Hello! My name is Angie and I am a dental hygiene student at Virginia Western Community College. As a student, I am seeing first-hand how important proper safety and care of patients is while under the care of  highly trained hygienists. Not using proper techniques in scaling can be detrimental to the patient's health and can also ultimately affect the proffesionalism of the entire dental practice in which this may occur. Dental hygienists are well trained individuals that have worked very hard in academic and clinical settings to obtain the knowledge needed to properly treat patients and perform these specialized scaling duties. Handing scaling over to a dental assistant would not only jeapordize the health of the patient but also negatively affect the proffessional and personal lives of the many hard working hygienists in the world. For these reasons, I am strongly opposed to allowing the DAII to perform ANY type of dental scaling. Please take these testimonies into consideration as you make this important decision. Thank you!