I disagree with allowing the DAII to be able to perform any type of scaling. I do believe the dental assistant is an essential position and are capable to perform many tasks, however, scaling is out of the scope of their knowledge. I was a dental assistant for 5 years and had obtained a B.S. in biology before assisting. I am now a student in a dental hygeine program. With the luxury of hind sight I now realize, there were so may things that I had never been taught ( for example, selective polishing) that i was performing incorrectly.

I feel allowing DA to scale will result in even more inadequate patient care. The assistant does not have proper education and traing to remove calculus, and especially to perform any subgingival procedure. The assistant will more than likely be unable to fully educate the patient on all that is required for hygiene maintanenece . Finally, i feel confident that if approved, this would ultimately lead one step closer to quanitative instead of qualitive care in the dental field.