not least, I personally, would like to know pray tell how on earth one can squeeze three to six years of training into a “training on the job. Learn as you go” kind of thing. These people are not serving you coffee, or pressing your dry cleaning. They are scaling your teeth with powerful, potentially dangerous tools. These tools are being used in your mouth, under your gums, around your teeth, tongue, many nerves, and veins. You would not think of trusting the guy at Jiffy Lube that changes your oil to rebuild the engine in your car just because they both work with automobiles, why on God’s green earth would you trust a dental assistant scale your teeth.