As a registered dental hygienist, licensed as of 2004 from MCV/VCU School of dentistry, I totally oppose The amendment passed recently that allows dental assistants to scale above the gums. This will result in acute abscesses  due to the fact that tartar/calculus will be left under the gums where the assistant did not scale. This will create unnecessary gum infections/abcesses and increase need for deeper scaling and root planing as well as additional bone loss. In addition, dental students receive very few hours of training in scaling and root planing and attaining periodontal measurements on patients. I also feel that allowing dentists from other countries awaiting licensure should not be filling in for a registered dental hygienist. I’ve worked with many dentists in my career and most of them have stated they feel very inefficient in the hygiene department. Increasing space amd class sizes for dental hygiene students would definitely help!