Dear Board,

    To allow dental assistants, with limited education, to scale patients, places the public at great risk and  disrespects the profession of dental hygiene. We trained long and hard with state and national boards in order to treat the whole patient, not just their mouth.  We had to take college courses to know risks and disease situations, etc to give our patients safe and effective care. If you train assistants to scale, you are only addressing the mouth and not the entire patient.. You are involving the entire body through blood transmissions not just removing calculus.  The hygienists could also be trained as dentists ,since there is also a shortage there, but what would that do to their profession and years of schooling. How unfair would that be and how much risk would the public be placed in with limited  education involving the procedures done .

  I worked 3 years civil service at Langley Air Force Base years ago. The technicians that scaled were my friends, but even they would tell you that they had limited knowledge about overall health and only limited scaling ability.

 We , as dental professionals are to hold our training in highest regard to offer the public the very best in dental care and overall health. We should also respect the hard work and education that each of us painstakingly accomplished  .